this powerful introduction forms the prelude, our readers are probably aware that much difference of opinion prevails among Italian critics. While some are anxious to increase still farther the glory of the "Tuscan artist," by denying his obligations to his predecessors, others have been equally solicitous to display their own critical acumen and research, by converting every trifling resemblance into a plagiarism. Perhaps the strangest whim is that of the learned Manni, who, with the professed view of exalting the literary glory of Boccaccio, endeavours to prove, in an amusing but most inconclusive quarto, that every one of Boccaccio's novels is founded on some popular tale then current in Italy, or on the historical events of the lime. It is not our intention to enter on the details of this quæstio vexata, which has already been done in a way that admits of no improvement, by Mr. Dunlop in his admirable History of Fiction; but we may state generally what appears to us to be the result of a careful comparison of the Decameron with the works of the ruder novelists who preceded its illustrious author.

The sources which are commonly supposed to have furnished the greater part of his materials, are the various collections of Oriental Tales which were then current in Italy; the Gesta Romanorum, the old collection entitled the Novellino or Cento Novelle Antiche, and the Fabliaux. His obligations to these works, however, must be very differently proportioned.

The mass of Arabian fiction, as far as we are acquainted with it, seems to arrange itself in three classes: those supernatural tales, the brilliant machinery of which has influenced so strongly the imaginative literature of Europe; tales of domestic and comic adventure often singularly ingenious in their structure, and of which the events are produced merely by human agency; and those apologues or parables, in which the incidents are typical of some deeper and mystical meaning. Each class seems to have found its own admirers when the influence of Oriental fiction began to be felt in Europe. The supernatural world of Arabian fiction was transferred to the longer and more elaborate romances of chivalry;-the moral and mystical fictions were appropriated by the monks, and incorporated with the lives of saints and martyrs;-while the world of common life, with its lively pictures of gallantry and ingenious knavery, was congenial to the more worldly and unspiritualized character of the Trouvères, and was imitated by them without ceremony in the Fabliaux.

With what may be considered the higher or epic class of Arabian fable. Boccaccio has no connexion. He had no relish for the marvellous, and no taste for the employment of supernatural machinery. The Moral Apologues of the East had been collected principally in the Clericalis Disciplina of Alphonsus, and in the Gesta Romanorum; and from these, as well as from the old collection in the Novellino, which blends the orientalism of the Gesta with the fables of Chivalry, and with the historical incidents of the time, Boccaccio has certainly adopted several tales, and many particular in

Not content with giving a local habitation and a name to the events and characters of the Tales, Manni will have it that Boccaccio's party did actually meet just as described in the Decameron, and he thus gravely adverts to the difficulties of the subject:-" Non intendo io pero come l'adunanza descritta, composta in gran parte di femminili persone, avesse potuto agevolmente dilungarsi da Firenze a piedi, per giugnere alla villa di S. Anna presso Prato, e come agevole fosse stato loro altresi in tempo di grande infezione passare liberamente da più luoghi guardati e cus toditi, a cagione della medesima pestilenza, quanti e credibile che se ne trovassero in si lungo tratto," and therefore he is inclined to bring the scene of action nearer Florence.

cidents. But in almost every case he has done so with so many improve→ ments, and has so finely varied the incidents, filled up a meagre outline, retrenched the absurdities of the original, improved the dialogues (which are rare), and clothed the whole with so rich a colouring of style, that, in every thing which renders invention valuable, he may be said to have invented them. He has appropriated them to himself, as La Fontaine afterwards did the tales of the Decameron, by giving them a new character; he found them of brick, and he left them of marble.

The other great branch of Arabian fiction is more intimately connected with the spirit of the Decameron, though the influence which we trace was probably only of a mediate nature. The numerous tales of common life, in which the imagination of the Arabian fabulists,-rarely, if ever, exerted in the delineation of character, and painting men only in masses, and through the medium of professions,-had exhausted itself in the invention of adventures of a comic nature, in the contrivance of imbroglios and mistakes, in the artful arrangement of a chain of incidents, of which the extremes would often appear the most remote and improbable, were they not so happily united by the intermediate links, that the reader almost feels that any other termination would be out of place;-these tales had met with congenial admirers among the Trouvères. Too much men of the world to indulge in visions of marvel and romance, they adopted the humbler manner of the Arabian fabulists, applied it to the circumstances of their own age, and gave birth to a multitude of tales of intrigue and knavery, and sometimes of gallantry and chivalrous devotion. Among these the comic preponderates; but in the few specimens of a more serious kind which they have left, they have displayed powers of no ordinary kind. The tale of Aucassin and Nicolette, is, in ingenuity and beauty of incident, fully equal to any in the Decameron. In the comic or serio-comic class, none of Boccaccio's equal the frequently imitated tale of Les Trois Bossus, or the graceful levity of Le Manteau mal taillé. In fact, the advantages they possessed enabled them to paint with peculiar force, truth, and vivacity. Men, in general of acute and vigorous mind, though destitute of learning, and too often of principle; welcome guests in all society from their powers of amusing, but respected in none; experiencing every extreme of life, and apparently at home in all; sometimes dispelling the ennui of baronial castles; at others courting the society of humble vassals; and, wandering on the earth without any thing to attach them to their kind;-they had the amplest opportunity of observing accurately, and painting impartially the changes of manycoloured life; and, if neither their ability nor their inclination prompted them to invent new worlds, they may fairly be said to have exhausted that of French manners in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is from these light and joyous compositions, and not from the plat and heavy annalists of the time, that we derive the best knowledge we possess of the state of society at that period. A straw thrown up into the air," says the learned Selden, "will show how the wind sits, which cannot be learned by casting up a stone."

