FABLES AND FABULISTS.
Reading edition

MERCURY BESTOWING ON THE YOUTHFUL ÆSOP THE INVENTION OF THE APOLOGUE. (See page 43.)

FABLES AND FABULISTS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.
BY THOMAS NEWBIGGING, Author of 'The History of the Forest of Rossendale,' 'Old Gamul,' etc.
CHEAP EDITION.
LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1896. [All rights reserved.]
'I shall tell you A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it; But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture To stale't a little more.' Shakespeare: Coriolanus.
'He sat among the woods; he heard The sylvan merriment; he saw The pranks of butterfly and bird, The humours of the ape, the daw. 'And in the lion or the frog— In all the life of moor and fen, In ass and peacock, stork and log, He read similitudes of men.' Andrew Lang.
'The fables which appeal to our higher moral sympathies may sometimes do as much for us as the truths of science.'
Mrs. Jameson.
'The years of infancy constitute, in the memory of each of us, the fabulous season of existence; just as in the memory of nations, the fabulous period was the period of their infancy.'—Giacomo Leopardi.
