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

make is sweet, I grant you; but your heart is all bitterness: for to be revenged on an enemy, you will destroy your own life; and are so inconsiderate in your rage, as to do more mischief to yourselves than to your adversary. Take my word for it, one had better have less considerable talents, and use them with more discretion."

REFLECTION.

The greatest genius with a vindictive temper is far surpast in point of happiness by men of talents less considerable.

"AVAUNT! thou paltry, contemptible insect!" said a proud Lion one day to a Gnat that was frisking about in the air near his den. The Gnat, enraged at this unprovoked insult, vowed revenge, and immediately darted into the Lion's ear. After having sufficiently teased him in that quarter, she quitted her station and retired under his belly: and from thence made her last and most formidable attack in his nostrils, where stinging him almost to madness, the Lion at length fell down, utterly spent with rage, vexation, and pain. The Gnat having thus abundantly gratified her resentment, flew off in great exultation: but in the heedless transports of her success, not sufficiently attending to her own security, she found herself unexpectedly entangled in the web of a spider; who, rushing out upon her, put an end to her triumph and her life.

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