From time to time, in all ages, men inspired, or gifted with a superior
degree of intellectual power, have appeared upon the stage of life, in
order (by enlightening others) to fulfil the designs of Omnipotence, in
uniting the world in a state of civilized society.
Patriarchs, or heads of families, at first directed or governed those
who were immediately dependent upon them: these in time increased,
and became _clans_; these again, by their quarrels, and their wars,
were induced to elect chieftains or kings over a number of united
clans,--from which were formed the various nations and kingdoms of
the earth. In this early stage of the world, when men were ignorant
and uncivilized, the chase and war seem almost wholly to have
occupied their time and attention. Their kings ruled over them with
despotic sway, and the will of the prince was the only law: and thus
the barbarism of the subject and the tyranny of the ruler went hand
in hand together. That over-swollen pride, which seems the natural
accompaniment of despotic power, blinds the understandings of its
possessors, and renders them wholly regardless of the important trust
reposed in them. The evils arising out of their bad government, are
felt, more or less, by the whole people over whom they preside; and
pride and arrogance prevent the approach of sincerity and truth. The
sycophant and the slave then only find admission, and all other men are
kept at a distance. While kings and governors were of this character,
the voice of truth could only reach their ears through allegory and
fable, which took their rise in the infancy of learning, and seem to
have been the only safe mode of conveying admonition to tyrants. This
pleasing method of instilling instruction into the mind, has been found
by experience to be the shortest and best way of accomplishing that
end, among all ranks and conditions of men.
The first Fable upon record, is that of Jotham and the Trees, in the
Bible; and the next, that of The Poor Man and his Lamb, as related by
Nathan to King David, and which carried with it a blaze of truth that
flashed conviction on the mind of the royal transgressor. Lessons of
reproof, religion, and morality, were, we find, continually delivered
in this mode, by the sages of old, to the exalted among mankind.
It is asserted by authors, that Apologues and Fables had their
origin in the Eastern world, and that the most ancient of them were
the productions of Veesh-nou Sarma, commonly called Pilpay, whose
beautiful collections of Apologues were esteemed as sacred books in
India and Persia, whence they were spread abroad among other nations,
and were by them celebrated and holden in much estimation. They were
translated from the Persian and Arabian into Greek, by Simeon Seth, a
man of great learning, who was an officer of the imperial household
at Constantinople about the year 1070. Seth’s Version was imitated
in Latin by Piers Alfonse, a converted Jew, as early as the year
1107; and this is supposed to have been the first version of Pilpay’s
Apologues that made its way, and became familiarized in Europe. The
time in which Pilpay lived, seems not to be certainly known to the
learned; but some of them suppose that the Fables of Æsop and others
were grounded upon his models. The time in which Æsop lived is better
ascertained, and of all the Fabulists who have amused and instructed
mankind by their writings, his name stands pre-eminent. Authors fix
his birth-place at Cotieum, in Phrygia Major. But the history of
this remarkable person, who lived about 572 years before Christ, and
about 100 years before Herodotus, the Greek historian, has been so
involved in mystery, traditionary stories, and absurd conjectures,
that any attempt to give a detail from such materials, would only
serve to bewilder youth, and lead them into a labyrinth of error; and
it would be impertinent to trouble the learned reader with that which
must be sufficiently familiar to him.[A] The whole of the absurd
fictions concerning this wise and amiable man, were invented by Maximus
Planudes, a Greek monk.[B] Plutarch, and other authentic historians,[C]
have, however, given a very different account of the illustrious
Fabulist. It would appear, according to some of these relations, that
Æsop, originally a shepherd’s boy, had risen from the condition of a
slave, to great eminence, and that he lived in the service of Xanthus
and Judman, or Idmon, in the island of Samos, and afterwards at Athens.
