ART. VIII. 1. Babri Fabulæ Æsopeæ cum Fabularum Deperditarum Fragmentis. Recensuit et breviter illustravit GEORGIUS CORNEWALL LEWIS, A.M. 1846.

2. Babri Fabulæ Æsopeæ. E Codice Manuscripto Partem Secundam nunc primum edidit GEORGIUS CORNEWALL LEWIS, A.M. 1859.

3. The Fables of Babrius. In Two Parts. Translated into English Verse by the Rev. JAMES DAVIES, M.A. 1860.

THE name of Babrius is one which for the last hundred and eighty years has been gradually becoming more and more significant to students of antiquity. That he was a fabulist of one or other of the Greek classical periods, who wrote in choliambic verse, was already evident from a few fragments preserved by lexicographers and grammarians. But the first to make him more than a name was Bentley, in a dissertation on the supposed fables of Æsop, appended to the first draught of the immortal work on Phalaris. In reducing the father of fable to a mere shadow, he showed that some of the substance which had invested him really belonged to Babrius, whose halfcorrupted choliambics might occasionally be traced through the prose versions of late paraphrasts. Tyrwhitt followed up the hint in a Dissertatio de Babrio,' published in 1776, detecting verses in a Bodleian MS. of the prose fables, and collecting all the remains of Babrius that were then extant. The publication, in 1809, of more prose fables belonging to an earlier version, from a Florentine MS., led to further choliambic discoveries, prosecuted in the first instance by Bishop Blomfield and Mr. Burges, though with different degrees of success, and afterwards by Sir George Lewis, whose coup d'essai, containing a collection of all the fables capable of entire restoration, appeared in 1832, in an elaborate paper in the Philological Museum. In 1835 a similar collection was published by a German scholar, Knoch, who appended the fragments, forming altogether a kind of variorum edition of all that had been written by or on Babrius up to that time. The year 1842 witnessed another discovery, much more important than any — that of an actual MS. of Babrius, containing a collection of fables supposed to have originally amounted to about 160, but now consisting of 123 fables and two short prefatory poems. discoverer, M. Mynas, a Greek, was employed by the French Government; and accordingly the duty of giving the new-found

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treasure to the world devolved on M. Boissonade, the patriarch of French scholarship. Other editions soon followed; and the list of editors or critics of Babrius now includes the names of Dübner, Orelli, Baiter, Fix, Ahrens, Lachmann, Meineke, the Hermanns, Schneidewin, and Sir George Lewis. In 1857 it was announced that M. Mynas had made yet another discovery; and two years later Sir George Lewis introduced to the public a Second Part of Babrius, containing an independent collection of ninety-four fables and a prefatory poem. As we shall soon see, there are reasons for doubting whether this Second Part affords a very favourable field for the display of English scholarship: but at any rate, it will be apparent that to English scholarship Babrius has already been greatly indebted. When he existed only in a fragmentary form, English scholars were his most felicitous restorers; and though when the MS. of the First Part was discovered, there was no Porsonian school in England to do the work of Lachmann and his friends, producing by joint labour an amended text in a short time, the accuracy, judgment, and fullness of information displayed in Sir George Lewis's edition, embodying as it does the chief results of continental criticism, entitle it to rank as the standard one.

The discovery of the First Part of Babrius made a substantive addition to the treasures we already possess in the remains of Greek poetical literature. Whatever the date of the fabulist -and dates of all kinds have been suggested, ranging from about 250 B.C. to as many years after the Christian æra - he certainly wrote in a time when the echoes of classical poetry had not yet died out. In terseness, point, and eloquence he is, we think, equal to Phædrus, whom indeed he sometimes excels in treating the same subject. Let our readers compare the two following versions of an old favourite, The Fox and the • Crow':

'Qui se laudari gaudent verbis subdolis
Sera dant pœnas turpes pœnitentia.
Cum de fenestra corvus raptum caseum
Comesse vellet, celsa residens arbore,
Hunc vidit vulpes, dehinc sic occepit loqui:
O qui tuarum, corve, pennarum est nitor!
Quantum decoris corpore et vultu geris!
Si vocem haberes, nulla prior ales foret.
At ille stultus, dum vult vocem ostendere,
Emisit ore caseum, quem celeriter
Dolosa vulpes avidis rapuit dentibus.
Tum demum ingemuit corvi deceptus stupor.'
(PHEDRUS, book i. fab. 13.)

