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The most successful of modern literary fabulists was the French poet Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). A famous critic has said that his fables delight the child with their freshness and vividness, the student of literature with their consummate art, and the experienced man with their subtle reflections on life and character. He drew most of his stories from Æsop and other sources. While he dressed the old fables in the brilliant style of his own day, he still succeeded in being essentially simple and direct. A few of his 240 fables may be used to good effect with children, though they have their main charm for the more sophisticated older reader. (See Nos. , , and .) The best complete translation is that made in 1841 by Elizur Wright, an American scholar. The following version is from his translation. Notice that La Fontaine has changed the goose to a hen.

The Hen with the Golden Eggs

LA FONTAINE

How avarice loseth all,
By striving all to gain,
I need no witness call
But him whose thrifty hen,
As by the fable we are told,
Laid every day an egg of gold.
"She hath a treasure in her body,"
Bethinks the avaricious noddy.
He kills and opens—vexed to find
All things like hens of common kind.
Thus spoil'd the source of all his riches,
To misers he a lesson teaches.
In these last changes of the moon,
How often doth one see
Men made as poor as he
By force of getting rich too soon!