Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/302

 :>4"0 Differ tat ton on the Lives and Writings of fuppofitious or altered Fads, Wadington himfelf fills his work with a great number of " Contes devots," which cannot boaft of more authenticity than the " Miracles" invented by his rivals. But 'he had found thefe fables in other authors. Criticifm had not in thofe times promulged her laws ; by which truth may be diftin- guilhed from falfehood ; while it required judgment and informa- tion of an ordinary kind only, to obferve that the " miracles," re- prefented at that day, were pieces compofed by modern authors ; and it was eafy to diftinguifh what was the produce of their own invention, or alteration, by comparing them with the lives of the faints then in ufe. This work of William of Wadington is of near fix thoufand verfes. It is to be found in the manufcripts of the duke of Norfolk, in the library of the Royal Society, and in the Britim Mufeum, Bib. Reg. so B. XIV. et Bib. Harleiah, N 273, 4657, and 4974. It is at the conclufion of the two laft manufcripts, that the poet fpeaks of himfelf by name, and enters into all the details of his hif- tory, which are not to be found in the two firft mentioned copies The author fays, that he mould not have undertaken to tranflate his work into French verfe, but to make it more palatable to a na- tion, thatpurfued with avidity every thing written in that language, and to the end, continues he, that it might be underftood, as well by the great, as the lower clafs of people, which is of itfelf fufficient to mew, how much the flilc of Romance was then generally receiv- ed in England. In ihort, he aiks forgivenefs from his reader for the faults, which he might have been guilty of, whether againft the language, or rhyme ; becaufe, being an Englimman by birth, it might eafily happen that fosne errors, as to one or the other, might have efcaped him. AN035Y-