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
evidence, from the use of the word Piraeus in describing the
harbour of Athens, a name which was not given till two hundred
years after Aesop, and from the introduction of other modern
words, that many of these fables must have been at least
committed to writing posterior to the time of Aesop, and more
boldly suggests Babrias as their author or collector.[16] These
various references to Babrias induced Dr. Plichard Bentley, at
the close of the seventeenth century, to examine more minutely
the existing versions of Aesop's Fables, and he maintained that
many of them could, with a slight change of words, be resolved
into the Scazonic[17] iambics, in which Babrias is known to have
written: and, with a greater freedom than the evidence then
justified, he put forth, in behalf of Babrias, a claim to the
exclusive authorship of these fables. Such a seemingly
extravagant theory, thus roundly asserted, excited much
opposition. Dr. Bentley[18] met with an able antagonist in a
member of the University of Oxford, the Hon. Mr. Charles Boyle,[19]
afterwards Earl of Orrery. Their letters and disputations on
this subject, enlivened on both sides with much wit and learning,