$2 Differ tat ion oft ilie J^ife and Writing* of

Le tranflata puis en Engle'iS) Et je Fai rimee en Franceis, &c. Now at prefent to deny the exiftenee of this EngTifli trariflation?' is, in the firft place, to fuppofe that it is inconfiftent for the Eng- lifli to have had a colle&ion of ^Efopian fables in their language dur- ing the 1 3th century ; and where is the man of letters that would venture, I do not fay to maintain, but even to hazard fuch an opi- nion ? In the next place, it is formally contradicting a woman- who allures us that fhe tranflated her fables from an Englifli original, who glories in it, and who muft have felt a much higher gratifica- tion in ftating herfelf to be the author of them if me really had been fo. HI. If her own teftimony mould be, neverthelefs, thought infuf- ficient, it might eafily be corroborated by that of the MS. in the Royal library, 15 A. VII. which contains a great part of the ^Efopian. fables in Latin, and in which it irs exprefsly mentioned, that they had been tranflated into Englifli. Being written in the r^th cen- tury, it is of the fame time as Mary; and the tranfcriber, writing only in Latin, cannot be accufed of quackery, when he fimply men-- tions the Ehglim vcrfion which then exifted, in an hiftorical point of view. IV. If, in the Ikft place, we examine the fables of Mary them- felves, we ihall difcover in them internal evidence of their being tranflated from the Ehgnfh. In the firft place, mention is made of eounties and their judges, of the great airemblies held there for the adminiftration of juftice, the king's writs that were uTued, &c. -&c. Now what other kingdom betides England was at that time divided into counties ? What other country poflefled fimilar efta- blifhments ? But Mary has done more ; in her French tranflation, {he has preferved many expreffions in the Englifli original ; fuch as 1 ive/kr,