Eginhart, who was secretary to Charles the Great, became exceeding popular by his behaviour in that post. His great abilities gained him the favour of his master, and the esteem of the whole court. Imma, the daughter of the emperor, was so pleased with his person and conversation, that she fell in love with him.' As she was one of the greatest beauties of the age, Eginhart answered with a more than equal return of passion. They stifled their flames for some time, under apprehension of the fatal consequences that might ensue. Eginhart at length resolving to hazard all, rather than live deprived of one whom his heart was so much set upon, conveyed himself one night into the princess's apartment, and knocking gently at the door, was admitted as a person who had something to communicate to her from the Emperor. He was with her in private most part of the night; but upon his preparing to go away about break of day, he observed that there had fallen a great snow during his stay with the princess. This very much perplexed him, lest the prints of his feet in the snow might make discoveries to the king, who often used to visit his daughter in the morning. He acquainted the princess Imma with his fears; who, after some consultations upon the matter, prevailed upon him to let her carry him through the snow upon her own shoulders. It happened that the Emperor not being able to sleep, was at that time up and walking in his chamber, when upon looking through the window he perceived his daughter tottering under her burthen, and carrying his first minister across the snow which she had no sooner done, but she

century, who obliged the world with many curious and learned works, and among the rest with Rerum Germanicarum Scriptores, &c. 3 Tom. 1600, &c. In this work he has inserted an old monastic chronicle which contains the following tale.-V. Tom. 1, chronicon Lavrishamensis Coenobii sub anno 805.-C.

1

This lady had been betrothed to the Grecian emperor. (Regi Graecorum Desponsata. Freher.)-C.

returned again with the utmost speed to her own apartment. The Emperor was extremely troubled and astonished at this accident; but resolved to speak nothing of it till a proper opportunity. In the mean time Eginhart knowing what he had done could not be long a secret, determined to retire from court; and in order to it begged the Emperor that he would be pleased to dismiss him, pretending a kind of discontent at his not having been reward ed for his long services. The Emperor would not give a direct answer to his petition, but told him he would think of it, and ap pointed a certain day when he would let him know his pleasure. He then called together the most faithful of his counsellors, and acquainting them with the secretary's crime, asked them their advice in so delicate an affair. They most of them gave their opinion, that the person could not be too severely punished who had thus dishonoured his master. Upon the whole debate, the Emperor declared it was his opinion, that Eginhart's punishment would rather increase than diminish the shame of his family, and that therefore he thought it the most advisable to wear out the memory of the fact, by marrying him to his daughter. Accordingly Eginhart was called in, and acquainted by the Emperor, that he should no longer have any pretence of complaining his services were not rewarded, for that the Princess Imma should be given him in marriage, with a dower suitable to her quality; which was soon after performed accordingly.'

L.

1 Bayle, who has inserted the foregoing story in his dictionary (art. Eginhart) whence perhaps Addison had it, thinks that with a little embellishment it might be made one of the pleasantest tales in the world, particularly in the hands of such a writer as La Fontaine. The frontispieces might afford a striking parallel between the effects of love, and the effects of piety; between Æneas loaded with his father, and Imma bending under her gallant, The good Emperor beholding her at a distance (as he was star-gazing) would not be the least interesting figure in the piece; especially if the engraver did but enter into the reflection of a careful father on such an occasion.-C.

FABLES were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world, and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made since that time. Nathan's fable of the poor man and his lamb is likewise more ancient than any that is extant, besides the above-mentioned, and had so good an effect, as to convey instruction to the ear of a king without offending it, and to bring the man after God's own heart to a right sense of his guilt and his duty. We find Æsop in the most distant ages of Greece; and if we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of Rome, we see a mutiny among the common people appeased by a fable of the belly and the limbs, which was indeed very proper to gain the attention of an incenssd rabble, at a time when perhaps they would have torn to pieces any man who had preached the same doctrine to them in an open and direct manner.' As fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greatest height. To justify this assertion, I shall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greatest wit and critic in the Augustan age; and of Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns: not to mention la Fontaine, who, by this

V. Livy, lib. 2, sect. 32. Florus, lib. i. c. 23.-C.

way of writing, is come more into vogue than any other author of our times.

The fables I have here mentioned, are raised altogether upon brutes and vegetables, with some of our own species mixt among them, when the moral hath so required. But, besides this kind of fable, there is another in which the actors are passions, virtues, vices, and other imaginary persons of the like nature. Some of the ancient critics will have it, that the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are fables of this nature; and that the several names of gods and heroes are nothing else but the affections of the mind in a visible shape and character. Thus they tell us, that Achilles, in the first Iliad, represents anger, or the irascible part of human nature. That upon drawing his sword against his superior in a full assembly, Pallas is only another name for reason, which checks and advises him upon that occasion; and at her first appearance touches him upon the head, that part of the man being looked upon as the seat of reason. And thus of the rest of the poem. As for the Odyssey, I think it is plain that Horace considered it as one of these allegorical fables, by the moral which he has given us of several parts of it.' The greatest Italian wits have applied themselves to the writing of this latter kind of fables; as Spencer's Fairy Queen is one continued series of them from the beginning to the end of that admirable work. If we look into the finest prose authors of antiquity, such as Cicero, Plato, Xenophon, and many others, we shall find that this was likewise their favourite kind of fable. I shall only further observe upon it, that the first of this sort that made any considerable figure in the world, was that of Hercules meeting with pleasure and virtue; which was invented by Prodicus, who lived

It can hardly be necessary to say that a juster appreciation of antiquity has led modern critics and historians to reject these fanciful interpretations.-G.

before Socrates, and in the first dawnings of philosophy. He used to travel through Greece by virtue of this fable, which procured him a kind reception in all the market towns, where he never failed telling it as soon as he had gathered an audience about him.'

After this short preface, which I have made up of such materials as my memory does at present suggest to me, before I present my reader with a fable of this kind, which I design as the entertainment of the present paper, I must in a few words open the occasion of it.

In the account which Plato gives us of the conversation and behaviour of Socrates, the morning he was to die, he tells the following circumstance.

When Socrates his fetters were knocked off (as was usual to be done on the day that the condemned person was to be executed) being seated in the midst of his disciples, and laying one of his legs over the other, in a very unconcerned posture, he began to rub it where it had been galled by the iron; and whether it was to shew the indifference with which he entertained the thoughts of his approaching death, or (after his usual manner) to take every occasion of philosophizing upon some useful subject, he observed the pleasure of that sensation which now arose in those very parts of his leg, that just before had been so much pained by the fetter. Upon this he reflected on the nature of pleasure and pain in general, and how constantly they succeed one another. To this he added, that if a man of a good genius for a fable, were to represent the nature of pleasure and pain in that way of writ

1 Lord Shaftesbury wrote a dissertation on this subject, which did not appear in English till after his death in the last edition of his works. It was published in the Dutch edition of the Journal des Scavans, Nov. 1712, p. 483, and translated by Mr. Coste, under the title of the Judgment of Hercules, or a Dissertation on a Painting, the design of which is taken from the history of Prodicus, which we find in Xenophon's Memorabilia So. eratis, lib. ii. Fr. Spect. tom. ii. p. 337, Dis. 53.-C.