128 



Under the class of Facetice several other metrical works 

 adorned with cuts, might be here brought under review, were 

 it not that by so doing we should transgress the limits which 

 we have prescribed to ourselves. A similar limitation must 

 also be put upon a large class published under the various 

 titles of Tables, Apologues, Dialogues of Creatures, etc., 

 which exercised the powers of many eminent artists as well as 

 scholars. But from these we are justified in making one nota- 

 ble exception, namely, the hundred fables of Gabriel Faerno, 

 a native of Cremona, which were first publislied at Rome, 

 A.D. 1564, accompanied with indifferent engravings, said to 

 be from the designs of Titian. These fables, written at the 

 request of Pope Pius the Sixth, for the instruction of youth, 

 were composed in pure and elegant Latin verse, with so much 

 success, that, when they appeared, their author was charged 

 with having found and fraudulently availed himself of the 

 unpublished works of Phsedrus, which in fact were not dis- 

 covered until more than twenty years after. This unjust 

 imputation was sanctioned and repeated by De Thou in his 

 celebrated history. Three years after the author's death the 

 Pope caused the work to be published. As soon as it ap- 

 peared it met with universal applause. It went through many 

 editions, and was translated by Charles Perrault into French 

 verse. Although many of the subjects are very similar to 

 those of Phsedrus, it must be acknowledged that he, as well 

 as all other Fabulists — antient and modern — have resorted to 

 one common fount, namely, the apocryphal Collection of the 

 Greek ^sop ; so that plagiarism can no more be imputed to 

 Faerno than to the others. From the figures in the first 

 edition above mentioned, it is said that the Designs for the 

 the Fountains at Versailles were imitated."^ 



* A collection of ^Esop's Fables was published by Francis Barlow in 16S7 (fol., 

 London), with excellent copperplate engravings by Thomas Dudley, a pupil of Hollar. 

 These, which give very accurate representations of the animals, render the book 

 valuable. The illustrative verses by Mrs. Behn are not possessed of much merit. 