Phædrus speaks of him as living the greater part of his life at the
latter place, where, it appears, a handsome statue, executed by the
hand of the famous statuary Lysippus, was erected to his memory, and
placed before those of the seven sages of Greece.[D] He also notices
his living at Samos, and interesting himself in a public capacity,
in the administration of the affairs of that place; where Aristotle
also introduces him as a public speaker, and records the fact of his
reciting the fable of the Fox and the Hedgehog,[E] while pleading on
behalf of a minister, upon the occasion of his being impeached for
embezzling the public treasure. Æsop is also mentioned as speaking
in a public capacity to the Athenians, at the time when Pisistratus
seized upon their liberties.[F] Upon each of these occasions he is
represented as having introduced a Fable into his discourse, in a witty
and pleasing manner. He was holden in the highest veneration and esteem
in his day, by all men eminent for their wisdom and virtue. It appears
there was scarcely an author among the ancient Greeks who mixed any
thing of morality in his writings, that did not either quote or mention
Æsop. Plato describes Socrates as turning some of Æsop’s Fables into
verse, during those awful hours which he spent in prison, immediately
before his death. Aristophanes not only takes hints from Æsop, but
mentions him much to his honour, as one whose works were, or ought to
be, read before any other. Ennius and Horace have embellished their
poetry from his stores; and ancient sages and authors all concur in
bearing the most ample testimony to his distinguished merits. Plutarch,
in his imaginary banquet of the seven wise men, among several other
illustrious persons of ancient times, celebrated for their wit and
knowledge, introduces Æsop, and describes him as being very courtly
and polite in his behaviour. Upon the authority of Plutarch also, we
fix the life of Æsop in the time of Crœsus, king of Lydia, who invited
him to the court of Sardis. By this prince, he was holden in such
esteem, as to be sent as his envoy to Periander, king of Corinth,
which was about three hundred and twenty years after the time in which
Homer lived, and 550 before Christ. He was also deputed by Crœsus to
consult the oracle of Delphi. While on this embassy, he was ordered
to distribute to each of the citizens, four _minæ_[G] of silver, but
some disputes arising between them and Æsop, he reproached them for
their indolence, in suffering their lands to lie uncultivated, and in
depending on the gratuities of strangers for a precarious subsistence:
the quarrel, which it would appear ran high between them, ended in
Æsop’s sending back the money to Sardis. This so exasperated the
Delphians, that they resolved upon his destruction; and that they might
have some colour of justice for what they intended, they concealed
among his effects, when he was taking his departure from Delphi, a
gold cup, consecrated to Apollo; and afterwards pursuing him, easily
found what they themselves had hidden. On the pretext that he had
committed this sacrilegious theft, they carried him back to the city,
and notwithstanding his imprecating upon them the vengeance of heaven,
they immediately condemned him to be cast from the rock Hypania, as
the punishment of the pretended crime. Ancient historians say, that
for this wickedness, the Delphians were for a long time visited with
pestilence and famine, until an expiation was made, and then the plague
ceased.
[A] The curious enquirer is referred to the Essay on the
Æsopean Fable, by Sir Brooke Boothby, bart. from which this
sketch is extracted.
[B] Planudes lived at Constantinople in the 14th century. His
Fables were printed at Milan, A.D. 1480.
[C] The first person who took great pains to detect and expose
the follies and absurdities of Planudes’s Life of Æsop, and
collected what could be known, was Bachet de Mezeriac, a
man of great learning, who flourished about the year 1632.
[D] These sages were Solon, Thales, Chilo, Cleobulus, Bias,
Pittacus, and Periander, to whom Laertius adds Anacharsis,
Maro, Pherecydes, Epimenides, and Pisistratus.
[E] “Ye men of Samos, let me entreat you to do as the Fox
did; for this man, having got money enough, can have no
further occasion to rob you; but if you put him to death,
some needy person will fill his place, whose wants must be
supplied out of your property.”
The Fable of the Fox and the Hedgehog was applied by
Themistocles to dissuade the Athenians from removing their
magistrates.--_B. Boothby._
[F] The Fable of the Frogs desiring a King.
[G] The mina of silver was 12 ounces, about £3 sterling.
It was not until many ages after the death of Æsop, that his most
prominent successor, Phædrus, arose. He translated Æsop’s Fables from
the Greek into Latin, and added to them many of his own. Of Phædrus
little is known, except from his works. He is said to have lived in
the times of the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and to have died in
the reign of the latter. The first printed edition of his Fables, with
cuts, was published at Gauda, in 1482. Caxton published some of them in
1484, and Bonus Accursius in 1489, to which he prefixed Planudes’s Life
of Æsop. But the most perfect edition of Phædrus’s Works was published
in five volumes, by Peter Pithou, at Troyes, in 1596, from manuscripts
discovered by him in the cities of Rheims and Dijon. To these have
succeeded in later times, a numerous list of fabulists,[H] besides
such of the poets as have occasionally interspersed Fables in their
works. These, in their day, have had, and many of them still have,
their several admirers; but Gay and Dodsley best maintain their ground
in this country, as is proved by the regular demand for new editions.
Croxall’s Fables, which were first published in 1722, with cuts on
metal, in the manner of wood, have also had a most extensive sale; and
Sir Brooke Boothby’s elegant little volumes, in verse, published in
1809, are now making their way into the public notice. The Editor of
the present volume, in attempting to continue the same pleasing mode of
conveying instruction, long since laid down as a guide to virtue, has
quoted and compiled from other fabulists, whatever seemed best suited
to his purpose. His sole object is utility, and he is not altogether
without hope, that in attempting to embellish and perpetuate a fabric,
which has its foundations laid in religion and morality, his efforts
may not be wholly ineffectual to induce the young to keep steadily in
view those great truths, which form the sure land-mark to the haven,
where only they can attain peace and happiness.
[H] Sir Roger L’Estrange, born 1616, died 1704.
John de la Fontaine, born 1621, died 1695.
John Dryden, born 1631, died 1701.
Antoine Houdart de la Motte, born 1672, died 1731.
John Gay, born 1688, died 1732.
Samuel Croxall, D. D. Archdeacon of Hereford, died 1752.
Edward Moore, died 1757.
Draper.
Robert Dodsley, born 1703, died 1764.
William Wilkie, born 1721, died 1772.
Abbe Brotier, born 1722, died 1789.
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