bright to-day as when they were penned exactly 450 years ago. They show
that the "Eternal Feminine" has not altered in five centuries--perhaps
not in five thousand!

The practised and facile pen of Antoine de la Sale clothed the dry bones
of these stories with flesh and blood, and made them live, and move.
Considering his undoubted gifts as a humourist, and a delineator of
character it is strange that the name of Antoine de la Sale is not held
in higher veneration by his countrymen, for he was the earliest exponent
of a form of literary art in which the French have always excelled.

In making a translation of these stories I at first determined to adhere
as closely as possible to the text, but found that the versions differed
greatly. I have followed the two best modern editions, and have made as
few changes and omissions as possible.

Three or four of the stories are extremely coarse, and I hesitated
whether to omit them, insert them in the original French, or translate
them, but decided that as the book would only be read by persons of
education, respectability, and mature age, it was better to translate
them fully,--as has been done in the case of the far coarser passages of
Rabelais and other writers. This course appeared to me less hypocritical
than that adopted in a recent expensive edition of Boccaccio in which
the story of Rusticus and Alibech was given in French--with a highly
suggestive full-page illustration facing the text for the benefit of
those who could not read the French language.

ROBERT B. DOUGLAS.

Paris, 21st October 1899.