Popular Tales and Fictions - Their Migrations and Transformations #250969

Wright, in his introduction to an old English metri cal text of the Seven Wise Masters,' printed for the Percy Society, states that he had met with the story among the Latin tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but could not call to mind in what collec tion: it is found, he adds, a little varied in detail, in the Nouveaux Contes a rire,' Amsterdam, 1737, under the title of J ugsment subtil du Duc d'ossone contre deux Marchands. Apparently Wright was not aware that the story in this form occurs in one of the novels of Le Sage, The History of Vanillo Gonzales,' ch. Xvi., which was published in 1734. The hero, while a page to the Duke of Ossuna, governor of Sicily, is met on the street one day by a young citizen of Palermo, who.