Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/70

lxii recurrence of extravagant fiction—from the itching ears, which opened only to the wildest exaggeration, naturally became no longer acceptable, because taste was vitiated, and the imagination overwrought. All these circumstances require consideration in forming a judgment of the ensuing tales. They certainly vary in point of merit; but many of them are eminently beautiful. Some display a rich vein of pathos: and there are passages of deep poetic interest. In the description of manners, however, they are unrivalled; and my aim has been, to render passages of this kind with all fidelity; while, in the diction, I have adhered as closely as possible to that simplicity of style which forms the principal charm of ancient narrative.

In perusing the conversational parts, the reader who has pored over illuminated manuscripts will recall subjects to which they apply. He will recollect fair ladies glittering in every colour of the rainbow, chattering from a window to grotesque-looking gentlemen with pink feathers drooping from immense hats; and misshapen shoes, vying in the longitude of their peaks with a barber's pole; he will be reminded of grim-visaged emperors ornamented with royal beards and projecting jaws—in short, he will distinguish the whole of what these volumes delineate. There is in the British Museum a beautiful manuscript of the Romant de la Rose, which will, in most respects, exemplify my observations.

It would appear that hospitality was a never-failing virtue; and the eagerness with which pilgrims and wayfaring persons were invited to share the repast and partake the couch of the friendly citizen, or to occupy the castle of the knight, is a pleasing trait in the character of the times. But it will be thought that wisdom was a scarce commodity, when three prudential maxims were valued at a thousand florins. [See Tale CIII.] Considering the result, they were cheaply purchased; although, in these days, when advice is much oftener given than paid for—even with thanks, the price may be deemed somewhat of the highest.

The many stories on the subject of adultery seem to indicate a bad moral state of society at the time they were written; and it is to be feared that the lawless feeling which chivalry in its decline exhibited, affords an unhappy confirmation. Whether the fact of the monks levelling much of their satire against the fair sex is also corroborative, or whether it proceed from that impotence of mind which, being itself fretted by circumstance, would gladly efface or deteriorate whatever is the object of its navailing wishes, I do not take upon me to decide.