A FINE powdered Butterfly fell in love with a beautiful Rose, who expanded her charms in a neighbouring garden. Matters were soon adjusted between them, and they mutually vowed eternal fidelity. The Butterfly, perfectly satisfied with the success of his amour, took a tender leave of his mistress, and did not return again till noon. "What!" said the Rose, when she saw him approaching, "is the ardent passion you vowed, so soon extinguished? It is an age since you paid me a visit, But no wonder: for I observed you courting by turns every flower in the garden." "You little coquet," replied the Butterfly, "it well becomes you truly, to reproach me with my gallantries; when in fact I only copy the example which you yourself have set me. For, not to mention the satisfaction with which you admitted the kisses of the fragrant Zephyr did I not see you displaying your charms to the Bee, the Fly, the Wasp, and, in short, encouraging and receiving the addresses of every buzzing insect that fluttered within your view? If you will be a coquet, you must expect to find me inconstant." REFLECTION. We exclaim loudly against that inconstancy in another, to which we give occasion by our own. A COUNTRY Maid was walking very deliberately with a Pail of Milk upon her head, when she fell into the following train of reflections:-"The money for which I shall sell this milk, will enable me to increase my stock of eggs to three hundred. These eggs, allowing for what may prove addle, and what may be destroyed by vermin, will produce at least two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will be fit to carry to market about Christmas, when poultry always bear a good price: so that by May-day I cannot fail of having money enough to purchase a gown. Green-let me consider-yes, green becomes my complexion best, and green it shall be. In this dress I will go to the fair, where all the young men will strive to have me for a partner; but I shall perhaps refuse every one of them, and with an air of disdain toss from them." Transported with this triumphant thought, she could not forbear acting with her head what thus passed in her imagination, when down came the Pail of Milk, and with it all her imaginary happiness. REFLECTION. When men suffer their imagination to amuse them with the prospect of distant and uncertain improvements of their condition, they frequently sustain real losses, by their inattention to those affairs in which they are immediately concerned, A BEE, observing a Fly frisking about her hive, asked him, in a very passionate tone, what he did there? "Is it for such scoundrels as you," said she, "to intrude into the company of the queens of the air?" "You have great reason, truly," replied the Fly, "to be out of humour: I am sure they must be mad, who would have any concern with so quarrelsome a nation." "And why so? thou saucy thing," returned the enraged Bee; "we have the best laws, and are governed by the best policy in the world. We feed upon the most fragrant flowers, and all our business is to make honey: honey, which equals nectar, thou tasteless wretch, who livest upon nothing but putrefaction." "We live as we can," rejoined the Fly: "poverty, I hope, is no crime; but passion is one, I am sure. The honey you |