Κόραξ δεδηχὼς στόματι τυρὸν εἱστήκει
τυροῦ δ ̓ ἀλώπηξ ἰχανῶσα κερδῴη
μύθῳ τὸν ὄρνιν ἠπάτησε τοιούτῳ·
κόραξ, καλαί σοι πτέρυγες, ὀξέη γλήνη,
θηητὸς αὐχήν· στέρνον ἀετοῦ φαίνεις·
ὄνυξι πάντων θηρίων κατισχύεις·
ὁ τοῖος ὄρνις κωφὸς ἐσσὶ κοὺ κρώζεις !
κόραξ δ ̓ ἐπαίνῳ καρδίην ἐχαυνώθη,
στόματος δὲ τυρὸν ἐκβαλὼν ἐκεκράγει.
τὸν ἡ σοφὴ λαβοῦσα κερτόμῳ γλώσσῃ,
Οὐκ ἦσθ ̓ ἄφωνος, εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ φωνήεις.
ἔχεις, κόραξ, ἅπαντα· νοῦς δέ σοι λείπει. *

(BABRIUS, part i. fab. 77.)

There is much quiet humour in the following, which seem either to have suggested or to have been suggested by Horace's 'Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti: Tempus abire tibi:'— Ζωμοῦ χύτρα μᾶς ἐμπεσὼν ἀπωμάστῳ, καὶ τῷ λίπει πνιγόμενος, ἐκπνέων τ ̓ ἤδη, Βέβρωκα, φησί, καὶ πέπωκα, καὶ πάσης τροφῆς πέπλησμαι καιρός ἐστί μοι θνήσκειν.

(Fab. 60.)

We subjoin Mr. Davies's version, which, though somewhat deficient in freedom, is commendably close to the original:'A mouse into a lidless broth-pot fell:

Choked with the grease, and bidding life farewell,
He said, "My fill of meat and drink have I,

"And all good things; 'tis time that I should die.""

The following, which is rather a poem than a fable, touches the mythological history of the swallow and the nightingale with an imaginative delicacy which may remind our readers of Shakspeare's lines :

'King Pandion, he is dead:

All thy friends are lapped in lead.'

̓Αγροῦ χελιδὼν μακρὸν ἐξεπωτήθη
εὐρεν δ' ἐρήμοις ἐγκαθημένην ύλαις
ἀηδόν ̓ ὀξύφωνον· ἡ δ ̓ ἀπεθρήνει

τὸν Ιτυν ἄωρον ἐκπεσόντα τῆς ὥρης.

One of the prose versions points to another reading of the last line, which we should prefer as more humorous: ἔχεις, κόραξ, ἅπαντα νοῦν μόνον κτῆσαι. Such variations are not uncommon, the citations in Suidas occasionally differing so much from the text of the MS. of Babrius, as to indicate the existence of a different recension. For an instance in which Phædrus's treatment of his subject is more successful than Babrius's, compare Phædr. iii. 7., with Babr., part i. fab. 99.

ἔκ τοῦ μέλους δ' ἔγνωσαν αἱ δύ ̓ ἀλλήλας·
καὶ δὴ προσέπτησάν τε καὶ προσωμίλουν.
ἡ μὲν χελιδὼν εἶπε· Φιλτάτη, ζῴεις ;
πρῶτον βλέπω σε σήμερον μετὰ Θρᾴκην.
ἀεί τις ἡμᾶς πικρὸς ἔσχισεν δαίμων·
καὶ παρθένοι γὰρ χωρὶς ἦμεν ἀλλήλων.
ἀλλ ̓ ἔλθ' ἐς ἀγρὸν καὶ πρὸς οἶκον ἀνθρώπων·
σύσκηνος ἡμῖν καὶ φίλη κατοικήσεις,
ὅπου γεωργοῖς κοὐχὶ θηρίοις ᾄσεις ·
ὕπαιθρον ὕλην λεῖπε, καὶ παρ' ἀνθρώποις
ὁμώροφόν μοι δῶμα καὶ στέγην οἴκει.
τί σε δροσίζει πηκτὸς ἔννυχος στίξη,
καὶ καῦμα θάλπει, πάντα δ ̓ ἀγρότιν τήκει;
ἄγε δὴ σεαυτὴν, σοφὰ λαλοῦσα, μήνυσον.
τὴν δ ̓ αὖτ' ἀηδὼν ὀξύφωνος ἠμείφθη
Έα με πέτραις ἐμμένειν ἀοικήτοις,
καὶ μή μ' ὀρεινῆς ὀργάδος σὺ χωρίσσης.
μετὰ τὰς ̓Αθήνας ἄνδρα καὶ πόλιν φεύγω·
οἶκος δέ μοι πᾶς κἀπίμιξις ἀνθρώπων
λύπην παλαιῶν συμφορῶν ἀναξαίνει.
παραμυθία τίς ἐστι τῆς κακῆς μοίρης
λόγος σοφὸς καὶ μοῦσα καὶ φυγὴ πλήθους·
λύπη δ ̓ ὅταν τις οἷς ποτ' ευθενῶν ὤφθη
τούτοις ταπεινὸς αὖθις ὢν συνοικήσῃ.

