Quam vertit exili stylo

Pedestre concinnans opus
Fandi Titianus artifex.

            _Ausonii Epistola_, xvi. 75–80.]


10 (return)
[ Both these publications are in the British Museum, and are placed in
the library in cases under glass, for the inspection of the curious.]


11 (return)
[ Fables may possibly have been not entirely unknown to the mediæval
scholars. There are two celebrated works which might by some be classed
amongst works of this description. The one is the “Speculum Sapientiæ,”
attributed to St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, but of a considerably
later origin, and existing only in Latin. It is divided into four
books, and consists of long conversations conducted by fictitious
characters under the figures the beasts of the field and forest, and
aimed at the rebuke of particular classes of men, the boastful, the
proud, the luxurious, the wrathful, &c. None of the stories are
precisely those of Æsop, and none have the concinnity, terseness, and
unmistakable deduction of the lesson intended to be taught by the
fable, so conspicuous in the great Greek fabulist. The exact title of
the book is this: “Speculum Sapientiæ, B. Cyrilli Episcopi: alias
quadripartitus apologeticus vocatus, in cujus quidem proverbiis omnis
et totius sapientiæ speculum claret et feliciter incipit.” The other is
a larger work in two volumes, published in the fourteenth century by
Cæsar Heisterbach, a Cistercian monk, under the title of “Dialogus
Miraculorum,” reprinted in 1851. This work consists of conversations in
which many stories are interwoven on all kinds of subjects. It has no
correspondence with the pure Æsopian fable.]


12 (return)
[ Post-mediæval Preachers, by S. Baring-Gould. Rivingtons, 1865.]


13 (return)
[ For an account of this work see the Life of Poggio Bracciolini, by
the Rev. William Shepherd. Liverpool, 1801.]


14 (return)
[ Professor Theodore Bergh. See Classical Museum, No. viii. July,
1849.]


15 (return)
[ Vavassor’s treatise, entitled “De Ludicrâ Dictione” was written A.D.
1658, at the request of the celebrated M. Balzac (though published
after his death), for the purpose of showing that the burlesque style
of writing adopted by Scarron and D’Assouci, and at that time so
popular in France, had no sanction from the ancient classic writers.
_Francisci Vavassoris opera omnia_. Amsterdam. 1709.]


16 (return)
[ The claims of Babrias also found a warm advocate in the learned
Frenchman, M. Bayle, who, in his admirable Dictionary, (_Dictionnaire
Historique et Critique de Pierre Bayle_. Paris, 1820,) gives additional
arguments in confirmation of the opinions of his learned predecessors,
Nevelet and Vavassor.]


17 (return)
[ Scazonic, or halting, iambics; a choliambic (a lame, halting iambic)
differs from the iambic Senarius in always having a spondee or trochee
for its last foot; the fifth foot, to avoid shortness of metre, being
generally an iambic. See Fables of Babrias, translated by Rev. James
Davies. Lockwood, 1860. Preface, p. 27.]


18 (return)
[ See Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations upon the Epistles of Phalaris.]


19 (return)
[ Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris, and Fables
of Æsop examined. By the Honourable Charles Boyle.]


20 (return)
[ M. Bayle thus characterises this Life of Æsop by Planudes, “Tous les
habiles gens conviennent que c’est un roman, et que les absurdités
grossières qui l’on y trouve le rendent indigne de toute créance.”
_Dictionnaire Historique_. Art. _Esope_.]