64 Differtatlon on the Life and Writings of

but what renders them peculiarly interesting is, the ideas they afford us of the manners and cuStoms of the EngliSh. in thefe ancient times. I am entirely perfuaded that the authors or compilers of them are to be fought for in the monasteries of England ; the mo- rals bear too frequent an allufion to a monadic life, and whole fen- tences of the vulgate and the writings of the fathers are too often introduced to fuffer us to think otherwife. I have, in vain, examined thefe MSS. in the hopes of finding the 39 fables of which Mary has left a translation, but of vhich the original authors are unknown; I have only been able to trace three or four, and thefe with different readings. Some may, perhaps, be difpofed to conclude that thefe 39 fables were actually compofed by Mary, but I believe that upon a little reflection this opinion muft be abandoned. Mary hcrfelf terms her work a translation, me glories in the enterprize, and, if it had been only in part the labour of her genius, can it be imagin- ed that me would have paSTed over that circumflance in filence ? When a perfon takes a pride in the character of a translator, felf- love would hardly permit him to make a facrifice of that of author, if he could claim it. Again, Denis Piramus, who commends the rich and fertile genius of Mary, does it in her Lays, and not in the fables which me had merely tranflated. Monfieur Le Grand has publifhed 43 of Mary's fables in profe, and theft are nearly all that I have met with in any of the fabulists, ancient, or of the middle ages[jK]. His translation, however, is not always literal, and feems, in many places, to have departed from the original. He has likewife publifhed many of the fabliaux y or little Stories which he has unadvifedly attributed to the tranfcribers of them, and which I have Shewn to belong indifputably to Mary[>]. [y] Fabliaux, Vol. IV. [z] Ibid. Vol. III. pp. 197, 201, 440, 448 I have