Page:Three hundred Aesop's fables (Townshend).djvu/14

viii the moral naturally flows, and with which it is intimately associated. "'Tis the simple manner," says Dodsley, "in which the morals of Æsop are interwoven with his fables that distinguishes him, and gives him the preference over all other mythologists. 'His Mountain delivered of a Mouse' produces the moral of his fable in ridicule of pompous pretenders; and his Crow, when she drops her cheese, lets fall, as it were by accident, the strongest admonition against the power of flattery. There is no need of a separate sentence to explain it; no possibility of impressing it deeper, by that load we too often see of accumulated reflections." An equal amount of praise is due for the consistency with which