a tale, or feigned narration, designed either to instruct or divert, disguised under the allegory of an action, &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 the world. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any that have been made since. Nathan's fable of the poor man is next in antiquity. We find Æsop, in the most distant ages of Greece; and in the early days of the Roman commonwealth, we read of a mutiny appeased by the fable of the belly and the members. As fables had their rise in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greatest height; witness Horace, Boileau, and Fontaine.

is also used for the plot of an epic or dramatic poem; and is, according to Aristotle, the principal part, and, as it were, the soul of a poem. See Composition.