n! Mandeville the greatest Asian traveller next (if
next) to Marco Polo, and he leaves us to understand that the worthy knight
has been pillaged by some priest![32] Astley uses strong language; he calls
Odoric a _great liar!_[33]

Others are fair in their judgment, Malte-Brun, for instance, marked what
Mandeville borrowed from Odoric, and La Renaudiere is also very just in
the _Biographie Universelle_. But what Malte-Brun and La Renaudiere showed
in a general manner, other learned men, such as Dr. S. Bormans, Sir Henry
Yule, Mr. E.W.B. Nicholson,[34] Dr. J. Vogels,[35] M. Leopold Delisle,
Herr A. Bovenschen,[36] and last, not least, Dr. G.F. Warner, have in
our days proved that not only has the book bearing Mandeville's name been
compiled from the works of Vincent of Beauvais, Jacques of Vitry,
Boldensel, Carpini, Odoric, etc., but that it was written neither by a
Knight of St. Albans, by an Englishman, or by a Sir John Mandeville, but
very likely by the physician John of Burgundy or John a Beard.

In a repertory of _La Librairie de la Collegiale de Saint Paul a Liege au
XV'e. Siecle_, published by Dr. Stanislas Bormans, in the _Bibliophile
Belge_, Brussels, 1866, p. 236, is catalogued under No. 240: _Legenda de
Joseph et Asseneth ejus uxore, in papiro. In eodem itinerarium Johannis de
Mandevilla militis, apud guilhelmitanos Leodienses sepulti_.

Dr. S. Bormans has added the following note: "Jean Mandeville, ou Manduith,
theologien et mathematicien, etait ne a St. Alban en Angleterre d'une
famille noble. On le surnomma pour un motif inconnu, _ad Barbam_ et
_magnovillanus_. En 1322, il traversa la France pour aller en Asie, servit
quelque temps dans les troupes du Sultan d'Egypte et revint seulement en
1355 en Angleterre. Il mourut a Liege chez les Guilhemins, le 17th
Novembre, 1372. Il laissa au dit monastere plusieurs MSS. de ses oeuvres
fort vantes, tant de ses voyages que de la medecine, ecrits de sa main; il
y avait encore en ladite maison plusieurs meubles qu'il leur laissa pour
memoire. Il a laisse quelques livres de medecine qui n'ont jamais ete
imprimes, des _tabulae astronomicae_, de _chorda recta et umbra, de
doctrina theologica_. La relation de son voyage est en latin, francais et
anglais; il raconte, en y melant beaucoup de fables, ce qu'il a vu de
curieux en Egypte, en Arabie et en Perse."

Then is inserted, an abstract from Lefort, _Liege Herald_, at the end of
the 17th century, from _Jean d'Outremeuse_,