writers and hearers; and nobody seems to have thought of any more. Perhaps this was merely due to the fact that none of the more original genius of the time was directed on it: perhaps to the fact that the historical element in the story, small as it was, cramped the inventive powers, and prevented the romancers from doing their best. [Sidenote: _The Tale of Troy._] In this respect the Tale of Troy presents a remarkable contrast to its great companion--a contrast pervading, and almost too remarkable to be accidental. Inasmuch as this part of mediaeval dealings with antiquity connects itself with the literary history of two of the very greatest writers of our own country, Chaucer and Shakespeare; with that of one of the greatest writers of Italy, Boccaccio; and with some of the most noteworthy work in Old French, it has been thoroughly and repeatedly investigated.[82] But it is so important, and so characteristic of the time with which we are dealing, that it cannot be passed over here, though the later developments must only be referred to in so far as they help us to understand the real originality, which was so long, and still is sometimes, denied to mediaeval writers. In this case, as in the other, the first striking point is the fact that the Middle Ages, having before them what may be called, _mutatis mutandis_, canonical and apocryphal, authentic and unauthentic, ancient and not ancient, accounts of a great literary matter, chose, by an instinct which was not probably so wrong as it has sometimes seemed, the apocryphal in preference to the canonical, the unauthentic in preference to the authentic, the modern in preference to the ancient. [Footnote 82: It would be unfair not to mention, as having preceded that of M. Joly by some years, and having practically founded study on the right lines, the handling of MM. Moland and d'Hericault, _Nouvelles Francaises du Quatorzieme Siecle_ (Bibliotheque Elzevirienne. Paris, 1856).] [Sidenote: _Dictys and Dares._]