THE ÆSOPIAN FABLES. 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' SHAKESPEARE: _Hamlet_. It has been asserted that this same Æsop, if not a mythical personage, is at least credited with much more than is his due, and that it is only around his name that have clustered the various fables attributed to him, like rich juicy grapes round their central stalk, or, to use a more appropriate image, like swarming bees round a pendent branch. Others have endeavoured, with less or more feasibility, to prove that most of what are called Æsopian fables had their origin in the far East--'The inquisitive amongst the Greeks,' say they, 'travelled into the East to ripen their own imperfect conceptions, and on their return taught them at home, with the mixture of fables and ornaments of fancy'[29]--that the ideas first propounded in India and Arabia were thus carried westward; that Æsop appropriated them and gave them forth in a modified form and in a new dress. Scholars and investigators differ in their views regarding the truth, or the extent of the truth, of these allegations, and display much erudition in their attempts to settle the question. It would appear that Æsop has indubitably the credit of certain fables of which he was not the inventor, as they were in vogue at a period anterior to the era in which he flourished. It is equally proved, on the other hand, that genuine Æsopian or Grecian fables have been attributed to Eastern sources, and are found included in collections of Eastern fables compiled in the earlier years of the Christian era. All this is only what might be expected, and does not affect to any serious extent the credit for ingenuity and originality of either Æsop or other early fabulists. Doubtless Æsop did get some of the subjects of his fables from foreign sources, but he melted them in the crucible of his mind--he distilled their very essence, and handed us the precious concentrated spirit. If he had done nothing more, that was good. It is well known, of course, that there were fables of a very excellent kind before the time of Æsop. Amongst the Æsopian fables supposed to be borrowed from the Jātakas are _The Wolf and the Crane_, _The Ass in the Lion's Skin_, _The Lion and Mouse_, and _The Countryman, his Son and the Snake_. And Plutarch[30] asserts that the language of Hesiod's nightingale to the hawk (spoken three hundred years before the era of Æsop) is the origin of the beautiful and instructive wisdom in which Æsop has employed so many tongues. Thus: