will ever bear a conspicuous place in the literary history of the
seventeenth century. The arguments of Dr. Bentley were yet
further defended a few years later by Mr. Thomas Tyrwhitt, a
well-read scholar, who gave up high civil distinctions that he
might devote himself the more unreservedly to literary pursuits.
Mr. Tyrwhitt published, A.D. 1776, a Dissertation on Babrias,
and a collection of his fables in choliambic meter found in a MS.
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Francesco de Furia, a learned
Italian, contributed further testimony to the correctness of the
supposition that Babrias had made a veritable collection of
fables by printing from a MS. contained in the Vatican library
several fables never before published. In the year 1844,
however, new and unexpected light was thrown upon this subject.
A veritable copy of Babrias was found in a manner as singular as
were the MSS. of Quinctilian's Institutes, and of Cicero's
Orations by Poggio in the monastery of St. Gall A.D. 1416. M.
Menoides, at the suggestion of M. Villemain, Minister of Public
Instruction to King Louis Philippe, had been entrusted with a
commission to search for ancient MSS., and in carrying out his
instructions he found a MS. at the convent of St. Laura, on
Mount Athos, which proved to be a copy of the long suspected and
wished-for choliambic version of Babrias. This MS. was found to
be divided into two books, the one containing a hundred and
twenty-five, and the other ninety-five fables. This discovery
attracted very general attention, not only as confirming, in a
singular manner, the conjectures so boldly made by a long chain
of critics, but as bringing to light valuable literary treasures
tending to establish the reputation, and to confirm the antiquity
and authenticity of the great mass of Aesopian Fable. The Fables
thus recovered were soon published. They found a most worthy