[58] Scott's 'Lay of the Last Minstrel.'
[59] The opposite of this has been said, but without good reason. The number and variety of his productions attest his industry.
CHAPTER XIII.
MODERN FABULISTS: DODSLEY, NORTHCOTE.
'A tale may find him who a sermon flies.'
George Herbert.
Robert Dodsley, born at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 1703, died at Durham, December 25, 1764, buried in the abbey churchyard there, author of 'The Economy of Human Life' and other estimable works, compiled a volume of fables (1761). This was the favourite collection in this country at the end of last and the beginning of the present century. The contents of the volume are in three parts, and comprise 'Ancient Fables,' 'Modern Fables,' and 'Fables Newly Invented.' The first two divisions of the volume are Æsopian in character. The fables contained in the last were not all written by Dodsley, some of them being contributed, as he states in his preface, 'by authors with whom it is an honour to be connected, and who having condescended to favour him with their assistance, have given him an opportunity of making some atonement for his own defects.' It is to be regretted that he did not give the names of the authors referred to. The work contains a life of Æsop 'by a learned friend' (no name given),[60] and an excellent, though somewhat pedantic, 'Essay on Fable.'
The following are three original fables from Dodsley's collection: