INTRODUCTION. xi. 



estimation. They were translated from the Persian and 

 Arabian into Greek, by Simeon Seth, a man of great 

 learning, who was an officer of the imperial household at 

 Constantinople about the year 1070. Seth's Version was 

 imitated in Latin by Piers Alfonse, a converted Jew, as 

 early as the year 1107; and this is supposed to have 

 been the first version of Pilpay's Apologues that made 

 its way, and became familiarized in Europe. The time 

 in which Pilpay lived, seems not to be certainly known 

 to the learned; but some of them suppose that the Fables 

 of /Esop and others were grounded upon his models. The 

 time in which /Esop lived is better ascertained, and of all 

 the Fabulists who have amused and instructed mankind 

 by their writings, his name stands pre-eminent. Authors 

 fix his birth-place at Cotieum, in Phrygia Major. But 

 the history of this remarkable person, who lived about 572 

 years before Christ, and about 100 years before Herodotus, 

 the Greek Historian, has been so involved in mystery, 

 traditionary stories, and absurd conjectures, that any 

 attempt to give a detail from such materials, would only 

 serve to bewilder youth, and lead them into a labyrinth 

 of error ; and it would be impertinent to trouble the learned 

 rea ler with that which must be sufficiently familiar to 

 him.* The whole of the absurd fictions concerning this wise 

 and amiable man, were invented by Maximus Planudes, a 

 Greek monk.f Plutarch, and other authentic historians, % 

 have, however, given a very different account of the illustrious 



* The curious enquirer is referred to the Essay on the yEsopean 

 Fable, by Sir Brooke Boothby, Bart., from which this sketch is 

 extracted. 



t Planudes lived at Constantinople in the i4th century. His 

 Fables were printed at Milan, A.D. 1480. 



t The first person who took great pains to detect and expose the 

 follies and absurdities of Planudes's Life of .^Esop, and collected what 

 could be known, was Bachet de Mezeriac, a man of great learning, 

 who flourished about the year 1632. 



