with the rest, he took another solitary walk in the same place as before. But the weather, being severe and frosty, had made every thing look with an aspect very different from what it did before; the brook was quite frozen over, and the poor Swallow lay dead upon the bank of it, the very sight of which cooled the young spark's brains, and coming to a kind of sense of his misery, he reproached the deceased bird, as the author of all his misfortunes. "Ah, wretch that thou wert!" says he, "thou hast undone both thyself and me, who was so credulous as to depend upon thee."

REFLECTION.

Some will listen to no conviction but what they derive from fatal experience.

Still blind to reason, nature, and his God,
Youth follows pleasure, till he feels the rod
Of sad experience, then bemoans his fate,
Nor sees his folly till it is too late.

THE ASS AND HIS MASTER.

A DILIGENT Ass, daily loaded beyond his strength by a severe Master, whom he had long served, and who fed him very sparingly, happened one day in his old age to be oppressed with a more than ordinary burthen of earthen-ware. His strength being much impaired, and the road deep and uneven, he unfortuately made a trip, and unable to recover himself, fell down and broke all the vessels to pieces. His Master, transported with rage, began to beat him most unmercifully. Against whom the poor Ass, lifting up his head as he lay on the ground, thus strongly remonstrated: "Unfeeling wretch! to thy own avaricious cruelty, in first pinching me of food, and then loading me beyond my strength, thou owest the misfortune which thou so unjustly imputest to

me."

REFLECTION.

Avarice often misses its point, through the means it

AN Eagle, from the top of a high mountain, making a dart at a Lamb, seized it, and bore it away to her young. A Crow, who had built her nest in a cedar near the foot of the rock, observing what passed, was ambitious of performing the same exploit: and darting from her nest, fixed her talons in the fleece of another Lamb. But neither able to move her prey, nor to disentangle her feet, she was taken by the Shepherd, and carried away for his children to play with; who, eagerly enquiring what bird it was:-" An hour ago," said he, "she fancied herself an Eagle; however, I suppose, she is by this time convinced that she is but a Crow."

REFLECTION.

To mistake our own talents, or over-rate our abilities,

is always ridiculous, and sometimes dangerous.