Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/98

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xcii
INTRODUCTION
xcii

recently been printed under the editorial care of Dr. Horstmann. Three in verse were included by him in his Altenglische Legenden (Paderborn, 1875), and one in prose printed by him in a programme in 1877.[1] None of these English versions give either the Legend or the Parables in a particularly attractive form, and, for the most part, when we can trace any influence of the Barlaam Literature in England it is, probably, directly due to one of the Latin versions of the Legend, or to the adaptations of the Parables used as Exempla by English monks, like Nicholas Bozon.[2] When one refers to the chapbook versions, one of which is reprinted in this volume, the short and simple annals of the English Barlaam are concluded.

There yet remains another Latin version

  1. I am indebted to Dr. Kölbing for an opportunity of seeing this latter, which is rather rare. It has accordingly been omitted by the Rev. J. Morrison, who has reprinted the three metrical versions as an Appendix to Dr. Macdonald's Story of Barlaam and Josaphat (Calcutta, 1895, Thacker). The volume also contains The History of the Five Wise Philosophers.
  2. See Contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon : edit. Toulmin Smith and Meyer, pp. 46, 59, 106, and corresponding Notes. Cf. Jacques de Vitry, Exempla: edit. Crane, Nos. ix., xxxviii., xlii., xlvii., lxxviii., lxxxii., cx., cxxxiv.