In borrowing the Italian _novelle_ and translating them, the English sixteenth century for a time reproduced their horrors and licentiousness, much to the disgust of many good citizens, who would scarcely have recognized themselves if described as Puritans. It became necessary even to order the burning of many of them for their wantonness. Yet on the whole the English selection, whether for mere reading (as in Painter’s _Palace of Pleasure_), or for exploitation by the stage (as in _Romeo and Juliet_), or by prose fiction (as in the work of Greene), shows sufficient indication of the superior English sense of decency. Nevertheless, it was a recommendation to story-books if it could be said (truly or otherwise) that the tales came “from Italy.” Nor did the borrowings of them cease till the Puritans closed the playhouses, for Massinger and Webster seek their situations where Shakespeare sought his, albeit their choice may be less sure. * * * * * The Italians display literary characteristics not difficult to define. They are the heirs of the Latin tradition. But Latin literature, as has been stated earlier in this book, was not particularly original either in thought or style. It was not a highly imaginative or emotional literature; its verse tends chiefly to polish, and its prose to either declamation or epigram. It was marked by incessant strivings after verbal art, but not by any abandonments of passionate ardour, of lofty endeavours, or of profound meditations. It was a literature given to narration and satire; but not to exalted feeling. In other words, it was a literature of culture rather than of spontaneity. It was prone, therefore, to follow models, and to consider the form before the substance. In almost all these qualities Italian literature shares. Except in Dante, it hardly shows in any large measure the great poetic faculty of experiencing and vividly realizing great passions and far-reaching thoughts. Nearly all the Italians, after the vernacular had once been established, cultivate the most fastidious perfection of workmanship, while their thought and feeling are of but average depth, dealing with things positive and on the surface. Except in Dante and his age, Italian literature avoids the visionary and abstract, and deals by preference with the material and sensuous. It is not marked by potent and seminal thoughts, which are found almost only in Dante. For that reason it is Dante whom we generally satisfy ourselves with reading, if, indeed, we are not rather satisfied with talking of him and reading about him. CONSPECTUS OF ITALIAN LITERATURE