The PREFACE.
litical, or Perſonal Meanings; but Thoſe Capricious Fault-Finders, may as well pick a Quarrel with the Decalogue it ſelf, upon the ſame Pretence; if they ſhall come once to Apply to This or That Particular Wicked Man, the General Rules that are Deliver'd for the Government of Mankind, under ſuch and ſuch Prohibitions; as if the Commandments that Require Obedience and Forbid Murder, Uncleanneſs, Theft, Calumny, and the like, were to be Struck out of the Office, and Indicted, for a Libellous Innuendo upon All the Great Men that may come to be Concern'd in the Pains and Forfeitures therein Contain'd. In fine, 'tis the Conſcience of the Guilty, in All Theſe Caſes, that makes the Satyr. Here is enough ſaid, as to the Dignity, and Uſefulneſs of This way of Informing the Underſtanding what we Ought to do, and of Diſpoſing the Will to Act in a Conformity to That Perception of Things; having ſo Clear an Evidence of Divine Authority, as well as the Practice of the Beſt of Men, and of Times, together with the Current of Common Conſent, Agreeing all in favour of it. I ſhall now Wind up what I have to ſay, as to the Fables Themſelves, the Choice, the Intent, and the Order of them, in a very Few Words.
When I firſt put Pen to Paper upon This Deſign, I had in my Eye only the Common School-Book, as it ſtands in the Cambridge and Oxford Editions of it, under the Title of [Æſopi Phrygis Fabulæ; unà cum Nonnullis Variorum Autorum Fabulis Adjectis:] Propounding to my ſelf, at that Time, to follow the "very Courſe and Series of that Collection; and in One Word, to Try what might be done, by making the Beſt of the Whole, and Adapting Proper and Uſeful Doctrines to the ſeveral parts of it, toward the turning of a Excellent Latin Manual of Morals and Good Councels, into a Tolerable Engliſh One. But upon Jumbling Matters and Thoughts together and laying One thing by Another; the very State and Condition of the Ca{{ls}e before me, together with the Nature and the Reaſon of the Thing, gave me to Underſtand, that This way of Proceeding would never Anſwer my End. Inſomuch, that upon this Conſideration, I Conſulted other Verſions of the ſame Fables, and made my Beſt of the Choice. Some that were Twice or Thrice over, and only the ſelf-ſame Thing in other Words; Theſe I ſtruck out, and made One Specimen ſerve for the reſt. To ſay Nothing of here and there a Trivial, or a Looſe Conceit in the Medley, more than This; that ſuch as they are, I was under ſome ſort of Obligation to take them in for Company; and in ſhort, Good, Bad and Indifferent, One with Another, Po the Number in the Total, of 383. Fables. To theſe, I have likewiſe ſubjoyn'd a Conſiderable Addition of other Select Apologues, out of the moſt Celebrated Authors that are Extant upon that Subject, toward the Finiſhing of the Work. As Phædrus, Camerarius, Avienus, Neveletus, Apththonius, Gabrias, or Babrias, Baudoin, La Fontaine, Æſope en Belle Humeur, Audin, &c.
