THE RAT WITH A BELL.

A LARGE old house in the country was so extremely infested with rats, that nothing could be secured from their depredations. They scaled the walls to attack flitches of bacon, though hung as high as the ceiling. Hanging shelves afforded no protection to the cheese and pastry. They penetrated by sap into the store-room, and plundered it of preserves and sweat-meats. They gnawed through cupboard doors, undermined floors, and ran in races behind the wainscots. The cats could not get at them: they were too cunning and too well fed to meddle with poison; and traps only now and then caught a heedless straggler. One of these, however, on being taken, was the occasion of practising a new device. This was, to fasten a collar with a small bell about the prisoner's neck, and then turn him loose again.

Overjoyed at the recovery of his liberty, the rat ran into the nearest hole, and went in search of his companions. They heard at a distance, the bell, tinkle, tinkle, through the dark passages, and suspecting some enemy had got among them, away they scoured, some one way, and some another. The bell-bearer pursued; and soon guessing the cause of their flight, he was greatly amused by it. Wherever he approached, it was all hurry scurry, and not a tail of them was to be seen. He chased his old friends from hole to hole, and room to room, laughing all the while at their fears, and increasing them by all the means in his power. "That's right," quoth he, "the fewer the better cheer." So he rioted alone among the good things, and stuffed till he could hardly walk.

For two or three days this course of life passed on very pleasantly. He ate, and ate, and played the bugbear to perfection. At length he grew tired of this lonely condition, and longed to mix with his old companions again upon the former footing. But the difficulty was, how to get rid of his bell. He pulled and tugged with his fore-feet, and almost wore the skin off his neck in the attempt, but in vain. The bell was now his plague and torment. He wandered from room to room earnestly desiring to make himself known to one of his companions, but they all kept out of his reach. At last, as he was moping about disconsolate, he fell in Puss's way, and was devoured in an instant.

He who is raised so much above his fellow creatures as to be the object of their terror, must suffer for it in losing all the comforts of society. He is a solitary being in the midst of crowds. He keeps them at a distance, and they equally shun him. Dread and affection cannot subsist together.

THE WATER-SNAKE.

JOVE had at length granted the frogs another king; instead of a peaceable log, a greedy water-snake.

"If you wish to be our king," said the frogs, "why do you devour us?". "Because," replied the snake, "you petitioned for me."

"I never petitioned for you!" cried one of the frogs, which the snake had already swallowed in imagination. "No?" said the water-snake, so much the worse. Then I must make a point of devouring you for not having done so."

THE DONKIES.

THE donkies complained before Jupiter that they were treated too cruelly by mankind. Our strong backs," said they, "carry their burdens, which would overwhelm them, and every weaker animal. And still, by unmerciful blows, they would compel us to go at a speed which is rendered impossible by our great burdens, even if it had not been denied us by Nature. Forbid them, Jove, to be so unreasonable, if mankind will allow itself to be forbidden aught wicked. We will serve them, since it seems you have created us for that purpose; but we will not submit to be beaten without cause."

"My creatures," replied Jupiter, addressing their spokesman, "your petition is just; but I see no possibility of convincing mankind that your natural slowness does not arise from idleness. And as long as they believe this, you will be thrashed. But I have thought of a means of lightening your griefs. From the present moment I will diminish your sense of feeling: your hide shall be hardened to resist the blows, and to fatigue the arm of the driver."

"Jove," shouted the donkies, you are ever wise and merciful!" They went rejoicing from his throne, as from the seat of universal love.

THE MAGPIE AND THE RAVEN.

THERE was a certain magpie, more busy and more loquacious than any of his tribe. His tongue was in perpetual motion, and himself continually upon the wing, fluttering from place to place, and very seldom appearing twice in the same company. Sometimes you saw him with a flock of pigeons, plundering a field of new-sown corn; now perched upon a cherry-tree, with a parcel of tom-tits; the next moment, you would be surprised to find the same individual bird engaged with a flight of crows, and feasting upon a carcase.

He took it one day into his head to visit an old raven, who lived retired among the branches of a venerable oak; and there, at the foot of a lonely mountain, had passed near half a century. "I admire," said the prating bird, "your most romantic situation, and the wildness of these rocks and precipices around you. I am absolutely transported with the murmur of that water-fall; methinks it diffuses a tranquillity surpassing all the joys of public life. What an agreeable sequestration from wordly bustle and impertinence! What an opportunity of contemplating the divine beauties of nature! I shall most certainly quit the gaieties of town; and for the sake of these rural scenes, and my good friend's conversation, pass the remainder of my days in the solitude he has chosen."-" Well, sir." replied the raven, I shall be at all times glad to receive you in my old fashioned way; but you and I would certainly prove most unsuitable companions. Your whole ambition is to shine in company, and to recommend yourself to the world by universal complaisance: whereas, my greatest happiness consists in ease and privacy, and the select conversation of a few, whom I esteem. I prefer a good heart to the most voluble tongue; and though much obliged to you for the politeness of your professions, yet I see your benevolence divided among so numerous an acquaintance, that a very slender share of it can remain for those you are pleased to honour with the name of friends."

