umber of the
languages both of Europe and of the East, and have been read, and
will be read, for generations, alike by Jew, Heathen, Mohammedan, and
Christian. They are, at the present time, not only engrafted into the
literature of the civilized world, but are familiar as household words
in the common intercourse and daily conversation of the inhabitants of
all countries.

This collection of Nevelet's is the great culminating point in the
history of the revival of the fame and reputation of Aesopian Fables. It
is remarkable, also, as containing in its preface the germ of an idea,
which has been since proved to have been correct by a strange chain of
circumstances. Nevelet intimates an opinion, that a writer named Babrias
would be found to be the veritable author of the existing form of
Aesopian Fables. This intimation has since given rise to a series of
inquiries, the knowledge of which is necessary, in the present day, to a
full understanding of the true position of Aesop in connection with the
writings that bear his name.

The history of Babrias is so strange and interesting, that it might
not unfitly be enumerated among the curiosities of literature. He is
generally supposed to have been a Greek of Asia Minor, of one of the
Ionic Colonies, but the exact period in which he lived and wrote is
yet unsettled. He is placed, by one critic,[14] as far back as the
institution of the Achaian League, B.C. 250; by another as late as the
Emperor Severus, who died A.D. 235; while others make him a contemporary
with Phaedrus in the time of Augustus. At whatever time he wrote his
version of Aesop, by some strange accident it seems to have entirely
disappeared, and to have been lost sight of. His name is mentioned by
Avienus; by Suidas, a celebrated critic, at the close of the eleventh
century, who gives in his lexicon several isolated verses of his
version of the fables; and by John Tzetzes, a grammarian and poet of
Constantinople, who lived during the latter half of the twelfth century.
Nevelet, in the preface to the volume which we have described, points
out that the Fables of Planudes could not be the work of Aesop, as they
contain a reference in two places to "Holy monks," and give a verse
from the Epistle of St. James as an "Epimith" to one of the fables, and
suggests Babrias as their author. Francis Vavassor,[15] a learned French
jesuit, entered at greater length on this subject, and produced further
proofs from internal e