judgments, that when people love, they can refuse nothing to the beloved. Love has become law; it is inscribed in a code; they combine it with religion; and there is a sacrament of love, in which the birds in their anthems sing matins.[215] Chaucer curses with all his heart the covetous wretches, the business men, who treat is as a madness: "As would God, tho wretches that despise Service of love had eares al so long As had Mida, ful of covetise,... To teachen hem, that they been in the vice And lovers not, although they hold hem nice, ... God yeve hem mischaunce, And every lover in his trouth avaunce."[216] He clearly lacks severity, so rare in southern literature. The Italians in the Middle Ages made a virtue of joy; and you perceive that the world of chivalry, as conceived by the French, expanded morality so as to confound it with pleasure. SECTION IV.--Characteristics of the Canterbury Tales There are other characteristics still more gay. The true Gallic literature crops up; obscene tales, practical jokes on one's neighbor, not shrouded in the Ciceronian style of Boccaccio, but related lightly by a man in good humor;[217] above all, active roguery, the trick of laughing at your neighbor's expense. Chaucer displays it better than Rutebeuf, and sometimes better than La Fontaine. He does not knock his men down; he pricks them as he passes, not from deep hatred or indignation, but through sheer nimbleness of disposition, and quick sense of the ridiculous; he throws his gibes at them by handfuls. His man of law is more a man of business than of the world: "No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as, And yet he semed besier than he was."[218] His three burgesses: "Everich, for the wisdom that he can Was shapelich for to ben an alderman. For catel hadden they ynough and rent, And eke hir wives wolde it wel assent."[219] Of the mendicant Friar he says: "His wallet lay beforne him in his lappe, Bret-ful of pardon come from Rome al hote."[220] The mockery here comes from the heart, in the French manner, without effort, calculation, or vehemence. It is so pleasant and so natural to banter one's neighbor! Sometimes the lively vein becomes so copious that it furnishes an entire comedy, indelicate certainly, but so free and life-like! Here is the portrait of the Wife of Bath, who has buried five husbands: "Bold was hire face, and fayre and rede of hew, She was a worthy woman all hire live; Housbondes at the chirche dore had she had five, Withouten other compagnie in youthe.... In all the parish wif ne was ther non, That to the offring before hire shulde gon, And if ther did, certain so wroth was she. That she was out of alle charitee."[221]