glass, as though it were genuine history, and matter for pure belief.
And here it may be as well to say, that besides that old classical
foe of vernacular tradition, there is another hardly less dangerous,
which returns to the charge of copying, but changes what lawyers call
the _venue_ of the trial from classical to Eastern lands.
According to this theory, which came up when its classical
predecessor was no longer tenable, the traditions and tales of
Western Europe came from the East, but they were still all copies.
They were supposed to have proceeded entirely from two sources; one
the _Directorium Humanae Vitae_ of John of Capua, translated
between 1262-78 from a Hebrew version, which again came from an
Arabic version of the 8th century, which came from a Pehlvi version
made by one Barzouyeh, at the command of Chosrou Noushirvan, King of
Persia, in the 6th century, which again came from the _Pantcha
Tantra_, a Sanscrit original of unknown antiquity. This is that
famous book of _Calila and Dimna_, as the Persian version is
called, attributed to Bidpai, and which was thus run to earth in
India. The second source of Western tradition was held to be that
still more famous collection of stories commonly known by the name of
the 'Story of the Seven Sages,' but which, under many names--Kaiser
Octavianus, Diocletianus, Dolopathos, Erastus, etc.--plays a most
important part in mediaeval romance. This, too, by a similar process,
has been traced to India, appearing first in Europe at the beginning
of the thirteenth century in the Latin _Historia Septem Sapientum
Romae_, by Dame Jehans, monk in the Abbey of Haute Selve. Here,
too, we have a Hebrew, an Arabic, and a Persian version; which last
came avowedly from a Sanscrit original, though that original has not
yet been discovered. From these two sources of fable and tradition,
according to the new copying theory, our Western fables and tales had
come by direct translation from the East. Now it will be at once