who make a bustle about their genealogy. If some in the world should be vain enough to think they can derive their pedigree from one of the old Roman families, and being otherwise destitute of merit, would fain draw some from thence; it might not be improper, upon such an occasion, to put them in mind that Romulus, the first founder of that people, was base born, and the body of his subjects made up of outlaws, murderers, and felons, the scum and off-scouring of the neighbouring nations, and that they propagated their descendants by rapes. As a man truly great shines sufficiently bright of himself, without wanting to be emblazoned by a splendid ancestry; so they, whose lives are eclipsed by foulness or obscurity, instead of showing to an advantage, look but the darker for being placed in the same line with their illustrious. forefathers. A SOLEMN Owl, puffed up with vanity, sat repeating her screams at midnight, from the hollow of a blasted oak. "And whence," cried she, "proceeds this awful silence, unless it be to favour my superior melody? Surely the groves are hushed in expectation of my voice; and when I sing, all nature listens." An Echo, resounding from an adjacent rock, replied immediately, "all nature listens." "The nightingale," resumed she, "has usurped the sovereignty by night; her note indeed is musical, but mine is sweeter far." The voice confirming her opinion, replied again, "is sweeter far." "Why then am I diffident," continued she; "why do I fear to join the tuneful choir ?" The Echo still flattering her vanity, repeated "join the tuneful choir." Roused by this empty phantom of encouragement, she on the morrow mingled her hootings with the harmony of the groves. But the tuneful songsters, disgusted with her noise, and affronted by her impudence, unanimously drove her from their society, and still continue to pursue her wherever she appears. REFLECTION. The vain hear the flatteries of their own imagination, and fancy them to be the voice of fame. A BEE complained to Jupiter, of the numerous evils to which her condition was exposed. Her body, she said, was weak and feeble, yet was she condemned to get her living by perpetual toil; she was benumbed by the cold of winter, and relaxed by the heat of summer. Her haunts were infested with poisonous weeds, and her flights obstructed by storms and tempests. In short, what with dangers from without, and diseases from within, her life was rendered one continual scene of anxiety and wretchedness. "Behold now," said Jupiter, "the frowardness and folly of this unthankful race! The flowers of the field I have spread before them as a feast, and have endeavoured to regale them with an endless variety. They now revel on odoriferous beds of thyme and lavender, and now on the still more SS fragrant banks of violets and roses. The business they complain of is the extraction of honey; and, to alleviate their toil, I have allowed them wings, which readily transport them from one banquet to another. Storms, tempests, and noxious weeds, I have given them sagacity to shun; and if they are misled, it is through the perverseness of their inclinations. But thus it is with Bees, and thus with men; they misconstrue the benevolence of my designs, and then complain that my decrees are rigid; they ungratefully overlook all the advantages, and magnify all the inconveniences of their station. But let my creatures pursue their happiness, through the paths marked out by nature; and they will then feel no pains, which they have not pleasures to compensate." REFLECTION. The pleasures of life would be a balance for the pains; did we not increase the latter by our own perverseness. |