was identical with the “Othea pistill” which one William Ebesham wrote for Sir John Paston at a cost of 7sh. 2d. about 1469,[4] it contained no more than forty-three leaves. In the margin of f. 75b is an entry, made about 1500, of a certificate of the banns of marriage, real or imaginary, of William Stretford and Joyce Helle, the certifying minister being William Houson, curate; and from scribblings on f. 50 and elsewhere it may be inferred that at a later date in the 16th century the MS. was in the hands of a certain William Porter, who, to judge from the nature of his entries, was perhaps a scrivener’s clerk. There is more decisive evidence of ownership in the signature “Jo. Malbee” on the first page, written towards the end of the 16th century under the moral distich: “Viue diu, sed viue Deo; nam viuere mundo Mors est. Hæc vera est viuere vita Deo.” The same page also contains the initials J. M., probably meaning John Malbee, together with the old library mark, ix D. 72. Before commenting upon the English translation something must be said of the original “Épître d’Othéa” and the remarkable woman who was its author.[5] In no sense was Christine de Pisan French by birth. Her father Thomas de Pisan, or de Boulogne, was, as she tells us,[6] a native of Bologna, and he may reasonably be identified with Tommaso di Benvenuto di Pizzano, who was Professor of Astrology there between 1345 and 1356.[7] Later he obtained the salaried office of State Councillor at Venice, where also he married, and where Christine, probably the eldest of his three children and the only girl, was born in 1364.[8] It was shortly after her birth that he was prevailed upon by the French king Charles V. to remove to Paris, and the fact that Louis the Great of Hungary was equally anxious to attract him to Buda shows how widely the fame of his learning and science had spread.[9] For fifteen years he had no cause to regret his change of country, for Charles not only made him his physician and astrologer with handsome emoluments, but treated him altogether with marked distinction. Christine, who with her mother joined him at the end of 1368, was thus brought up at the most brilliant and intellectual court of the time, and when, at the early age of fifteen, she was married to Étienne du Castel in 1379, her ties with it were further strengthened by her husband’s appointment as secretary to the king. This prosperity was rudely interrupted by the premature death of Charles V. on 16th September, 1380. In her own words, “Or fu la porte ouverte de noz infortunes, adonc faillirent à mon dit père ses grans pensions.”[10] Thomas de Pisan in fact was growing old and out of fashion; with the loss of his place at court and its prestige he soon fell into neglect, and when in a few years he died, his wife and two sons were left dependent upon his daughter and son-in-law. Happily the latter still retained his post under the new king, and if he had lived