A NURSE, who was endeavouring to quiet a froward bawling child, among other attempts, threatened to throw it out of doors to the Wolf, if it did not leave off crying. A Wolf, who chanced to be prowling near the door just at that time, heard the expression, and believing the woman to be in earnest, waited a long while about the house, in expectation of seeing her words made good, But at last the child, wearied with its own importunities, fell asleep, and the poor Wolf was forced to return back to the woods empty and supperless. The Fox meeting him, and surprised to see him going home so thin and disconsolate, asked him what was the matter, and how he came to speed no better that night? "Ah! do not ask me," says he; "I was so silly as to believe what the Nurse said, and have been disappointed." REFLECTION. All the moralists have agreed to interpret this fable as a caution to us never to trust a woman. What reasons they could have for giving so rough and uncourtly a precept, is not easy to be imagined: for however fickle and unstable some women may be, it is well known there are several who have a greater regard for truth in what they assert or promise than most men. There is not room in so short a compass, to express a due concern for the honour of the ladies upon this occasion, nor to show how much one is disposed to vindicate them: and though there is nothing bad which can be said of them, but may, with equal justice, be averred of the other sex; yet one would not venture to give them quite so absolute a precaution as the old mythologists have affixed to this fable, but only to advise them to consider well and thoroughly of the matter, before they trust any man living. A MULE, which was well fed, and worked little, grew fat and wanton, and frisked about very notably. "And why should not I run as well as the best of them?" says he: "it is well known, I had a horse to my father, and a very good racer he was." Soon after this, his master took him out, and being upon urgent business, whipped and spurred the Mule, to make him put forward; who, beginning to tire upon the road, changed his note, and said to himself, "Ah! where is the horse's blood you boasted of but now? I am sorry to say it, friend, but indeed your worthy sire was an ass, and not a horse." REFLECTION. However high their blood may beat, one may venture to affirm those to be but mongrels, and asses in reality, 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 |