Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/15

The PREFACE. Another Man in my Place now, would perhaps take it for a Notable Stroke of Art, and Good Breeding, to Complement the Reader with Twenty Fooleries of Apology, and Excue, ''for uch an Undertaking: As if the Honetet and the mot Neceary Part of a Man's Life, and Bus'nes, were a thing to be Aham'd of. Now All that I have to ay upon this Common Place, is in Three Words, that I meant well in what I have done; and let the Performance be what it Will, I Comfort my elf yet in the Concience of a Good Intention. I hall not Charge any of My Failings upon the Importunity of my Friends though I have not Wanted Earnet and Powerful Intances and Encouragements to proceed upon This Work; over and above the Impule of a Natural Curioity and Inclination that led me to't. But thee were Temptations that I could Eaily have Reited, or put by, in favour of a Carcas that's in a manner, pat Labour; if it had not been for Another Motive, that I hall now tell the Reader in Confidence, and o Conclude.''

This Rhapody of Fables is a Book Univerally Read, and Taught in All our Schools; but almot at uch a rate as we Teach Pyes and Parrots, ''that Pronounce the Words without o much as Gueing at the Meaning of them: Or to take it Another way, the Boys Break their Teeth upon the Shells, without ever coming near the Kernel. They Learn the Fables by Leons, and the Moral is the leat part of our Care in a Child s Intitution: o that take Both together, and the One is tark Nonene, without the Application of the Other; beide that the Doctrine it elf as we have it, even at the Bet, falls Infinitely hort of the Vigour and Spirit of the Fable. To upply This Defect now, tve have had everal Englih Paraphraes and Eays upon Æop, and Divers of his Followers, both in Proe and Vere: the Latter have perchance Ventur'd a litte too far from the Precie Scope of the Author, upon the Priviledge of a Poetical Licene: And for the Other of Ancient Date, the Morals are o Inipid and Flat, and the Style and Diction of the Fables, o Coure and Uncouth, ''that they are rather Dangerous, than Profitable, as to the purpoe they we're Principally Intended for; and likely to do Forty times more Michief by the One then Good by the Other. An Emblem without a Key to't, is no more then a Tale of a Tub; ''and that Tale illily told too, is but One Folly Grafted upon Another. Children are to be Taught, in the firt Place, what they Ought to do. 2dly, The Manner of Doing it: And in the third Place, they are to he Inur'd, by the Force of Intruction and Good Example, to the Love and Practice of Doing their Duty; whereas on the Contrary, One Step out of the way in the Intitution, is enough to Poyon the Peace, and the Reputation of a whole Life. Whether I have, in this Attempt, Contributed or not, to the Emprovement of thee Fables, either in the Wording, or in the Meaning of''