tremely
obscure; but in her Preface she seems aware of this defect, yet defends
it by the example of the ancients. She considers it the duty of all
persons to employ their talents; and as her gifts were intellectual, she
cast her thoughts in various directions ere she determined upon her
peculiar mission. She had intended translating from the Latin a good
history, but some one else unluckily anticipated her; and she finally
settled herself down to poetry, and to the translation of numerous lays
she had treasured in her memory, as these would be new to many of her
readers. Like other literary ladies, she complains of envy and
persecution, but she perseveres through all difficulties, and dedicates
her book "to the King."

Marie was born in France. Some authorities suppose she wrote in England
during the reign of Henry III., and that the patron she names was
William Langue-espee, who died in 1226; others, that this _plus
vaillant_ patron was William, Count of Flanders, who accompanied St.
Louis on his first crusade in 1248, and was killed at a tournament in
1251. A later surmise is that the book was dedicated to Stephen, French
being his native language. Among the manuscripts of the Bibliotheque
Royale at Paris, is Marie's translation of the fables which Henry
Beauclerc translated from Latin into English, and which Marie renders
into French. A proof that Marie's poems are extremely ancient is deduced
from the names in one of these fables applied to the wolf and the fox.
She uses other names than those of Ysengrin and Renard, which were
introduced as early as the reign of Coeur de Lion, and it would seem
that she could not have failed to notice these remarkable names, had
they existed in her time. A complete collection of the works of Marie de
France was published in Paris in 1820, by M. de Roquefort, who speaks
of her in the following terms: "She possessed that penetration which
distinguishes at first sight the different passions of mankind, which
seizes upon the different forms they assume, and, remarking the objects
of their notice, discovers at the same time the means by which they are
attained." If this be a true statement, the acuteness of feminine
observation has gained but little in the progress of the centuries, and
her literary sisters of the present era can hardly hope to eclipse the
penetration of Marie de France.

The Countesses de Die, supposed to be mother and daughter, were both
poetesses. The elder lady w