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and horses cause ten times as much damage in his garden as the hare from which he comes to deliver him.

The Curé (vii., 11) tripping gaily along in company of the The Curé. the corpse he is going to bury, and calculating what his fees will

be.

The lazy Monk reading his breviary whilst the horses are Le Moine. laboriously dragging the coach up the hill (vii., 9).

The Pedant (i., 19) letting the child almost drown whilst he Le Pédant. delivers himself of a long harangue.

That perfect picture of the two "Médecins, Tant-pis et Tant- Les Médecins mieux" (v., 12), and, to come back to our friends the dumb animals, the Hermit Rat (vii., 3), who, when Ratopolis is besieged, L'hermite. from the depths of the Dutch cheese in which he has gnawed himself a retreat from the world, replies

Mes amis, les choses d'ici bas ne me regardent plus,

and (viii., 22) what better picture of a hypocrite than our friend "Chat Grippe-fromage," whose pious exclamation of

J'en rends grâce aux Dieux, j'allais leur faire ma prière !

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recalls Molière's Tartuffe," whom

Certain devoir pieux rappelle là-haut.

Le Rat.

The Hypocrite
Cat.

Lastly, in the social scale, comes the poor Labourer. Surely, The Labourer. we can nowhere find a more perfect picture than this (i., 16) of the abject state of misery to which the cultivator of the soil was reduced in this age, and whose sufferings were soon destined to drive him to wreak such a terrible vengeance on his cppressors. Sa femme, ses enfants, les soldats, les impôts, Le créancier et la corvée,

Lui font d'un malheureux la peinture achevée.

This Fable has often seemed to us one of the best, if not the best, of the whole collection, though the generally received opinion seems to hesitate between vii., 1, "Les Animaux Malades de la Peste," or ix., 2, "Les Deux Pigeons."

For our own part we are more inclined to say with Madame de Sévigné—“La Fontaine's Fables are like a basket of strawberries: you begin by taking out the largest and best, but little by little you eat first one, then another, until at last the basket is empty."

OBJECT OF THE NOTES

AND

METHOD OF USING THEM.

THE Notes appended to this edition of La Fontaine's Fables are intended for both pupils and teachers-for the former to facilitate the understanding of difficult passages and expressions peculiar either to La Fontaine himself or the age in which he wrote, and to which the ordinary dictionaries to which they have access would not help them. It is not by any means intended to save pupils the trouble of looking out the English of the words contained in any ordinary school French-English Dictionary. For teachers it is hoped that the notes may also prove useful in explaining such peculiarities in the text of La Fontaine as may reasonably be supposed to present difficulties to anyone who has not made a special study of the subject.

The quotations from Latin classical authors, upon whom the French writers of the seventeenth century drew so largely, are often very short, but it is hoped will suffice to remind the teacher of passages with which he must be familiar.

With regard to the etymology, these notes do not of course profess to enter deeply into a subject having so wide a range. They will be found to be mostly suggestive only, and their object is, by giving the Romance or Teutonic roots from which many words are derived, to supply materials for discovering the etymology of other words constructed under similar rules. When the French word is almost identical with its classical Latin parent, the letter L. alone will be prefixed. The double L.L. means Low Latin, or the intermediate form between the classical Latin root and the modern French form. The Low Latin might be more properly called the vulgar or spoken Latin of the Latter Empire, as opposed to the written or classical Latin.

A short list of a few words in their three different forms will Suffice to show the connection between the Modern French and the Latin as spoken by the people.

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We are indebted for the greater part of the etymological explanations to the works of Diez and Littré, and especially to M. Brachet's admirable Dictionnaire Etymologique.*

METHOD OF USING THE NOTES.

As the references are almost invariably made to a similar word or idea occurring in some page and line (of page) previously annotated, it will suffice to turn to the page and line in the Notes. For instance, turn to Notes

Page 77 line 33-Manant: See Book i., Fable 8, page 7, line 9— and there will be found on referring in the Notes to—

Page 7 line 9-Manant: A labourer, one who remains (manentem) attached to the soil, as Angl. tenant, from tenentem.

"Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Française," par A. Brachet.

FABLES CHOISIES

MISES EN VERS.

A MONSEIGNEUR LE DAUPHIN.

Je chante les héros dont Ésope est le père;
Troupe de qui l'histoire, encor que mensongère,
Contient des vérités qui servent de leçons.

Tout parle en mon ouvrage, et même les poissons :
Ce qu'ils disent s'adresse à tous tant que nous sommes;
Je me sers d'animaux pour instruire les hommes.
Illustre rejeton d'un prince aimé des cieux,
Sur qui le monde entier a maintenant les yeux,
Et qui faisant fléchir les plus superbes têtes,
Comptera désormais ses jours par ses conquêtes,
Quelque autre te dira d'une plus forte voix
Les faits de tes aïeux et les vertus des rois :
Je vais t'entretenir de moindres aventures,
Te tracer en ces vers de légères peintures;
Et si de t'agréer je n'emporte le prix,
J'aurai du moins l'honneur de l'avoir entrepris.

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