A STAG, that had been drinking at a clear spring, saw himself in the water; and, pleased with the prospect, stood for some time contemplating and surveying his shape and features, from head to foot. "Ah!" says he, "what a glorious pair of branching horns are there! How gracefully do those antlers hang over my forehead, and give an agreeable turn to my whole face! If some other parts of my body were but proportionate to them, I would turn my back to nobody; but I have such a set of legs as really makes me ashamed to see them. People may talk what they please of their conveniences, and in what great need we stand of them, upon several occasions; but for my part, I find them so very slender and unsightly, that I had as well have none at all." While he was giving himself these airs, he was

alarmed with the noise of some huntsmen and a pack of hounds, that were making towards him. Away he flies in great consternation, and, bounding nimbly over the plain, threw dogs and men at a vast distance behind him. After which, taking a very thick copse, he had the ill-fortune to be entangled by his horns in a thicket; where he was held fast, till the hounds came in and pulled him down. Finding now how it was like to go with him, in the pangs of death, he is said to have uttered these words: "Unhappy creature that I am! I am too late convinced, that, what I prided myself in, has been the cause of my undoing; and what I so much disliked, was the only thing that could have saved me."

REFLECTION.

We should examine things deliberately, and candidly consider their real usefulness before we place our esteem on them; otherwise like the foolish Stag, we may happen to admire those accomplishments which are of no real use, and often prove prejudicial to us, while we despise those things on which our safety may depend.

THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE SNAKE.

A VILLAGER, in a frosty, snowy winter, found a Snake under a hedge, almost dead with cold. He could not help having compassion for the poor creature, so brought it home, and laid it upon the hearth, near the fire; but it had not lain there long, before it began to erect itself, and fly at his wife and children, filling the whole cottage with dreadful hissings. The Countryman, hearing an outcry, and perceiving what was the matter, took up a mattock, and soon dispatched him, upbraiding him at the same time in these words: "Is this, vile wretch, the reward you make to him that saved your life? Die, as you deserve; but a single death is too good for you."

REFLECTION.

good; and the moralists in all ages have incessantly declaimed against the enormity of this crime, concluding that they, who are capable of hurting their benefactors, are not fit to live in a community; being such, as the natural ties of parent, friend, or country, are too weak to restrain within the bounds of society. It was not at all unnatural in the Snake to hiss, and brandish his tongue, and fly at the first that came near him, as soon at the person that saved his life as any other; indeed more likely, because nobody else had so much to do with him. Nor is it strange at any time to see a reprobate person throwing his poisonous language about, and committing his extravagancies against those, more especially, who are so inadvertent as to concern themselves with him. The Snake and the reprobate will not appear extraordinary in their malevolence: but the sensible part of mankind cannot help thinking those guilty of great indiscretion, who receive either of them into their protection.

AN Ox, grazing in a meadow, chanced to set his foot among a parcel of young Frogs, and trod one of them to death. The rest informed their mother, when she came home, what had happened; telling her, that the beast which did it was the hugest creature that they ever saw in their lives. "What, was it so big?" says the old Frog, swelling and blowing up her speckled belly to a great degree. "Oh, bigger by a vast deal," say they. "And so big?" says she, straining herself yet more. "Indeed, mamma," say they, "if you were to burst yourself, you would never be so big." She strove yet again, and burst herself indeed.

REFLECTION.

Whenever a man endeavours to live equal with one of a greater fortune than himself, he is sure to share a

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