MARY, an Anglo-Norman Poelefs. 47

fucceeding in this kind of apologue. Both require that penetrating glance which can diftinguifti the different paffions of mankind ; can feize upon the varied forms which they affume, and, marking the objects of their attention, difcover at the fame moment the means they employ to attain them. This faculty Mary had developed in her firft work, and it was therefore to be fuppofed that no diminu- tion of it would appear in her fecond. For this reafon her fables are written with all that acutenefs of mind that penetrates the very inmoft recefles of the human heart ; and at the fame time with that beautiful fimplicity fo peculiar to the ancient romance language, and which caufes me to doubt whether La Fontaine has not rather imitated our author than the fabulifts either of Rome or of Athens. It muft, at all events, be admitted that he could not find in the two latter the advantages which the former offered him. Mary wrote in French, and at a time when that language, yet ia its infancy, could boaft of nothing but fimple expreffions, artlefs and agreeable turns, and on all occaiions a natural and unpremeditated phrafeology. On the contrary, ^3fop and Phasdrus, writing in La- tin, could not fupply the French fabulift with any thing more than the fubjecl: matter and ideas, whilft Mary, at the fame time that Ihe furnifhed him with both, might befides have hinted expref- fion, manner, and even rhyme. Let me add, that through the works of La Fontaine will be found fcattered an infinite number of words in our ancient language, which are at this day unintelligible with- out a commentary. There are in the Britifh Mufeum three MS. copies of Mary's Fa- bles. The firft is in the Cotton library, Vefp. B. XIV ; the fecond in the Harleian, N 4333 ; and the thkd in the fame collection, N 978. In the firfr, part of Mary's prologue is wanting, and the tran- fcriber