For several hundred years Henryson was best known to audiences through The Testament of Cresseid, but in recent years The Morall Fabillis has drawn increasing critical attention. A collection of thirteen fables and a general prologue, the tales provide a broad perspective on fifteenth-century literary and social matters. As Dryden said of Chaucer, here as well is "God's plenty." The fables have engendered a number of critical debates. One of the earliest to emerge involves Henryson's biography. In "The Preaching of the Swallow," for instance, Henryson shows familiarity with the flax industry. Does this suggest that somehow he was directly involved with this trade during his lifetime? In similar fashion, "The Trial of the Fox" and "The Sheep and the Dog" show a pronounced knowledge of the Scottish legal system. This knowledge of Scottish law has been used to support the argument that Henryson himself was at least a notary and perhaps even a solicitor. Other poems in The Morall Fabillis seem to illustrate his knowledge of the court and the rhetoric of preaching. How do these matters reveal the personality and background of the poet? Biographical arguments have been advanced by a number of critics since Laing. Recently, however, they have been challenged by critics who apply New Critical approaches to Henryson's verse. These approaches suggest that we can draw few biographical inferences from the allusions in his poetry and that apparent references to contemporaneous events, such as the reign of James III, cannot be substantiated. Most notably, Lyall and Greentree have argued that many of the political and social elements in Henryson's Fabillis derive from the tradition of the beast fable and therefore cannot be used for biographical readings or even inferences about Henryson's attitude toward the issues of the day. Critical debate continues, but those interested in the subject should compare Henryson's perspectives with those of other contemporaneous sources. It is important to bring to the discussion of this issu