MART, an Anglo-Norman Poctefe. 55ready been turned from Greek into Latin by Æsop [g]. This instance will suffice to prove that me had not even the skill of her

profession. She then gives the fables of an ox who aflifted at mass, of a wolf that keeps lent, of a monk difputing with a peafant, &c. Now, is it poffible, even with the moft ordinary learning, that fhe fliould be ignorant that ^Efop could know nothing of lent, monks, or malies ? What, then, it will be afked, was this Englifh verilon that Mary tramlated into French ? I am very far from pretending to give a dccifive anfwer to a queftion fo embarraffing ; but I believe that a few remarks may be made which will, at leaft, tend to throw fome light upon it.

The character which ^Efop left behind him had become so renowned, that many authors, during the middle ages, publifhed collections of fables under his name; and in order that these might o the more eaiily be confidered as belonging to him, they took care to iniert a greater or lefs number of what he had compofed. Amongft thefe compilers we find the names of Romulus, Accius, Bernardus, Salon, and many others anonymous. The firft is the moft celebrated ; he has addreffed his fables to his fon Tiberinus ; they are written in Latin profe, fixty in number, and many of them are founded upon thofe of yEfop and Phaedrus. Rimicius publilhed them at the end of the 1 5th century, and Frederic Nilant gave an edition in 1709 at Ley den, with fome curious and interefting notes. Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Latina, fays, that thefe fixty fables are more than 500 years old Ji. I have already mentioned that there is a MS. of them in the Royal library in the Britim Mufeum, 15 A. VII. which was written in the I3th century, and contains only 56 fables. They are faid, in the preface, to have been translated out of Greek into Latin by the emperor Romulus. Mary likewife [] Preface to Mary's Fables. [] Fabric. Bibl. Latin. Lib. If. C. 3. mentions