f Saltrey, or from Mary's French
translation. In the latter case it should appear that Mary finished her
translation before 1246, the year in which Walter says he composed his
work.[32]

Whether Mary was the author of any other pieces I have not been able to
ascertain: her taste, and the extreme facility with which she wrote
poetry of the lighter kind, induce a presumption that she was; but I
know of none that have come down to us.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Prologue des Lais de Marie._

[5] _Lai du chevrefeuille_.

[6] Pyramus, Vie de St Edmund, Bibl. Cotton. Domit. A. XI.

[7] Prolog. des Lais de Marie.

[8] It is reasonable to conclude, that writers flocked in
greater numbers to the court where they were most in request, and were
likely to be most liberally rewarded. Now it is evident that the Dukes
of Normandy, when possessed of the crown of England, were incomparably
more wealthy, though not in the same proportion more powerful, than the
contemporary Kings of France; and it may be presumed that the crowd of
candidates for their patronage, was consequently, much more numerous.
Our Henry the Second possessed, in right of his father, Maine, Anjou,
and Touraine; in right of his wife Eleanor, divorced by Louis le Jeune,
the counties of Poictou and Guienne; in right of his mother Matilda,
Normandy and England; and his power in the latter, the most valuable
part of his dominions, was paramount and uncontrolled, while Louis was
surrounded by powerful and rival vassals. We are, therefore, justified
in suspecting that the courts of our Norman sovereigns, rather than
those of the Kings of France, produced the birth of romance literature;
and this suspicion is confirmed by the testimony of three French
writers, whose authority is the more conclusive, because they have
formed their opinion from separate and independent premises.

The first of these is M. de la Ravallere. In his Essay on the
Revolutions of the French Language, a work of considerable learning,
supported by original authorities, whose words he almost constantly
quotes, he distinctly asserts that the pretended patronage of the French
princes, anterior to Philippe Auguste, had no visible effect on their
domestic literature; that while so many poets were entertained at the
courts of the Anglo-Norman princes, no one can be traced to that of
Louis le Jeune; that the chronicles of Britain and Normandy, the
subjects chosen by Wace and his contemporaries, were not likely