THE RAVEN AND THE FOX.

A RAVEN bore away a bit of poisoned meat in his claws, which an enraged gardener had intended for his neighbours' cats.

He was just preparing to devour it on an old oak, when Renard approaching said to him: "Heaven be praised, bird of Jove !"—" What do you take me for ?" asked the raven. What do I take you for?" replied the fox; "are you not the soaring eagle, who daily descends from the right hand of Jupiter to alight on this oak, and feed a poor wretch like me? Why do you deny yourself? Do I not see in your victorious talons the supplicated gift, which your god continues to send me through you?"

The raven was astonished, and inwardly rejoiced at being taken for an eagle. "I must not," thought he, "enlighten the fox on his mistake." Stupidly generous, he let fall his prey, and flew proudly on.

The fox seized the flesh laughing, and devoured it with malicious joy. But this soon gave way to dreadful pangs; the poison commenced taking effect, and he expired.

Accursed flatterers, may your praises never procure aught for you but poison!

THE JEWELLER AND THE LACE-MAKER.

IN cottage neat, of lowly race,
Lived one who fabricated lace,

And near her, miserly and old,

A tradesman dwelt who worked in gold.
"Dame," quoth the jeweller one day,
""Tis strange to me that folks should pay

Such prices for thy lace per ell,

Whilst I so ill my fringes sell,

Though, by the village train, 'tis said,

Gold is more precious deemed than thread."
To whom the dame, "My friend, you'll find
To different views are men inclined;

Some in those articles delight,

Which taste and elegance unite,

While others, fond of pomp and show,

On finery their thoughts bestow;

Now if the lovely fair incline

My works to value more than thine,

Though I acknowledge it is said,

Gold is more precious deemed than thread,
From this the preference may arise,
Some neatness more than splendour prize,

And hence, my laces more admire,

Than all thy gold and silver wire."

THE FARMER AND HIS THREE ENEMIES.

A WOLF, a fox, and a hare, happened one evening to be foraging in different parts of a farm-yard. Their first effort was pretty successful, and they returned in safety to their several quarters, not so happy, however, as to be unperceived by the farmer's watchful eye; who, placing several kinds of snares, made each his prisoner in the next attempt. He first took the hare to task, who confessed she had eaten a few turnip-tops, merely to satisfy her hunger, besought him piteously to spare her life, and promised never to enter his grounds again. He then accosted the fox, who, in a fawning, obsequious tone, protested that he came into the premises, through no other motive than pure good will, to restrain the hares and other vermin from the plunder of his corn; and that, whatever evil tongues might say, he had too great a regard both for him and for justice to be capable of any dishonest action. He last of all questioned the wolf, on the business that brought him into the purlieus of a farmer's yard? The wolf very impudently declared, it was with a view of destroying his lambs, to which he had an undoubted right; that the farmer himself was the only felon, who robbed the community of wolves of what was meant to be their proper food. That this, at least, was his opinion; and that, whatever fate awaited him, he should not scruple to risk his life in pursuit of his lawful prey. The farmer, having heard their pleas, determined their cause in the following manner : "The hare," said he, deserves compassion, for the humble penitence she shews, and the frank confession she has made. As for the fox and wolf, let them be hanged together. Criminals alike with respect to the fact, they have alike heightened their equal guilt by the aggravations of hypocrisy and impudence."

THE PLOUGHMAN AND FORTUNE.

A PLOUGHMAN, as he was ploughing the ground found a treasure. Transported with joy, he immediately began to return thanks to the ground, which had been so liberal and kind to him. Fortune observing what he did, could not forbear expressing her resentment. She instantly appeared to him, and said: "Fool, what a blockhead you are to be thanking the ground thus, and to take no notice of me! Sot! if you had lost such a treasure, instead of finding it, I should have been the first you would have laid the blame upon."

If our affairs succeed and go well, we ought to let them have the credit of it to whose interest it is chiefly owing, and with whom, upon any miscarriage or ill-management, we should have found fault. That noble rule of equity, "to do as we would be done unto," should, as nearly as we can, be observed in every action of our lives. But vanity and peevishness dispose us too often to break it: one makes us ascribe that to our own address which often is owing to some accident; the other puts us upon charging Fortune, or anybody but ourselves, with the ill-success for which we may probably be indebted to our own stupidity and negligence only. What titles of honour, and stations of dignity, what places of profit in church and state, are now and then possessed by dull creatures, who never once dreamt that they were obliged to Fortune alone for their happiness in obtaining them. Yet, if the case were quite otherwise, if those places had been filled with men of known abilities, and those persons left low and undistinguished as their own merit, it is ten to one but they would have cursed their stars, fretted at their ill luck, and stormed at the barbarous treatment of capricious Fortune.