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number of jealous women, by bidding her strike first who had loved him most. There is a similar story adopted in one of the romantic poems of Italy, I think the Orlando Innamorato, where a knight escapes from a like situation, by inviting her to the attack who has the least regard to her own and husband's honour. A like expedient is resorted to by the hero of the Italian comic romance, Vita di Bertoldo. All these stories probably had their origin in the expression by which our Saviour protected the woman taken in adultery.'

Many of the Cento Novelle are merely classical fictions. 43. Is the fable of Narcissus. We have also the story of Diogenes, requesting Alexander to stand from betwixt him and the sun; and [No. 70] of the friends of Seneca, who, while lamenting that he should die innocent, are asked by the philosopher if they would have him die guilty; an anecdote usually related of Socrates.

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50. Is from chapter 157 of the Gesta Romanorum. porter at a gate of Rome taxes all deformed persons entering the city. The 5th of Alphonsus is also a story of this nature, where a porter, as a reward, has liberty to demand a penny from every person one-eyed, humpbacked, or otherwise deformed. A blind man refusing to pay, is found on farther examination to be humpbacked, and, beginning to defend himself, displays two crooked arms; he next tries to escape by flight; his hat falls off, and he is discovered to be leprous. When overtaken and knocked down, he appears moreover to be afflicted with hernia, and is amerced in fivepence.2

51. Saladin's Installation to the Order of Knighthood: An abridgment of a Fabliau, called L'Ordre de Chevalerie (Barbazan, i. 59).3

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56. The Story of the Matron of Ephesus, which was originally written by Petronius Arbiter, but probably came to the author of the Cento Novelle Antiche through the medium of the Seven Wise Masters, or the Fabliau De la

1 Cf. Keller, Lieder Guillems v. Bergnedan, p. 4, etc.

2 See Schmidt on Disciplina Clericalis, p. 120, etc.

3 Also occurs in Busone da Gubbio's "Fortunatus Siculus,” 1. iii.. c. 13, of which Legrand d'Aussy states that some French historians have narrated it as having really happened.-Lieb.

Femme qui se fist Putain sur la fosse de son mari. (See above, vol. I. p. 94.)

68. An envious knight is jealous of the favour a young man enjoys with the king. As a friend, he bids the youth hold back his head while serving this prince, who, he says, was disgusted with his bad breath, and then acquaints his master that the page did so, from being offended with his majesty's breath. The irascible monarch forthwith orders his kiln-man to throw the first messenger he sends to him into the furnace, and the young man is accordingly despatched on some pretended errand, but happily passing near a monastery on his way, tarries for some time to hear mass. Meanwhile, the contriver of the fraud, impatient to learn the success of his stratagem, sets out for the house of the kiln-man, and arrives before his intended victim. On inquiring if the commands of his master had been fulfilled, he is answered that they will be immediately executed, and, as the first messenger on the part of the sovereign, is forthwith thrown into the furnace. This tale is copied from one of the Contes Dévots, intended to exemplify the happy effects that result from hearing mass, and entitled, D'un Roi qui voulut faire brûler le fils de son Seneschal. It is also chapter 95 of the Anglican Gesta Romanorum and Cinthio, viii. 6.1

A few tales seem to have had their origin in romances of chivalry; the

A very similar story is related in some lives of St. Elizabeth, spouse of Denis, King of Portugal, in the thirteenth century. One of the queen's pages, a favourite whom she often employed on errands of charity, was consequently an object of envy and hatred to another of the court pages, who denounced him to the king as a paramour of Elizabeth. Denis, judging others by his own licentious heart, believes the accusation, and sends the supposed culprit on a message to the limeburner, who had previously been instructed to despatch him. On his way, however, the queen's page enters a church to assist at mass, but arriving late, waits to hear the next one; meanwhile his calumniator, who had eagerly gone to learn his fate, perishes in his stead moral the king recognizes the intervention of Divine Providence, and is convinced of the queen's innocence. The narrative is discarded by the Bollandists. Baillet, Vies des Saints, p. 117, vol. v. 485 d. 5. The source of this story would seem to be the history of Kalaratri in Somadheva's "Collection of Tales." Cf. Schmidt, Balladen und Romanzen, p. 191, etc.; Keller, Dyokletianus Leben, Introduction, p. 44; Germania, Bd. vii. 422, and Bd. xi. 207; Timoneda Patrañuelo, No. 17.

As a

81. Is the Story of the Lady of the Scalot, who died for love of Lancelot du Lac; and another [No. 60] is the story of King Meliadus and the Knight without Fear.

82. Outline of the Pardonere's Tale in Chaucer (Morlini, Novellae, No. 42).

A few of the Cento Novelle are fables.

Thus in

91. The mule pretends that his name is written on the hoof of his hind-foot. The wolf attempts to read it, and the mule gives him a kick on the forehead, which kills him on the spot. On this the fox, who was present, observes, Ogni huomo che sa lettera non é savio.'

