"From what appears, how little do we know What others feel of happiness or woe!

Is vice your envy when of health possess'd,
With power, and pelf, and all externals blest?
Know that amidst that health, and power and pelf,
The thriving villain must abhor himself;
For who can bear, tho' desperately brave,
The voice of conscience when it calls him knave?
Or who so dull, without regret to miss

Of conscious goodness the substantial bliss?
Ask your own heart, and search thro' all you know,
Consult each various scene of life below,
All, all this universal truth attest,

The virtuous are, and can alone be blest."

T

I

FABLE XXI.

The Kite and Nightingale.

'LL try to mimic honest Gay,
Who had a very decent way;
A pleasant wight of simple sort,
For ever filliping the court.
Let courts be quiet, if they know
The happy knack of being so.
The pestilence flies everywhere,
Almost indefinite as air:

All places need the fanning breeze,
To dissipate the rank disease.

Vice-(not like beasts for show-confin'd)
Runs mad at large, and bites mankind:
Alike the taint infects the brain

Of those that dwell in court and plain :
The same wild fury acts the will
In different ways, with different skill.

A starving Kite, upon a bar (Worn out with long fatigues of war), Whose pointed claws, and hooked bill, Shew'd his profession was to kill, Thus grieving spoke in doleful strain: (Your heart will pity and disdain)—

"How blind is everything on earth! And how injurious to my worth! Tho' all the cote my sorrow see, No dove will help me with a pea : Hob's field they robb'd a month together, I never hurt a single feather;

The lark, whom I secure to rest

(I slew the snake that robb'd her nest),
Will not a little worm supply;
But would rejoice to see me die.
No crow invites me to a treat,
Tho' what I kill'd he often eat.
Man, were he grateful, would determine
My merit in destroying vermin;
And make me happy to the last,
In justice to my service past.
But man, that thankless wretch is he,
Prefers yon Nightingale to me."

"Alas! (the Nightingale replies)

I own my little merit lies

In innocence and tender cares
About my family affairs;

Or chaunting soft a pretty tale,
To please my neighbours of the vale;
Perhaps we gratitude may want,

Because you are too arrogant:

Your worth, display'd with all your skill,
Lies chiefly in omitting ill;

And only then for want of power
To seize the dove you would devour.
There's not a lark that flies, but knows
You long to grasp her in your claws.
The crow you never meant to treat;
You left him what you could not eat;
And man, who most a villain needs,
Detests you for your wicked deeds.
You pilfer duckling, game, and chicken,
Which furnish man with dainty picking.
There's not a poacher roams the wood,
But who would shoot you, if he could."

Just had he said; forth pops a spark, With gun and spaniel from the park ; The Kite he kens, with levell'd gun, And brings the bloody boaster down.

Thus justly villains are repaid,
Who follow mischief as a trade :
Who merit can pretend alone,
When cruel work is to be done,
To crush their kindred sort of men
With sword, with halter, or with pen ;
Whose hollow merit is, at best,

To seem the most, and be the least;
Who own no right, pursue no guide,
But only interest or pride;

Or both together do prefer,
To run most certainly to err.

Such always claim beyond their due,
And always think you wrong them too;

Do all the wrong, yet most complain,
Whene'er they spread the net in vain;
Or bait a hook that fails to catch
The simple trout for which they watch;
And innocence, with squint and frown,
Condemn for vices all their own.

FABLE XXII.

The Four Bulls.

RIENDSHIP! source of bliss sedate, Best balm for all the wounds of fate! 'Tis thine the sinking heart to raise, When love retires, and health decays; Unmix'd with thy sublimer fire, Love's but a fev'rish low desire, And ill the self-destroying flame Deserves that soft angelic name.