PREFACE xi various lines of research together in the some- what elaborate introductory volume which I wrote to accompany my edition of Caxton's JEsopy published by Mr. Nutt in his Bibliotheque Je Carabas. I have placed in front of the present version of the " Fables," by kind permission of Mr. Nutt, the short abstract of my researches in which I there summed up the results of that volume. I must accompany it, here as there, by a warning to the reader, that for a large proportion of the results thus reached I am myself responsible ; but I am happy to say that many of them have been accepted by the experts in America, France, and Germany, who have done me the honour to consider my researches. Here, in England, there does not seem to be much interest in this class of work, and English scholars, for the most part, are content to remain in ignorance of the methods and results of literary history. I have attached to the " Fables " in the