The style of the Fabliaux, too, though frequently disgustingly coarse, has in its general character a lightness and buoyancy, a tinge of naïve humour and vivacity, which breathes of the sunny skies and vine-covered hills of France; and which was singularly congenial to the mind of Boccaccio, accustomed to look on life in its brighter aspects, and, even in his tragic

This tale is translated in Way's Fabliaux, and has been very ingeniously converted by Madame Murat into a Fairy Tale, under the title of Etoilette, in the Lutins de Kernosy.

tales, indulging only a pleasing and tempered melancholy. Accordingly, it can hardly be doubted, that much of the general manner of the Decameron, so different from the unbending pomp of the Fiammetta and Filocopo, has been borrowed from the Fabliaux, though it appears there modified in such a manner as we should expect, by a union with classical recollections, and the more diffuse and turgid style of the romances of chivalry. It is in this view, then, rather as having copied the manner of the Trouvères, than as being indebted to them for particular tales, that Boccaccio is really an imitator. It is true we are in possession only of a small part of S. Palaye's vast collection; but out of a hundred and fifty-six specimens given by Le Grand, not more than six appear to us to have been directly borrowed by Boccaccio.

After all, then, a vast number remain to which he has an undoubted claim; and, what is of more importance, these are the best in the book. No. lynx-eyed critic has yet deprived him of the invention of the Falcon,-the simplest, the least laboured, yet the most touching of all his tales;-of the deeply pathetic story of Girolamo and Salvestra-the tale of the Lovers. poisoned amidst their holiday rejoicings by the laurel leaf-the Pot of Basil -Sigismunda and Guiscardo-the happy illustration of the power of love contained in Cymon and Iphigenia-each perfect in its own class, and unequalled in the range of Italian novels. As a proof, too, how totally different are the imitations of Boccaccio from the rude originals on which they are founded, perhaps no fairer illustration could be selected than the well-known tale of Titus and Gisippus (8th Giorn. 10.), which will be familiar to the English reader in the Alcander and Septimius of Goldsmith. The main idea of the story may be found in three writers before BoccaccioIt occurs in the Clericalis Disciplina of Alphonsus, in the Gesta Romanorum (Nov. 171.), and in the Collection of Le Grand, under the title of Les Deux Bons Amis. But all the better and more interesting parts of the tale are Boccaccio's; who has adorned the whole with a brilliancy of colouring which renders this legend, in the opinion of Italian critics, the most eloquent in the Decameron, or perhaps in the Italian language.

And this brings us to the style of the Decameron, in which, whatever may be thought of his incidents, Boccaccio's claims to originality are undoubted. And when we reflect what powers of mind were necessary to evolve order and beauty from the chaos of the Romanzo dialect, as it then existed, without models and without assistance,-and to frame a narrative style, which is at this day the standard to which the most eloquent of his countrymen are proud to conform, we may doubt whether the task does not demand a higher reach of intellect and imagination than any arrangement of incidents, however new and ingenious. Whether that style is the best adapted for the purpose of narrative, is another question. It is certainly the very perfection of elaborate musical writing,-flowing on like a copious river, confined by no narrow banks, broken by no precipices, and filling the ear and soothing the mind with a soft and ever-varying murmur. Perhaps this extreme sweetness becomes at last wearisome, and we long for some interruption of this melodious current,-some cessation of this stream of language,

"Which runs, and as it runs, for ever would run on."

Undoubtedly the style of the Decameron is too musical and diffuse. The most tragic and the most comic events, description, narrative, and dialogue, are all given with the same plethoric fulness, the same "solemn loquacious

ness" of expression, which has since tinged the whole literature of Italy. But though objectionable as a whole, it is peculiarly calculated to produce an effect in tales of a quiet and pensive cast; and the recollection of some particular passages of melancholy beauty which we have long ago read, must often recur, we think, to the mind of every one who is not insensible to the pathos of sound.

