O F ESO P AND OTHER FABULISTS. IN THREE BOOKS. By R. DO DSLEY. Is not the earth With various living creatures, and the air Paradife Loft, b. 8. 1. 370. A NEW EDITION. LONDON: Printed for J. DODSLEY in Pall-mall. 1765. [Price bound Three Shillings.] THE PREFA C E. THE fables of Efop have always been efteemed the best leffons for youth, as being well adapted to convey the most useful maxims, in a very agreeable manner. Accordingly, many writers both in verse and profe, have endeavoured to cloath them in an English drefs. It would ill become the Author of this work to animadvert upon their labours: but be thinks it may be faid with truth, and he bopes with modefty, that nothing of this kind, which has been published in profe, can justly difcourage him from the present undertaking. In forming this collection, he has endeavoured to diftinguish, by two separate books, the respective compofitions of the earlier and later mythologifts; and he trufts it will not be found that he has often been mistaken in this distribution, tho' an error of that kind might perhaps appear of no great importance. His principal aim was to felect fuch Fables as would make the ftrongest and most ujeful impreffions on the minds of youth; and then to offer them in fuch unaffected language, as might have fome tendency to improve their flyle. If in this he fhould be allowed to have at all fucceeded, the work, it is prefumed, will not be unferviceable to young readers, nor wholly unentertaining to perfons of maturer judgment. To thefe he has ventured to add a third Book, confifting entirely of original Fables; and he offers it to the public with all the diffidence which ought to accompany modern productions, when they appear in con |