ENERALLY speaking, our love of Fables is acquired during childhood, when the mind is full of the wonders of which Nature is every day presenting some new example, and when, consequently, we are greatly inclined to believe all that we hear or read, to be literally true. This, no doubt, is one reason why, in after life, persons are sometimes disposed to look upon Fables as childish in themselves, and not the best means of affording instruction to youth. It was this that induced Jean Jacques Rousseau to reject Fables from among the sources of literary enjoyment fit to be put into the hands of children. Some of the ablest of our own writers, however, have shewn the fallacy of the objection, and proved that it is not because they are implicitly believed, that Fables acquire a hold on the affections of the young; but because of their truth to Nature, and their finding a ready response in the hearts of those who have not yet learned to look upon creation as made up of classes, which have feelings and sentiments so at variance with each other, that what merely affects one, is entitled to no sympathy or consideration from the others. The belief in Fables is thus connected with our best and purest feelings. It contains the germ of the doctrine of Universal Love, upon which Christianity itself was founded, and on which it still subsists. Rousseau was certainly in error when he imagined that children were likely to be seriously misled in reading that birds, animals, and inanimate things could think and converse like rational beings, and might thus be induced to form false notions of the world and its uses. Children on those points are sounder philosophers than he who thus mis-represented them. They believe only so much of the truth of the apologues presented to them, as depict natural feelings, thoughts and consequences; and which they would have believed without an apologue;-namely, that the variations observable in living forms, extend no further than to outward circumstances and differences; while the vital

principles of truth, justice and sympathy, are the same in every link throughout the chain of universal being. And this is a creed which no one would willingly destroy or suppress. It is the same which our moralists and preachers have taught for ages; the same which our poets have sung ever since the invention of verse. Our own Shakspere has given a beautiful summary of its tenets in the lines:

"The poor beetle that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance feels as great a pang,

As when a giant dies."

As a test of the value of Fables, it may be remarked that he who has formed a love for them when a child, is very rarely tempted to despise them in maturer age. And why should he despise them? When the bent of the mind and taste have become fixed, it would be ingratitude to look back with scorn or unkindness upon the means by which both were nurtured. Fables are, in fact, admirably calculated to make lasting impressions on the minds of all persons; but especially those which are unformed and uncultivated; and to convey to them moral instruction, in the most agreeable form. Hence it is, that this species of composition enjoys such great popularity, not only with children, but among all rude and only partially civilized people :-the same means of instruction which in one state of society are used for the information of men, being left, in a more advanced state, to perform the same office for children.

The origin of Fables is lost in the mist of remote antiquity. Our earliest information concerning them dates nearly three thousand years before our present era, and leaves us to infer, from the manner in which it occurs, that they were then familiar, from having been long previously in use. The first specimen with which we are acquainted, is the Parable of Jotham, contained in the Bible, (Judges, ix. 7-15.) inserted at page 53 of the present collection, under the title of "The Trees and the Bramble." The purposes for which such Parables, or Fables, (for the words are synonimous,) were first employed, and the way in which they originated, are by no means difficult of comprehension. "They appear," says an admirable writer on the subject, "to have arisen among a people, who as hunters or shepherds-most probably the latter-had ample opportunities of observing the conduct of certain animals towards each other. Some of the facts must have struck them as analogous to the conduct of men to men; and when such conduct among their companions happened to come under their notice, they would naturally quote the illustration, for the sake of the instruction or reproof it conveyed. Besides, in a limited society, this method of conveying warning or reproof was perhaps the only one which could be applied without offence. It must soon have been clear to those reflective minds which have existed among all people, and in all ages, that it was desirable to adopt some form of instruction which might insinuate the truth, and beguile men into goodness, without giving just cause of offence to any. In this case, the apologue was evidently the most obvious and simple resource; extracting from the common objects by which men were surrounded, and from the animals which were familiar to them, lessons of instruction, warning, and reproof. There is also a charm attending this mode of instruction which is almost peculiar to it, and which must have procured for Fables a strong preference from the rude men to whom they were originally addressed : this is, that they gratify the activity of the human mind, by affording it an opportunity of exercising its own penetration, in discovering that which the Fable partially veils."

Hence it occurs, that in eastern countries, where the government of the people is still despotic, and flattery alone is considered fit for the ears of those in power, a

Fable is almost the only medium through which the truth can be safely conveyed to a ruler. On this point, Sir John Malcolm has the following observation in his 'History of Persia.'- 'The Persians, as a nation, delight in Tales, Fables and Apophthegms; the reason of which appears obvious: for where liberty is unknown, and power in all its shapes is despotic, knowledge must be veiled to be useful. The ear of a despot would be wounded by the expression of a direct truth; and genius itself must condescend to appear in that form in which alone its superiority would be tolerated."—As a confirmation of this, it is remarkable that Æsop and Phædrus, the most eminent Fabulists of antiquity, are both said to have been slaves. Indeed the apologue seems to be the most natural form in which a slave would convey reproof or instruction to his master.

It is to the East we must without doubt turn for the earliest Fables, and probably for many, if not most, of those which have been attributed to Æsop and others. Several have been distinctly traced through the modern and ancient nations of Europe to Hindostan, the chief well-head of Oriental literature. Nor is their transmission from such a distant source a whit more surprising than that of many of our arts, and much of our scientific and philosophical knowledge; which has been undoubtedly derived from the same remote quarter. On examining the subject, we learn that the Persians, a literary people, had much intercourse with India, even in the most ancient times, and they in turn were familiar with the Greeks, among whom the first European Fabulists appeared. It is thus obvious that the Greeks might obtain from the Persians a knowledge of what the latter had drawn from India. The Romans again derived their learning from the Greeks, and transmitted it to the various races which were in alliance with, or in subjection to them. For modern times, however, there was another and more immediate channel, not subjected to the same changes and revolutions, to the same capricious alterations or embellishments, as sometimes adorned and sometimes disfigured the fictions of the countrymen of Homer and of Virgil. The Arabians had greater intercourse with the Persians than any European people; they had also some dealings with India, and even with China; and it is easy to perceive that the popular Tales and Fables which they acquired from these sources, together with many of their own, would naturally be disseminated among the Europeans during the early Catholic pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the wars of the Crusaders; and still more so during the long and peaceful occupation by the Arabs of the most fertile provinces of Spain.

That a great number of our popular Fables have been so acquired becomes perfectly apparent, on a superficial examination of the circumstances to which they refer. The intrinsic evidence they afford of their origin, though probably altered considerably in the progress of transmission from one nation to another, is not to be mistaken, as relating to the peculiar manners, opinions and productions of the different countries in which they arose. Thus the Fable of the " Man and his two Wives," sec page 319, in which the elder wife deprives her husband of his black, and the younger of his white hairs, till he has none left, evidently originated in a country where polygamy was allowed, and was aimed at some of the absurdities and inconveniences of that practice. The numerous Fables extant about wolves and sheep, may be referred to a pastoral people, such as those of ancient Greece or Syria. To the Greeks of a later date, belong the Fable of "Mercury and the Statuary," and those in which the Gods are introduced with the attributes assigned to them by the poets. The apologues in which wild monkeys, apes, and elephants appear, may be ascribed to India; while those relating to camels and gazelles, seem referable to Arabia. Many of the Fables in which the nightingale is mentioned, may, in like manner, be traced to Persia, which is pre-eminently the land of the nightingale. Vegetable products mentioned in Fables, also indicate