The success of the work--for a success it is in spite of its faults--is due to several merits. The first of these is the author’s unquestionable talent for story-telling. He has little of the dramatic power or the humour which distinguish Chaucer, but he tells his tales in a well-ordered and interesting manner, does not break the thread by digressions, never tires of the story before it is finished, as Chaucer does so obviously and so often, and carries his reader through with him successfully to the end in almost every case. His narrative is a clear, if shallow, stream, rippling pleasantly over the stones and unbroken either by dams or cataracts. The materials of course are not original, but Gower is by no means a slavish follower in detail of his authorities; the proportions and arrangement of the stories are usually his own and often show good judgement. Moreover he not seldom gives a fresh turn to a well-known story, as in the instances of Jephthah and Saul, or makes a pretty addition to it, as is the case in some of the tales from Ovid. Almost the only story in which the interest really flags is the longest, the tale of Apollonius of Tyre, which fills up so much of the eighth book and was taken as the basis of the plot of _Pericles_; and this was in its original form so loose and rambling a series of incidents, that hardly any skill could have completely redeemed it. There is no doubt that this gift of clear and interesting narrative was the merit which most appealed to the popular taste, the wholesome appetite for stories being at that time not too well catered for, and that the plainness of the style was an advantage rather than a drawback.