Dennis was attempting to impose on the animal fable an alien style. From Aesop to Thurber, the chief strength of the fabulist has been his humility: by selecting animal stories as the guise for his moral lessons, he has hoped to disarm his readers into accepting the truth. This strategy would seem to rule out the style of low burlesque, for the impulse to this style--a dignified subject to be mocked out of its dignity--does not exist in the animal fable. In particular the _Fables_ of La Fontaine, perhaps the most graceful, concise, and witty ever written, do not respond well to the ferocious manner of Dennis. Dennis translating La Fontaine resembles a bull in a china shop. While Mandeville is no gazelle either, he has better manners than Dennis. The Butlerisms are still present, but they are not everywhere and they are not so grotesque. The difference between Dennis and Mandeville may be merely the interval of ten years, during which the influence of Butler had faded; but this seems unlikely, since Bond cites many examples of the continuing vogue of _Hudibras_, even well into the 1730's.[7] A more probable explanation for the difference is that, whereas Dennis was an avowed imitator of Butler who happened to be translating the _Fables_ of La Fontaine, Mandeville seems to have been in this work chiefly a translator of La Fontaine who was, incidentally, writing at a time when the impulse to copy Butler's superficial qualities was almost irresistible. The total number of Hudibrastic couplets in _Aesop Dress'd_ comes to only a handful: They'll give you a hundred Niceties, As Chicken Bones, boyl'd Loins of Mutton, As good as ever Tooth was put in.... * * * * * And therefore let my Lord _Abdomen_ Say what he will, we'll work for no Man. * * * * * A Cat, whose Sirname pretty hard was, One Captain _Felis Rodilardus_.... * * * * * Before the Reign of Buxom Dido, When Beasts could Speak as well as I do.... * * * * * The Truth is, it would be a hard Case, If all this should not mend one's Carcass.[8] Even these few unmistakable instances are less distracting than the ones in Dennis. Mandeville's verse is much like his prose: straightforward, downright, even in tone. Here are the first ten lines of Mandeville's "The Fox and Wolf": The Fox went on the search one Night, The Moon had hung out all her light; He sees her image in a Well; But what it was he could not tell; Gets on the Bricks to look at ease: At last concludes it is a Cheese: One Bucket's down, the other up, He jumps in that which was a-top, And coming to the Water, sees How little Skill he had in Cheese. La Fontaine has this: