Page:Three hundred Aesop's fables (Townshend).djvu/23

 Rh words in the common intercourse and daily conversation of the inhabitants of all countries.

This collection of Nevelet's is the great culminating point in the history of the revival of the fame and reputation of Æsopian Fables. It is remarkable, also, as containing in its preface the germ of an idea, which has been since proved to have been correct by a strange chain of circumstances. Nevelet intimates an opinion that a writer named Babrias would be found to be the veritable author of the existing form of Æsopian Fables. This intimation has since given rise to a series of inquiries, the knowledge of which is necessary, in the present day, to a full understanding of the true position of Æsop in connexion with the writings that bear his name.

The history of Babrias is so strange and interesting, that it might not unfitly be enumerated among the curiosities of literature. He is generally supposed to have been a Greek of Asia Minor, of one of the Ionic Colonies, but the exact period in which he lived and wrote is yet unsettled. He is placed, by one critic, as far back as the institution of the Achaian League, B.C. 250; by another as late as the Emperor Severus, who diedA.D. 235; while others make him a contemporary with Phædrus in the time of Augustus. At whatever time he wrote his version of Æsop, by some strange accident it seems to have entirely disappeared, and to have been lost sight of. His name is mentioned