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The last of the original number of the Cento Novelle is from the 124th chapter of the Gesta Romanorum, of the knights who intercede for their friend with a king, by each coming to court in a singular attitude.

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It has already been mentioned, that four tales were added to complete the number of a hundred. One of these is the story of Grasso Legnajuolo, which has been frequently imitated; in this tale Grasso is persuaded to doubt of his own identity. Different persons are posted on the street to accost him as he passes, by the name of another; he at length allows himself to be taken to prison for that person's debts, and the mental confusion in which he is involved during his confinement is well described. Domenico Manni asserts, that this was a real incident, and he tells where and when it happened. Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, he says, contrived the trick, and the sculptor Donatello had a hand in its execution.

A great proportion of the tales of the Cento Novelle are altogether uninteresting, but in their moral tendency they are much less exceptionable than the Fabliaux, by which they were preceded, or the Italian Novelettes, by which they were followed. In general, it may be remarked, that those stories are the best which claim an eastern origin, or are derived from the Gesta Romanorum and the Fabliaux. This, from the examples given, the reader will have diffi

1 See F. W. V. Schmidt, Beitraege zur Geschichte der Romantischen Poesie, p. 181, etc.; Grimm, Reineke Fuchs, p. cclxiii; Ad. Kuhn, Märk. Sagen, "Der Dumme Wolf."

See F. W. V. Schmidt's notes to Straparola, p. 292; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Fab. Ind. P. ii. p. 125.

culty in believing; but those tales which are founded on real incidents, or are taken from the annalists of the country, are totally uninteresting. The repartees are invariably flat, and the jests insipid.

This remark is, I think also applicable to the

DECAMERON OF BOCCACCIO;

those tales derived from the Fabliaux being invariably the most ingenious and graceful. This celebrated work succeeds, in chronological order, to the Cento Novelle, and is by far the most renowned production in this species of composition. It is styled Decameron, from ten days having been occupied in the relation of the tales, and is also entitled Principe Galeotto,-an appellation which the deputies appointed for correction of the Decameron consider as derived from the 5th canto (v. 137) of Dante's "Inferno,' ," Galeotto being the name of that seductive book, which was read by Paulo and Francesca :

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"Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse," etc.

The Decameron is supposed to have been commenced about the year 1348, when Florence was visited by the plague, and finished about 1358. Thus only a period of half a century had intervened from the appearance of the Cento Novelle, and the infinite superiority of the Decameron over its predecessor, marks in the strongest manner the improvement which, during that interval, had taken place in taste and literature.

Still, however, the Decameron must be chiefly considered as the product of the distinguished mental attainments of its author. Boccaccio [1313-1375] was admirably fitted to excel in this sort of composition, both from natural genius,1 and the species of education he had received. His father apprenticed him in early youth to a merchant, with whom he continued many years, and in whose service he visited different parts of Italy, and, according to some authorities,

1 I well remember," says he, in his Genealogy of the Gods, "that before seven years of age, when as yet I had seen no fictions, and had applied to no masters, I had a natural turn for fiction, and produced some trifling tales."-Lib. xv.

the capital of France. During these excursions he must have become intimately acquainted with the manners of his native country; and at Paris he would acquire the French language, and, perhaps, study the French authors. Tired with his mercantile employments, Boccaccio next applied himself to canon law, and, in the prosecution of this study, he had occasion to peruse many works, from which, as shall be afterwards shown, he has extracted materials for the Decameron.. Disgusted with law, he finally devoted himself to literature, and was instructed by various masters in all the learning of the age. The greater part of the Decameron, it is true, was written before he had made proficiency in the Greek language; but it cannot be doubted, that, previous to its public appearance, he embellished this work by interweaving fables, which he met with among Greek authors, or which were imparted to him by his master Leontius Pilatus, whom he styles, in the Genealogy of the Gods, a repository of Grecian history and fable.

An investigation of the sources whence the stories in the Decameron have been derived, has long exercised the learning of Italian critics, and has formed the subject of a keen and lasting controversy. The light hitherto thrown on the dispute is such as might be expected, where erudition has been employed for the establishment of a theory, instead of the discovery of truth. Many of the commentators on Boccaccio have been anxious to prove, that his stories are for the most part borrowed from the earlier tales of his own country, and those of the French Trouveurs ; others have argued, that the great proportion is of his own invention; while Domenico Manni, in his History of the Decameron, has attempted to establish that they have been mostly derived from the ancient chronicles and annals of Italy, or have had their foundation on incidents that!

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1 "He collected in every direction the materials for his Decameron," writes Daunou, in his discourse on the state of letters in France in the thirteenth century, "and found them copiously in the French poems, which were too recent and too celebrated for him not to desire, and to have the means to avail himself of them. That his prose has surpassed them and caused them to be forgotten is not a matter which can be questioned." Hist. Litt. de la France, xvi. 230.

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