Le translata puis en Engleis,
Et je l'ai rimeé en Franceis, &c.
Now at present to deny the existence of this English translation is, in the first place, to suppose that it is inconsistent for the English to have had a collection of Æsopian fables in their language during the 13th century; and where is the man of letters that would venture, I do not say to maintain, but even to hazard such an opinion? In the next place, it is formally contradicting a woman who assures us that she translated her fables from an English original, who glories in it, and who must have felt a much higher gratification in stating herself to be the author of them if me really had been so.
III. If her own testimony mould be, nevertheless, thought insufficient, it might easily be corroborated by that of the MS. in the Royal library, 15 A. VII. which contains a great part of the Æsopian. fables in Latin, and in which it is expressly mentioned, that they had been translated into English. Being written in the 13th century, it is of the same time as Mary; and the transcriber, writing only in Latin, cannot be accused of quackery, when he simply mentions the English version which then existed, in an historical point of view.
IV. If, in the last place, we examine the fables of Mary themselves, we shall discover in them internal evidence of their being translated from the English. In the first place, mention is made of counties and their judges, of the great assemblies held there for the administration of justice, the king's writs that were issued, &c. &c. Now what other kingdom betides England was at that time divided into counties? What other country possessed similar establishments? But Mary has done more; in her French translation, she has preserved many expressions in the English original; such as
