have been Planudes the monk, seems to have fertilized with his own inventive genius many tales which had themselves no better foundation than the conjectures derived from the tone and nature of the fables.  AEsop was represented as droll, as a sort of wit, and by a development of the connection in the mind between humour and the ludicrous, they gave him an infirm body, hesitating speech, and servile condition.  Improving the story, they said his figure frightened the servants of the merchant who bought him.  At the same time many clever tricks and speeches were attributed to him.  What we really glean from such stories is, that animal fables soon came to be regarded as humorous.  It is probable that some fabulist of the name of AEsop at one time existed, but we know nothing with certainty about his life, and many of the fables attributed to him were perhaps of older date.

The advance in the direction of humour, which was manifested in AEsop’s fictions, was also found in the opulent Ionian Sybaris.  This city, situated on the lovely Bay of Tarentum, was now at the height of its fame, the acknowledged centre of Greek luxury and civilization.  A reflection of oriental splendour seems to have been cast upon it, and we read of all kinds of extravagant and curious arrangements for the indulgence of ease and indolence.  Amid all this luxury and leisure, fancy was not unemployed.  We find that, like the former leaders of fashion in this country, they kept a goodly train of monkeys,[6] and anticipated our circus performances by teaching their horses to dance on their hind legs, an advance above practical joking and below pictorial caricature.  Moreover, intellectual entertainment was required at their sumptuous feasts, and genius was tasked to find something light and racy, maxims of deep significance interwoven with gay and fanciful creations.  There was not sufficient subtlety about these inventions to entitle them to the name of humour in our modern sense of the word; much complication was not then required, nor much laughter expected.  The “fables” of Sybaris seem to have been of a similarly philosophical cast to those of AEsop.  The following specimen is given in the Vespae, 1427.

“A man of Sybaris fell from a chariot, and, as it happened, had his head broken—­for he was not well acquainted with driving—­and a friend who stood by, said, ’Let every man practise the craft, which he understands.’”

We observe that these fables are not carried on through the assistance of our four-footed friends.  At Sybaris, conversation between men and the lower animals had begun to appear not only absurd, but to be improved upon and made with the evident intention of being humorous.  Hence, inanimate things were sometimes made to speak, and in succeeding fictions birds and beasts were given such special characteristics and requirements of men as could least have belonged to them.  As an example of this, we may refer to the Batrachomyomachia—­a