Part 6

This fable seems to be directed against the odious trade of informing. Not that giving information against criminals and enemies of the public is in itself odious, for it is commendable; but the circumstances and manner of doing it oftentimes make it a vile and detestable employment. He that accuses another merely for the sake of the promised reward, or in hopes of getting his forfeited estate, or with any other such mercenary view, nay, even to save his own life, whatever he gets by the bargain, is sure to lose his reputation: for, indeed, the most innocent company is not safe with such a one in it, nor the neighbourhood secure in which he lives. A villain of his stamp, whose only end is getting, will as soon betray the innocent as the guilty: let him but know where there is a suspected person, and propose the reward, and he will scarce fail to work the suspicion up to high-treason, or be at a loss to give sufficient proofs of it. We have no small comfort concerning this sort of people, when we consider how improbable it is that they should thrive or prosper long in their ill-gotten possessions. For he that can betray another for the sake of a little pelf, must be a man of such bad principles, that it cannot be for the interest of any community to suffer him to live long in it. Besides, he himself will not be contented with one single villany; and there is no fear but he will provoke justice to hurl down upon his head at least as great a calamity as he, by his malicious information, has brought upon another.

FABLE XLIII.

The Dog sued the Sheep for a debt, of which the Kite and the Wolf were to be judges. They, without debating long upon the matter, or making any scruple for want of evidence, gave sentence for the plaintiff; who immediately tore the poor Sheep in pieces, and divided the spoil with the unjust judges.

APPLICATION.

Deplorable are the times when open barefaced villany is protected and encouraged, when innocence is obnoxious, honesty contemptible, and it is reckoned criminal to espouse the cause of virtue. Men originally entered into covenants and civil compacts with each other for the promotion of their happiness and well-being, for the establishment of justice and public peace. How comes it then that they look stupidly on, and tamely acquiesce, when wicked men pervert this end, and establish an arbitrary tyranny of their own upon the foundation of fraud and oppression? Among beasts, who are incapable of being civilized by social laws, it is no strange thing to see innocent helpless Sheep fall a prey to Dogs, Wolves, and Kites: but it is amazing how mankind could ever sink down to such a low degree of base cowardice, as to suffer some of the worst of their species to usurp a power over them, to supersede the righteous laws of good government, and to exercise all kinds of injustice and hardship, in gratifying their own vicious lusts. Wherever such enormities are practised, it is when a few rapacious statesmen combine together to get and secure the power in their own hands, and agree to divide the spoil among themselves. For as long as the cause is to be tried only among themselves, no question but they will always vouch for each other. But, at the same time, it is hard to determine which resemble brutes most, they in acting, or the people in suffering them to act, their vile selfish schemes.

FABLE XLIV.

The Peacock and the Crane by chance met together in the same place. The Peacock erecting his tail, displayed his gaudy plumes, and looked with contempt upon the Crane, as some mean ordinary person. The Crane, resolving to mortify his insolence, took occasion to say, that Peacocks were very fine birds indeed, if fine feathers could make them so; but that he thought it a much nobler thing to be able to rise above the clouds, than to strut about upon the ground, and be gazed at by children.

APPLICATION.

It is very absurd to slight or insult another upon his wanting a property which we possess; for he may, for any thing we know, have as just reason to triumph over us, by being master of some good quality of which we are incapable. But, in regard to the fable before us, that which the Peacock values himself upon, the glitter and finery of dress, is one of the most trifling considerations in nature; and what a man of sense would be ashamed to reckon even as the least part of merit. Indeed, children, and those people who think much about the same pitch with them, are apt to be taken with varnish and tinsel: but they who examine by the scale of common sense must find something of weight and substance, before they can be persuaded to set a value. The mind which is stored with virtuous and rational sentiments, and the behaviour which speaks complacence and humility, stamps an estimate upon the possessor, which all judicious spectators are ready to admire and acknowledge. But if there be any merit in an embroidered coat, a brocade waistcoat, a shoe, a stocking, or a sword-knot, the person who wears them has the least claim to it; let it be ascribed where it justly belongs--to the several artizans who wrought and disposed the materials of which they consist. This moral is not intended to derogate any thing from the magnificence of fine clothes and rich equipages, which, as times and circumstances require, may be used with decency and propriety enough: but one cannot help being concerned, lest any worth should be affixed to them more than their own intrinsic value.

