which have not only increafed our ftock, but improved this mode of conveying leffons of morality: And tho' of late years we have had feveral collections or books of this fort, yet few, if any of them, can lay any just claim to originality, further than putting old fop into a new drefs, just as the fashion of the times prevailed. Our English poets, it muft, be acknowledged, have gone further; and by their most curious and valuable inventions, have greatly improved this ufeful branch of literature; particularly Mr Gay, Mr Moore, Mr Cunningham, and fome others.. The use of fable was firft established, if not originally introduced, by Æfop; a circumftance which not only manifefts his fhrewdness and fagacity, the quickness of his wit, and the fertility of his invention, but gives us alfo a strong idea of his good humour. "Advice (fays a celebrated Writer) never comes with a better face, than when it comes with a laughing one:" And it is certain, that fable rather pleafes than offends the niceft fenfibility; fince the inftruction it conveys is not magifterially obtruded upon us, but is obliquely derived by our own application, and falls from it as it were by accident. In compiling the prefent collection, all or moft of our Fabulifts, ancient and modern, both in profe and verse, have been confulted; and great care has been taken to felect fuch fables as are not only most easy and intelligible in the narrative, but also convey the most striking morals. The ancient fables, where the heathen mythology is introduced in the fabulous part, are moftly omitted, as being thought too myfterious. The fables in verse are excellent of their kind, and are much the best we have in our language; and as Gay's are of themselves used for a school-book, they are all retained in this, which is defigned for the use of schools; and as it contains not only much more in quantity than any fable book extant, but alfo is fold at a lower price than most others, it will, 'tis hoped, have the preference, not only on that but other accounts. The Editor does not expect the following collection will please all perfons, as fome will object to the want of cuts; in reply to this, more than double the number of fables are. given for the like price, and wood cuts in general are fo badly executed, and the reprefentations fo imperfect, that little or no information or inftruction can be gathered from from them: Others will fay, that fome of the but that he meant well. Afs and the Lap-dog Swallow and other Birds Old Man and Death Court and Country Moufe Lion and other Beafts hunting Fortune and the School-boy Oak and the Willow Farmer and the Stag Cock and the Fox Fox and the Goat Dog and the Crocodile Wolf in Difguife Afs and his Mafter Page. |