Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

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'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.

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CONTENTS.