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_Aesop embodies an epigram not uncommon in human history; his

fame is all the more deserved because he never deserved it. The

firm foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots at uncommon

sense, that characterise all the Fables, belong not him but to

humanity. In the earliest human history whatever is authentic is

universal: and whatever is universal is anonymous. In such cases

there is always some central man who had first the trouble of

collecting them, and afterwards the fame of creating them. He had

the fame; and, on the whole, he earned the fame. There must have

been something great and human, something of the human future and

the human past, in such a man: even if he only used it to rob the

past or deceive the future. The story of Arthur may have been

really connected with the most fighting Christianity of falling

Rome or with the most heathen traditions hidden in the hills of

Wales.