The sin of plagiary is a development of modern civilisation. To medieval authors, as to Elizabethan, the interest of a story lay in the telling, and while plot was of first-rate importance the same plot could quite well be used indifferently by any number of writers. Indeed, they did not hesitate to go even further and to form a patchwork of scraps taken from different authors, so that the plot may be drawn from one poet, fragments of the dialogue from another, and descriptive or reflective passages from a third, and yet the whole may be justly reckoned the work of the compiler. In the _Parlement of Foules_, for instance, Chaucer takes the idea of the whole from a current fabliau, the first eighty-four lines from Cicero's _Somnium Scipionis_, three distinct passages from Dante, the description of the garden from Boccaccio, and lines 95-105 from Claudian, and yet the originality of the whole is incontestable. It is a noteworthy fact that he tries his hand at almost every form of poetry popular in his day, he writes romances, lives of the saints, homilies, allegorical poems, topical satire, love songs, and fabliaux, and in every case he borrows wherever he sees anything likely to suit his purpose, he alters and adds and omits as he sees fit; yet it is only necessary to compare a story (that of Constance, for instance) as told by him, with the same as told by any other poet of the day, to see why it is impossible for a genius to be a plagiarist. Chaucer's treatment of romance is particularly characteristic. As has been said, the medieval romance is the most intrinsically interesting literary development of the period from the Conquest to Chaucer. Very roughly speaking, romances may be said--apart from allegorical works such as the _Romance of the Rose_--to fall into two classes, those, such as _Guy of Warwick_, or _Sir Ferumbras_, in which adventure and action form the chief interest, and those, such as _Aucassin and Nicolette_, or _Florice and Blanchefleur_, in which the stress is laid on emotion. In both cases the action is usually set in motion by the hero's desire to ingratiate himself with his lady, but in the one he rides off in quest of renown that may make him worthy to aspire to her hand, and probably does not see her again for years; in the other, though he may perform doughty deeds for her sake, he may even go so far as to refuse battle unless he may have his sweet love, and much space is devoted to the description of his sighs and tears. In both, the emotion is perfectly simple and straightforward. The knight wishes for the lady's hand and fights or sulks, as the case may be, until he gets it, but in the former type there is scope for indefinite digressions and interminable adventures, while the latter, at all events in England, is apt to be shorter. Occasionally some opening is given for a more complex treatment of character, but as a rule the opportunity is ignored. Guy, when he returns to Felice after many years of adventure,