
Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

It is a remarkable circumstance in connection with the literature of fable, that those who have excelled in it are comparatively few. The principal names that occur to us are Æsop, La Fontaine, Gay, Lessing, Krilof; 'the rest are all but leather or prunello,' if we except a few rare examples from Northcote and Cowper. The composition of fables seem
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Humour in the fable is the gilding of the pill. It is like the effervescing quality in champagne, the subtle flavour in old port.
Thomas Newbigging • Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern
Humour in the fable is the gilding of the pill. It is like the effervescing quality in champagne, the subtle flavour in old port.
Thomas Newbigging • Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern
'Satire,' says an acute writer,[16] 'is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.'
Thomas Newbigging • Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern
Pictures illustrating fables are a feature that tends to enhance their attractiveness and value, and the ablest artists have employed their pencils in the work. It is sufficient to mention Bewick and his pupils, whose illustrations are greatly prized. S. Howitt's etchings of animals in illustration of the fabulists (1811). Northcote's original volu
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The humour of a good fable is a fine lubricant to the temper. Sarcasm, irony, even direct criticism, are in place in the fable, but humour is its saving grace. Without this it cannot be classed in the first order. Wanting in this quality, the fables of some writers who have attempted them are flat, stale and unprofitable. Humour in the fable is the
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The 'Panca Tantra' is a collection of Hindoo fables, the supposed author of which was Vishnu Sarman, and this is believed to be the source of 'The Fables of Pilpay' or Bidpaī, which are undoubtedly of Indian origin. The transformation which these latter have experienced in their progress down the ages, chiefly by reason of their having been transla
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The very indirectness of the fable had the effect of making the sinner his own accuser. Whom the cap fitted was at liberty to don it.
Thomas Newbigging • Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern
The 'Panca Tantra' is a collection of Hindoo fables, the supposed author of which was Vishnu Sarman, and this is believed to be the source of 'The Fables of Pilpay' or Bidpaī, which are undoubtedly of Indian origin. The transformation which these latter have experienced in their progress down the ages, chiefly by reason of their having been transla
... See more