a century earlier, that Malory came to give the
sum and substance of what mediaeval fiction could do in prose. For more,
the times and the men had to come.

CHAPTER II

FROM LYLY TO SWIFT

During the dying-off of romance proper, or its transference from verse
to prose in the late fifteenth and earlier sixteenth century, there is
not very much to note about prose fiction in England. But, as the
conditions of modern literature fashioned themselves, a very great
influence in this as in other departments was no doubt exercised with us
by Italian, as well as some by Spanish in a way which may be postponed
for a little. The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that
influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere
were as yet unfavourable for its growth. It is a hackneyed truism that
Italian society was very much more modern than any other in Europe at
this time--in fact it would not be a mere paradox to say that it was,
and continued to be till the later sixteenth, much more modern than it
has ever been since--or till very recently. By "modern" is here meant
the kind of society which is fairly cultivated, fairly comfortable,
fairly complicated with classes not very sharply separated from each
other, not dominated by any very high ideals, tolerably corrupt, and
sufficiently business-like. The Italian _novella_, of course, admits
wild passions and extravagant crimes: but the general tone of it is
_bourgeois_--at any rate domestic. With its great number of situations
and motives, presented in miniature, careful work is necessary to bring
out the effect: and, above all, there is abundant room for study of
manners, for proverbial and popular wisdom and witticism, for
"furniture"--to use that word in a wide sense. Above all, the Italian
mind, like the Greek, had an ethical twist--twist in more senses than
one, some would say, but that does not matter. Manners, morals,
motives--these three could not but displace, to some extent, mere
incident: though there was generally incident of a poignant or piquant
kind as well. In other words the _novella_ was actually (though still in
miniature) a novel in nature as well as in name. And these _novelle_
became, as is generally known, common in English translations after the
middle of the sixteenth century. Painter's huge _Palace of Pleasure_
(1566) is only the largest and best known of many translations, single
and collected, of the Italian _novellieri_ an