ase and service. Now which of you can boast so much in that respect as I can ?.

"As for you, Horse, though you are very well fed and lodged, and have servants to attend upon you and make you sleek and clean, yet all this is for the sake of your labour. Do not I see you taken out early every morning, put in chains, or fastened to the shafts of a heavy cart, and not brought back till noon; when, after a short respite, you are taken to work again till late in the evening? I may say just the same to the Ox, except that he works for poorer fare.

"For you, Mrs. Cow, who are so dainty over your chopped straw and grains, you are thought worth keeping only for your milk, which is drained from you twice a day, to the last drop, while your poor young ones are taken from you, and sent I know not whither.

upon

"You, poor innocent Sheep, who are turned out to shift for yourselves upon the bare hills, or penned the fallows, with now and then a withered turnip or some musty hay, you pay dearly enough for your keep, by resigning your warm coat every year, for want of which you are liable to be starved to death on some of the cold nights, before summer.

"As for the Dog, who prides himself so much on being admitted to our master's table, and made his companion, that he will scarcely condescend to reckon himself one of us, he is obliged to do all the offices of a domestic servant by day, and to keep watch during the night, while we are quietly asleep.

"In short, you are all of you creatures maintained for use-poor subservient things, made to be enslaved or pillaged. I, on the contrary, have a warm stye and plenty of provisions all at free cost. I have nothing to do but to grow fat and follow my amusement; and my master is best pleased when he sees me lying at case in the sun, or gratifying my appetite for food."

Thus argued the Hog, and put the rest to silence

by so much logic and rhetoric. This was not long before winter set in. It proved a very scarce season for fodder of all kinds; so that the farmer began to consider how he was to maintain all his live stock till

spring. "It will be impossible for me," thought he, "to keep them all; I must therefore part with those I can best spare. As for my horses and working oxen, I shall have business enough to employ them; they must be kept, cost what it will. My cows will not give me much milk in the winter, but they will calve in the spring, and be ready for the new grass. I must not lose the profit of my dairy. The sheep, poor things, will take care of themselves as long as there is a bite upon the hills; and should deep snow come, we must do with them as well as we can, by the help of a few turnips and some hay; for I must have their wool at shearing-time, to make out my rent with. But my hogs will eat me out of house and home, without doing me any good. They must go to pot, that's certain; and the sooner I get rid of the fat ones, the better."

So saying, he singled out the orator, as one of the prime among them, and sent him to the butcher the very next day.

FOURTH EVENING.

THE BULLIES.

As young Francis was walking through a village with his tutor, they were annoyed by two or three cur dogs that come running after them with looks of the utmost fury, snarling and barking as though they would tear their throats, and seeming every moment ready to fly upon them. Francis every now and then stopped, and shook his stick at them, or stooped down to pick up a stone, upon which the curs retreated as fast as they came; but as soon as he turned about, they were after his heels again. This lasted till they

came to a farm-yard, through which their road lay. A large mastiff was lying down in it, at his ease in the sun. Francis was almost afraid to pass him, and kept as close to his tutor as possible. However, the dog took not the least notice of them.

Presently they came upon a common, where, going near a flock of geese, they were assailed with hissings, and pursued some way by these foolish birds, which, stretching out their long necks, made a very ridiculous figure. Francis only laughed at them, though he was tempted to give the foremost a switch across his neck. A little further, was a herd of cows, with a bull among them, upon which Francis looked with some degree of apprehension; but they kept quietly grazing, and did not take their heads from the ground as he passed.

"It is a lucky thing," said Francis to his tutor, "that mastiffs and bulls are not so quarrelsome as curs and geese; but what can be the reason of it ?"

"The reason," replied his tutor, "is, that paltry and contemptible anímals, possessing no confidence in their own strength and courage, and knowing themselves liable to injury from most of those that come in their way, think it safest to act the part of bullies, and to make a show of attacking those of whom in reality they are afraid. Whereas animals which are conscious of force sufficient for their own protection, suspecting no evil designs from others, entertain none themselves, but maintain a dignified composure.

66 Thus you will find it among mankind. Weak, mean, petty characters are suspicious, snarling, and petulant. They raise an outcry against their superiors in talents and reputation, of whom they stand in awe, and put on airs of defiance and insolence through mere cowardice. But the truly great are calm and inoffensive. They fear no injury, and offer none. They even suffer slight attacks to go unnoticed, conscious of their power to right themselves whenever the occasion shall seem to require it."