Excerpt from Fables of Æsop, and Others: Translated Into English, With Insructive Applications, And a Print Before Each Fable

So much has been already said concerning Æsop and his Writings, both by ancient and modern Authors, that the Subject seems to be quite exhausted. The different Conjectures, Opinions, Traditions, and Forgeries, which from time to lime we have had given us of him, would till a large Volume: But they are for the most part, so absurd and inconsistent, that it would be but a dull amusement for the Reader, to be led into such a Maze of Uncertainty: Since Herodotus the most ancient Greek Historian, did not flourish till near an hundred years after Æsop.

As for his Life, with which we are entertained in so complete a Manner, before most of the Editions of his Fables, it was invented by one Maximus Planudes a Greek Monk, and, if we may judge of him from that Composition, just as judicious and learned a person as the Rest of his Fraternity are at this day observed to be. Sure there never were so many Blunders and childish Dreams, mixt up together, as are to be met with in the short Compass of that Piece. For a Monk, he might be very good and wise, but, in point of History and Chronology, he shews himself to be very ignorant. He brings Æsop to Babylon in the Reign of King Lycerus a King of his own making, for his Name is not to be found in any Catalogue from Nabonasser to Alexander the Great, Nabonadeus most probably, reigning in Babylon about that Time.

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