Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought
and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the
possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men
of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern
literature; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them
in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their
own.

The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of
Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and
reproducing the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship
comparatively light for the Northern nations, and extended to us the
privilege of culture without the peril of losing originality in the
enthusiasm for erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and
yet profitably, those masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the
weight of which, when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had
wavered. To the originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth
without weakness was brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which
the spirit of the antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in
addition to this benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift
of pure beauty, the influence of which, in refining our national
taste, harmonising the roughness of our manners and our language, and
stimulating our imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not
unfrequent custom for young men of ability to study at the Italian
universities, or at least to undertake a journey to the principal
Italian cities. From their sojourn in that land of loveliness and
intellectual life they returned with their Northern brains most
powerfully stimulated. To produce, by masterpieces of the imagination,
some work of style that should remain as a memento of that glorious
country, and should vie on English soil with the art of Italy, was
their generous ambition. Consequently the substance of the stories
versified by our poets, the forms of our metres, and the cadences of
our prose periods reveal a close attention to Italian originals.

This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began
with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the
'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was
determined in the form adopted for his poem by the example of
Boccaccio. The subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken
from Boccaccio's prose or verse. F