THE
PREFACE
WE have had the Hiſtory of Æſop ſo many times over and over, and dreſt-up ſo many ſeveral Ways; that it would be but Labour Loſt to Multiply Unprofitable Conjectures upon a Tradition of ſo Great Uncertainty. Writers are divided about him, almoſt to all manner of purpoſes: And particularly concerning the Authority, even of the greater part of Thoſe Compoſitions that paſs the World in his Name: For, the Story is come down to us ſo Dark and Doubtful, that it is Impoſſible to Diſtinguiſh the Original from the Copy: And to ſay, which of the fables are Æſops, and which not; which are Genuine, and which Spurious: Beſide, that there are divers Inconſiſtencies upon the Point of Chronology, in the Account of his Life, (as Maximus Planudes, and others have Deliver'd it) which the whole Earth can never Reconcile. Vavaſor the Jeſuite, in a Tract of his, de Ludicra Dictione, takes Notice of ſome four of five Gross Miſtakes of This Kind. [Planudes (ſays he) brings Æſop to Babylon, in the Reign of Lyceus; where there was never ſuch a Prince heard of, from Nabonaſſar (the first King of Babylon) to Alexander the Great. He tells alſo of his going into Ægypt in the Days of King Nectenabo; which Nectenabo came not into the World till well nigh Two Hundred Years after him. And ſo he makes him Greet his Miſtreſs upon his firſt Entrance into his Master's House, with a Bitter Sentence againſt Women out of Eruipides; (as he pretends) when yet Æſop had been Dead, a matter of Fourſcore Years, before T'other was Born. And once again, He brings him in, Talking of the Pyrœan port, in his Fable of the Ape and the Dolphin: A Port, that the very Name on't was never thought of, till about the Seventy Sixt Olypiad: And Æſop was Murder'd, in the Four and Fifti'th.] This is enough in All Conſcience, to Excuſe any Man from laying over-much Streſs upon the Hiſtorical Credit of a Relation, that comes ſo Blindly, and ſo Variouſly Tranſmitted to us: Over and above, that is not one jot to our Bus'neſs (further than to Gratify an Idle Curioſity) whether the Fact be True or Falſe; whether the Man was Streight, or Crooked; and his Name, Æſop, or (as some will have it) Lochman: In All which Caſes, the Reader is left at Liberty to Believe his Pleaſure. We are not here upon the Name, the Perſon, or the Ad-ventures