To us the great charm of the Decameron consists, not so much in the effect of particular tales, as in the peculiarly happy manner in which the vast and varied materials it contains have been arranged, so that each occupies its proper share of importance and attention. The great aim of Boccaccio seems to have been to avoid all exaggeration, to render nothing too prominent or engrossing, to exhibit sketches rather than pictures of life. The spirit of the middle ages rises indeed before us, but its form is misty and dim. The actors of his Dramas-the petty princes and rude nobles of Italy, monks, nuns, pilgrims, merchants, usurers, robbers, and peasantspass before us as in a brilliant but rapid procession, where the eye has no time to pause on individuals, and the mind retains little beyond the impression, that a stately and imposing pageant has gone by. The moving picture of the Decameron is purposely painted in a calm and subdued tone, with no strong lights or deep shadows, but tinged all over with a soft glow of kindly feeling, and breathing the very spirit of serenity and repose. Nothing is glaring, nothing oppressive: pathos and humour, incident and description, activity and repose succeed each other as in the drama of life, none engrossing attention, none excluding another, but all blending in tempered harmony. The vast range of Boccaccio's mind, which prevented any exclusive devotion to one class of feelings, is imaged forth in the infinite variety of the Decameron; and the admirably balanced union of powers which he possessed, in the profound art with which its discordant materials are reduced to a consistut whole.

In fact, when we begin to anaiy more minutely the features of Boccaceio's mind, it will at once be seen that his strength lay in their union. Character painting was not the mode of the age; and Boccaccio was even less gifted in this respect than his contemporary, our own Chaucer, as the least comparison of the personages of the Canterbury Tales with those in the Decameron, will evince. Boccaccio's are distinguished merely by station or sex; each of Chaucer's is marked by such characteristic traits, that he cannot possibly be confounded with his companion. "I know them all," says Dryden, "as well as if I had supped with them." Chaucer painted by minute touches, by the observance of small traits of character, and even of language. Boccaccio saw only the broader shades of distinction, and painted what he saw. In the same way, his pathos, though pleasing, is rarely deep. It seldom agitates the mind with any strong emotion, or leaves any other impression on the memory but that of a vague softness. His humour we cannot help thinking exceedingly indifferent; and, indeed, this remark applies to the whole series of Italian Novels, nothing being, in general, more melancholy than their wit, or more forced than their humour. Coarse allusions to personal defects, and practical jokes, are the wit of a rude age; true wit and ingenious pleasantry is the production of a very advanced state of civilization; and Boccaccio only reflected, in this particular, the manners of his times. Neither do we think that his

* "Feierliche geschwätzigkeit." Bouterwek.

powers of description, though considerable, are of the highest order. Except in the gloomy portrait of the plague, and in some few of the rural decriptions which preface or conclude the tales of each day, there is little that can be called forcible or defined. The vivacity and clearness of the ideas seem always to be sacrificed to the elaborate polish of the style.

GODWIN.*

We find little of the author of Caleb Williams in the present work, except the name in the title-page. Either we are changed, or Mr. Godwin is changed, since he wrote that masterly performance. We remember the first time of reading it well, though now long ago. In addition to the singularity and surprise occasioned by seeing a romance written by a philosopher and politician, what a quickening of the pulse,-what an interest in the progress of the story,-what an eager curiosity in divining the future,what an individuality and contrast in the characters,-what an elevation and what a fall was that of Falkland;-how we felt for his blighted hopes, his remorse, and despair, and took part with Caleb Williams as his ordinary and unformed sentiments are brought out, and rendered more and more acute by the force of circumstances, till hurried on by an increasing and incontrollable impulse, he turns upon his proud benefactor and unrelenting persecutor, and in a mortal struggle overthrows him on the vantage-ground of humanity and justice! There is not a moment's pause in the action or sentiments the breath is suspended, the faculties wound up to the highest pitch, as we read. Page after page is greedily devoured. There is no laying down the book till we come to the end; and even then the words still ring in our ears, nor do the mental apparitions ever pass away from the eye of memory. Few books have made a greater impression than Caleb Williams on its first appearance. It was read, admired, parodied, dramatised. All parties joined in its praise. Those (not a few) who at the time favoured Mr. Godwin's political principles, hailed it as a new triumph of his powers, and as a proof that the stoicism of the doctrines he inculcated did not arise from any defect of warmth or enthusiasm of feeling, and that his abstract speculations were grounded in, and sanctioned by, an intimate knowledge of, and rare felicity in, developing the actual vicissitudes of human life. On the other hand, his enemies, or those who looked with a mixture of dislike and fear at the system of ethics advanced in the Enquiry concerning Political Justice, were disposed to forgive the author's paradoxes for the truth of imitation with which he had depicted prevailing passions, and were glad to have something in which they could sympathize with a man of no mean capacity or attainments. At any rate, it was a new and startling event in literary history for a metaphysician to write a popular romance. The thing took, as all displays of unforeseen talent do with the public. Mr. Godwin was thought a man of very powerful and versatile genius; and in him the understanding and the imagination reflected a mutual and dazzling light upon each other. His St.Leon did not lessen the wonder, nor the public admiration of him, or rather seemed like another

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Cloudesley, a Tale; by the Author of Caleb Williams.-Vol. li. page 144. April, 1830,