abused, as in the common practice of the world we find it is. But it stands firm however to the same tenor of life; as the Pigeon kept to the same house to lay her eggs in, whatever she lost by it.

In the evening of a summer's day, the Sun, as he descended behind the western hills, beheld a thick and unwholesome Vapour extending itself over the whole face of the valleys. Every shrub and every flower immediately folded up its leaves, and shrunk from the touch of this detested enemy. "Well hast thou chosen," said the God of day, "the hour of my departure, to • spread thy pestilential influence, and taint the beauties of the creation. Enjoy for a short space the notable triumphs of thy malignity. I shall return again with the morning, repair thy mischiefs, and put an end to thy existence. May the slanderer, in thy fate, discern his own, and be warned to dread the return of truth."

REFLECTION.

Truth, though vanished, returns again; slander is

THE Ant, or Pismire, was formerly a Husbandman, that secretly filched away his neighbour's goods and corn, and stored all up in his own barn. He drew a general curse upon his head for it, and Jupiter, as a punishment, and for the credit of mankind, turned him into a Pismire; but this change of shape wrought no alteration, either of mind, or of manners; for he keeps the same humour and nature to this very day.

REFLECTION.

When vicious inclinations are brought once, by custom and practice, to be habitual, the evil is desperate, for nature will be still true to herself, through all forms and disguises. And custom is a second nature. By the poetical fictions of men turned into the shape of beasts and insects, we are given to understand, that they do

effectually make themselves so, when they degenerate from the dignity of their kind: so that the metamorphosis is in their manners, not in their figure. When a reasonable soul descends to keep company in the dirt with ants and beetles, and to abandon the whole man to the sensuality of brutal satisfactions, he forfeits his peerage, and the very privilege of his character and creation; for he is no longer a man, that gives himself wholly up to the works of a beast.