(Fab. 12.)

'Far from men's fields the swallow forth had flown,
When she espied among the woodlands lone

The nightingale, sweet songstress.

Was Itys to his doom untimely sent.

Her lament

Each knew the other through the mournful strain,
Flew to embrace, and in sweet talk remain.
Then said the swallow, "Dearest, liv'st thou still?
"Ne'er have I seen thee since thy Thracian ill;
"Some cruel fate hath ever come between;
“ Our virgin * lives till now apart have been.
"Come to the fields; revisit homes of men ;
"Come dwell with me, a comrade dear, again,

« Where thou shalt charm the swains, no savage brood:
« Dwell near men's haunts, and quit the open wood:
“ One roof, one chamber, sure, can house the two:
"Or dost prefer the nightly frozen dew

"And day-god's heat? a wild wood life and drear?
"Come, clever songstress, to the light more near."
To whom the sweet-voiced nightingale replied:

66

“ Still on these lonesome ridges let me bide,

Mr. Davies here apparently mistakes the sense, which seems to be, 4 Even when we were maidens, we lived apart from one another.

"Nor seek to part me from the mountain glen:
"I shun, since Athens, man and haunts of men:
"To mix with them, their dwelling-place to view,
"Stirs up old grief, and opens woes anew."

Some consolation for an evil lot

Lies in wise words, in song, in crowds forgot.
But sore the pang when where you once were great
Again men see you, housed in mean estate.'

(DAVIES.)

We have heard that this First Part of Babrius has been used as a class-book in one of our public schools, and we really think the example might be worth following. The subject matter ensures that the thoughts will be simple, while the language is just sufficiently difficult and characteristic to give that exercise which constitutes to a schoolboy one great advantage of a classical training. Some few forms of expression will require to be unlearnt when the student comes to compose in Attic Greek but the general character of the style is classical enough for all intents and purposes.

The Second Part purports to have been discovered under much the same circumstances as the First. Each professes to have been found in a monastery at Mount Athos,—whether in the same monastery we do not hear: in each case the monks made a difficulty about parting with their treasure, which accordingly reached Europe only in the form of a transcript. The difficulty in the case of the First, however, appears to have been only on the score of expense; and this M. Mynas was able to overcome in a subsequent visit, when he became the purchaser of the original. Of the MS. of the Second Part we hear only that the monks refused to part with it, and that M. Mynas brought away a facsimile, which, with the original MS. of the First Part, was sold by him to the authorities of the British Museum, in August, 1857. We understand that it was offered in the first instance to the French Government, the purchasers of the copy of the First Part, but that they disbelieved the story of the second discovery, and refused to buy. Sir George Lewis, however, as Mr. Davies tells us, had no doubt that the copy was what it professed to be made from a genuine archetype. Genuine or not, it is admitted on all hands that the Second Part is of far less value than the First. It professes to be not Babrius, but Babrius spoiled. The whole collection, from first to last, has passed through the hands of a 'diaskeuastes,' a scribbler who, apparently for his mere pleasure, has turned classical Greek into a barbarous jumble, and good choliambics into a kind of political verse, as it is technically called,— lines having the requisite number of syllables, but written with scarcely any