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126 the Oriental apologue can be excused, or even accounted for. It is the great merit of Mr. Rutherford that in the present work (which forms the first volume of a "Scriptores Fabularum Graeci") he has shown how completely untenable such theories are. In the second of his introductory dissertations, that on the history of the Greek fable, he argues for the existence among the Greeks of a body of traditional fable as far back as our means of investigation reach, and shows how during the fifth century B. C. it took literary form, so that by the beginning of the fourth century there had come into being a distinct fabulistic literature with which the name of Æsop was generally connected. Nothing, however, could be farther from the mind of the Greeks than to look upon the Æsopic fables as products of literature whose form and number had been fixed once and for all. They were, on the contrary, the great storehouse from which the orator, the comic poet, the publicist borrowed, as suited his fancy, illustration or apothegm, and the loan thus contracted in the course of ages was repaid with liberal interest. Fable was cut down into proverb, and proverb expanded into fable; hardly a feature of the life-history of the race but supplied the occasion for adding to the common stock of apologue. But mostly the schoolmaster by his persistent use of the fable as a stylistic exercise contributed to its free literary development and to its emancipation from any rules save those of literary fancy. This stage it had long since reached when Babrius compiled his collection, hence the utter uselessness of expecting anything, to use Mr. Rutherford's words, "that will shed any light upon the origins of fable." But the place of Babrius in literary history is not the less important on that account, and the appearance of a definite (pending the discovery of fresh MSS.) edition will be welcomed by all students.

Whether or not folk-etymology, as we suppose it must now be called, has produced any really important myths in the domain of folk-lore, certain it is that, as Mr. Palmer has abundantly shown, it has produced mythical superstitions; for this reason Mr. Palmer's most entertaining book will be welcomed by folk-lorists. The origin