A BEGGAR and his Dog sat at the gate of a noble courtier, and were preparing to make a meal on a bowl of fragments from the kitchen maid. A poor Dependent of his Lordship's, who had been sharing the singular favour of a dinner at the steward's table, was struck with the appearance, and stopped a little to observe them. The Beggar, hungry and voracious as any courtier in Christendom, seized with greediness the choicest morsels, and swallowed them himself; the residue was divided into portions for his children. scrag was thrust into one pocket for honest Jack, a crust into another for bashful Tom, and a luncheon of cheese was wrapt up with care for the little favourite of his hopeful family. In short, if any thing was thrown to the Dog, it was a bone so closely picked, that it scarce afforded a pittance to keep life and soul K A together. "How exactly alike," said the Dependent, "is this poor Dog's case and mine! He is watching for a dinner from a master who cannot spare it; I for a place from a needy Lord, whose wants, perhaps, are greater than my own, and whose relations are more clamorous than any of this Beggar's brats. Shrewdly was it said by an ingenious writer, a Courtier's Dependent is a Beggar's Dog."" REFLECTION. 'Tis misery to depend upon patrons, whose circumstances make their charity necessary at home. "WHERE'S the honour, or the pleasure in the world,” says the Fly, in a dispute for pre-eminence with the Ant, "that I have not my part in? Are not all temples and places open to me? Am not I the taster to gods and princes in all their sacrifices and entertainments? And all this without either money or pains? I trample upon crowns, and kiss what ladies lips I please. And what have you now to pretend to all this while?" "Vain boaster!" says the Ant, "dost thou not know the difference between the access of a guest, and that of an intruder? for people are so far from liking your company, that they kill you as soon as they catch you. You are a plague to them wherever you come. Your very breath has maggots in it; and for the kiss you brag of, what is it. but the perfume of the last dunghill you touched upon, once removed? For my part, I live upon what's my own, and work honestly in the summer to maintain myself in the winter; whereas the whole course of your scandalous life is only cheating or sharping one half of the year, and starving the other." REFLECTION. The happiness of life does not lie so much in enjoying small advantages, as in living free from great inconveniences. An honest mediocrity is the happiest state a man can wish for. A PROUD pampered Horse bedecked with gaudy trappings, met in his course a poor creeping Ass, under a heavy burden, that had fallen into the same track with him. "Why, how now, sirrah," says he, "do you not see by these arms and trappings to what master I belong? And do you not understand, that when I have that master of mine upon my back, the whole weight of the state rests upon my shoulders? Out of the way, thou slavish insolent animal, or I'll tread thee to dirt." The wretched Ass immediately slunk aside, with this envious reflection between his teeth, "what would I give to change conditions with that happy creature there!" This fancy kept in his head till it was his lot, a little while after, to see this very Horse doing drudgery in a common coalcart. Why, how now, friend," says the Ass, "how 66 |