We have seen what opinion the ancients had of our Author, and his writings. Now, as to the manner of conveying instruction by Fables in general, though many good vouchers of antiquity sufficiently recommend it, yet to avoid tiring the reader's patience, I shall wave all quotations from thence, and lay before him the testimony of a modern; whose authority, in point of judgment, and consequently, in the present case, may be as readily acknowledged as that of any ancient of them all. "Fables[4]," says Mr. Addison, "were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world; and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's Fable of the Trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made since that time. Nathan's Fable of the poor Man and his Lamb, is likewise more ancient than any that is extant, besides the above-mentioned, and had so good an effect, as to convey instruction to the ear of a king, without offending it, and to bring the man after God's own heart to a right sense of his guilt, and his duty. We find Æsop in the most distant ages of Greece. And, if we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of Rome, we see a mutiny among the common people appeased by the Fable of the Belly and the Members[5]; which was indeed very proper to gain the attention of an incensed rabble, at a time, when, perhaps, they would have torn to pieces any man who had preached the same doctrine to them, in an open and direct manner. As Fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greatest height. To justify this assertion, I shall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greatest wit and critic in the Augustan age; and of Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns; not to mention La Fontaine, who, by this way of writing, is come more into vogue than any other author of our times." After this, he proceeds to give some account of that kind of Fable in which the passions, and other imaginary beings, are actors; and concludes with a most beautiful one of that sort, of his own contriving. In another place, he gives us a translation from Homer of that inimitable Fable comprised in the interview between Jupiter and Juno, when the latter made use of the girdle of Venus, to recall the affection of her husband; a piece never sufficiently to be recommended to the perusal of such of the fair sex, as are ambitious of acquitting themselves handsomely in point of conjugal complacence. But I must not omit the excellent Preface, by which the Fable is introduced, "Reading is to the mind[6]," says he, "what exercise is to the body: as by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated; by the other virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed. But, as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use