kill him. He understood, we are
told, the language of animals, and was afterwards transformed into a
bull. Greek tradition as recorded by Plato, Xenophon, Babrius, and
others, speaks of an early golden age in which men and animals held
colloquies together "as in our fables;" whence we should conclude this
much--that there was a time when poets very commonly introduced them as
holding conversations, and when philosophers illustrated their doctrines
from the animal world.

The fable, we are told, was "an invention of ancient Assyrian men in the
days of Ninus and Belus," and in confirmation of its Eastern origin, we
may observe that the apologues of Lokman are of Indian derivation. He is
supposed, by Arabian writers, to have been either a nephew of Abraham or
Job, or a counsellor of David or Solomon.

The first specimen we have of an ordinary fable, _i.e._, of one in which
the interlocutors are lower animals, is found in Hesiod, who is placed
about a century after Homer. It runs thus:--

"Now I will tell the kings a fable, which they will understand of
themselves. Thus spake the hawk to the nightingale, whom he was carrying
in his talons high in air, 'Foolish creature! why dost thou cry out? One
much stronger than thou hath seized thee, though thou art a songster. I
can tear thee to pieces, or let thee go at my pleasure.'"

But fables do not come fully under our view until they are connected
with the name of AEsop, who is said to have introduced them into Greece.
In general his fables pretend to nothing more than an illustration of
proverbial wisdom, but in some cases they proceed a step farther, and
show the losses and disappointments which result from a neglect of
prudent considerations. It cannot be denied that there is something
fanciful and amusing in these fables, still there is not much in them to
excite laughter--they are not sufficiently direct or pungent for that.
The losses or disappointments mentioned, or implied, give a certain
exercise to the feelings of opposition in the human breast, and if they
are supposed to be such as could not easily have been foreseen, we
should regard the narratives as humorous. But this is scarcely the
case; the mishaps arise simply and directly from the situations, and
are related with a view to the inculcation of truth, rather than the
exhibition of error. Hence the basis is different from that in genuine
humour, and the complication is small. Still the object evidently was to