ull
Assembly, _Pallas_ is only another Name for Reason, which checks and
advises him upon that Occasion; and at her first Appearance touches him
upon the Head, that Part of the Man being looked upon as the Seat of
Reason. And thus of the rest of the Poem. As for the Odyssey, I think it
is plain that _Horace_ considered it as one of these Allegorical Fables,
by the Moral which he has given us of several Parts of it. The greatest
_Italian_ Wits have applied themselves to the Writing of this latter
kind of Fables: As _Spencer's Fairy-Queen_ is one continued Series of
them from the Beginning to the End of that admirable Work. If we look
into the finest Prose Authors of Antiquity, such as _Cicero_, _Plato_,
_Xenophon_, and many others, we shall find that this was likewise their
Favourite Kind of Fable. I shall only further observe upon it, that the
first of this Sort that made any considerable Figure in the World, was
that of _Hercules_ meeting with Pleasure and Virtue; which was invented
by _Prodicus_, who lived before _Socrates_, and in the first Dawnings of
Philosophy. He used to travel through _Greece_ by vertue of this Fable,
which procured him a kind Reception in all the Market-towns, where he
never failed telling it as soon as he had gathered an Audience about
him. [4]

After this short Preface, which I have made up of such Materials as my
Memory does at present suggest to me, before I present my Reader with a
Fable of this Kind, which I design as the Entertainment of the present
Paper, I must in a few Words open the Occasion of it.

In the Account which _Plato_ gives us of the Conversation and Behaviour
of _Socrates_, the Morning he was to die, he tells the following
Circumstance.

When Socrates his Fetters were knocked off (as was usual to be done on
the Day that the condemned Person was to be executed) being seated in
the midst of his Disciples, and laying one of his Legs over the other,
in a very unconcerned Posture, he began to rub it where it had been
galled by the Iron; and whether it was to shew the Indifference with
which he entertained \the Thoughts of his approaching Death, or (after
his usual Manner) to take every Occasion of Philosophizing upon some
useful Subject, he observed the Pleasure of that Sensation which now
arose in those very Parts of his Leg, that just before had been so much
pained by the Fetter. Upon this he reflected on the Nature of Pleasure
and Pain in general, and how constantly they