then to bind the tales themselves together lightly and naturally in days,
like rows of pearls in a collar. But while in the "Decamerone" the
framework in its relation to the stories is of little or no significance,
in the "Canterbury Tales" it forms one of the most valuable organic
elements in the whole work. One test of the distinction is this: what
reader of the "Decamerone" connects any of the novels composing it with
the personality of the particular narrator, or even cares to remember the
grouping of the stories as illustrations of fortunate or unfortunate,
adventurous or illicit, passion? The charm of Boccaccio's book, apart
from the independent merits of the Introduction, lies in the admirable
skill and unflagging vivacity with which the "novels" themselves are told.
The scheme of the "Canterbury Tales," on the other hand, possesses some
genuinely dramatic elements. If the entire form, at all events in its
extant condition, can scarcely be said to have a plot, it at least has an
EXPOSITION unsurpassed by that of any comedy, ancient or modern; it has
the possibility of a growth of action and interest; and (which is of far
more importance, it has a variety of characters which mutually both
relieve and supplement one another. With how sure an instinct, by the
way, Chaucer has anticipated that unwritten law of the modern drama
according to which low comedy characters always appear in couples! Thus
the "Miller" and the "Reeve" are a noble pair running in parallel lines,
though in contrary directions; so are the "Cook" and the "Manciple," and
again and more especially the "Friar" and the "Summoner." Thus at least
the germ of a comedy exists in the plan of the "Canterbury Tales." No
comedy could be formed out of the mere circumstance of a company of ladies
and gentlemen sitting down in a country-house to tell an unlimited number
of stories on a succession of topics; but a comedy could be written with
the purpose of showing how a wide variety of national types will present
themselves, when brought into mutual contact by an occasion peculiarly
fitted to call forth their individual rather than their common