I have already hinted a suspicion that La Fontaine was acquainted with the fables of Mary, and had actually borrowed from them many of his subjects; to ascertain this fact I have examined the French fabulist, in hopes of discovering some of the 39 fables which we have already found to be wanting in all the writers of this kind with whom we are at present acquainted, and have actually discovered that he is indebted to them for those of the drowning woman, the fox and the cat, and the fox and the pigeon. From others he has only taken the subject, but changed the actors, and, by retouching the whole in his peculiar manner, has enriched these pieces with a new turn, and given them an appearance of originality.
The third work of Mary consists of a history, or rather a tale, in French verse, of St. Patrick's Purgatory. This performance was originally composed in Latin by a monk of the abbey of Saltrey,. who dedicated it to the abbot of that monastery, and is to be found in manuscript in most public libraries. There are two translations of it into French verse. The first of these is in the Cotton library, Domit, A. IV. and the second in the Harleian, No 273; but they are not from the same pen. The former consists of near 1800 lines, and the latter of about 700. Monsieur Le Grand has given an analysis of one of these translations in his fabliaux[1]; and it is upon the authority of this writer that I have ascribed it to Mary, as he maintains that she is the author of it, but without adducing the necessary proofs for this assertion. The Cotton MS. however, contains nothing that gives the least support to monsieur le Grand's opinion, or even stamps it with probability; neither is Mary's name mentioned in the Harleian MS.: but as the translator in his preface
- ↑ Fabliaux, Vol. V.
