In such repute have the Æsopian fables always been held, that the most learned men in all ages have occupied themselves in translating and transcribing them. Socrates relieved his prison hours in turning some of them into verse.[34] In the days of ancient Greece, not to be familiar with Æsop was a sign of illiteracy.[35]
We have seen how other of the ancients collected and disseminated them. Coming down to later times, one of the first printed collections was by Bonus Accursius (1489,) from a MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. To this was prefixed the Life by Planudes, written a century before. Another edition of the same was published by Aldus in 1505. The edition of Robert Stephens, published in Paris in 1546, followed; then came the enlarged collection by Neveletus, from the Heidelberg Library, in 1610. Later, Gabriele Faerno's 'One Hundred Fables' are Æsop given in Latin verse. So also with most of the collections by modern fabulists, La Fontaine, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Dr. Samuel Croxall, La Motte, Richer, Brettinger, Bitteux—they are all largely Æsop, with added pieces of later invention.
'Æsop has been agreed by all ages since his era for the greatest Master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original.'[36]
Of the popularity of Æsop's fables in book form during last century and the beginning of this, we can scarcely form any conception in these days of cheap literature in such variety and excellence. Along with the Bible and 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Æsop may be said to have occupied a place on the meagre bookshelf of almost every cottage.
The editions of Æsop in English are innumerable, but the most noteworthy, in the different epochs from the age of the invention of printing downwards have been: Caxton's collection (1484); the one by Leonard Willans (1650); that by John Ogilby (1651); Sir Roger L'Estrange's edition (1692); Dr. Croxall's collection (1722); that of Robert Dodsley (1764); and the Rev. Thomas James's Æsop (1848).
It is remarkable that the majority of those who have busied themselves in translating and editing Æsop have won fame and (shall we say?) immortality through that circumstance alone. Take the names in order of time, and it will be seen that the men are remembered chiefly or only (most of them) by reason of their association with the Æsopian fables: Demetrius Phalereus, Phædrus, Babrius, Avienus, Planudes, Bonus Accursius, Neveletus, even down to La Fontaine, L'Estrange,[37] Croxall, and James. The Æsopian fable has indeed a perennial life, and its votaries have rendered themselves immortal by association therewith.
Writers of much erudition, and in many countries, have vied with each other in learned research in this branch of literature, and in endeavours to trace the history of fable. Among the French we have Pierre Pithou (1539-96), editor of the first printed edition of Phædrus; Bachet de Meziriac, who wrote a life of Æsop (1632); Boissonade, Robert, Edelestand du Meril (1854); Hervieux and Gaston Paris. Of German writers there are Lessing, Fausboll, Hermann Oesterley, Mueller, Wagener, Heydenreich, Otto Crusius (1879), Benfey, Mall, Knoell, Gitlbauer; Niccolo, Perotti, Archbishop of Siponto (1430-80), and Jannelli, among the Italians; amongst Jewish writers, Dr. Landsberger. Of English writers we have Christopher Wase, Alsop, Boyle, Bentley, Tyrwhitt, Rutherford, James, Robinson Ellis, Rhys-Davids, G. F. Townsend, and last but not least, Joseph Jacobs, in his scholarly 'History of the Æsopic Fable.'