FABLE XLV.

A Viper entering a smith's shop, looked up and down for something to eat; and seeing a File, fell to gnawing it as greedily as could be. The File told him, very gruffly, that he had best be quiet and let him alone; for he would get very little by nibbling at one who, upon occasion, could bite iron and steel.

APPLICATION.

By this fable we are cautioned to consider what any person is, before we make an attack upon him after any manner whatsoever: particularly how we let our tongues slip in censuring the actions of those who are, in the opinion of the world, not only of an unquestioned reputation, so that nobody will believe what we insinuate against them; but of such an influence, upon account of their own veracity, that the least word from them would ruin our credit to all intents and purposes. If wit be the case, and we have a satirical vein, which at certain periods must have a flow, let us be cautious at whom we level it; for if the person's understanding be of better proof than our own, all our ingenious sallies, like liquor squirted against the wind, will recoil back upon our own faces, and make us the ridicule of every spectator. This fable, besides, is not an improper emblem of envy; which, rather than not bite at all, will fall foul where it can hurt nothing but itself.

FABLE XLVI.

An Ass and a Cock happened to be feeding together in the same place, when on a sudden they spied a Lion approaching them. This beast is reported, above all things, to have an aversion, or rather antipathy, to the crowing of a Cock; so that he no sooner heard the voice of that bird, but he betook him to his heels, and run away as fast as ever he could. The Ass fancying he fled for fear of him, in the bravery of his heart, pursued him, and followed him so far, that they were quite out of the hearing of the Cock; which the Lion no sooner perceived, but he turned about and seized the Ass; and just as he was ready to tear him to pieces, the sluggish creature is said to have expressed himself thus:--'Alas! fool that I was, knowing the cowardice of my own nature, thus, by an affected courage, to throw myself into the jaws of death, when I might have remained secure and unmolested!'

APPLICATION.

There are many who, out of an ambition to appear considerable, affect to show themselves men of fire, spirit, and courage: but these being qualities, of which they are not the right owners, they generally expose themselves, and show the little title they have to them, by endeavouring to exert and produce them at unseasonable times, or with improper persons. A bully, for fear you should find him out to be a coward, overacts his part, and calls you to account for affronts which a man of true bravery would never have thought of: and a cowardly silly fellow, observing that he may take some liberties with impunity, where perhaps the place or the company protect him, falsely concludes from thence, that the person with whom he made free is a greater coward than himself; so that he not only continues his offensive raillery and impertinence for the present, but probably renews them in some place not so privileged as the former, where his insolence meets with a due chastisement; than which nothing is more equitable in itself, or agreeable to the discreet part of mankind.

FABLE XLVII.

A certain Jackdaw was so proud and ambitious, that, not contented to live within his own sphere, he picked up the feathers which fell from the Peacocks, stuck them in among his own, and very confidently introduced himself into an assembly of those beautiful birds. They soon found him out, stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and, falling upon him with their sharp bills, punished him as his presumption deserved. Upon this, full of grief and affliction, he returned to his old companions, and would have flocked with them again; but they, knowing his late life and conversation, industriously avoided him, and refused to admit him into their company: and of them, at the same time, gave him this serious reproof--'If, friend, you could have been contented with our station, and had not disdained the rank in which Nature had placed you, you had not been used so scurvily by those upon whom you intruded yourself, nor suffered the notorious slight which now we think ourselves obliged to put upon you.'

APPLICATION.

What we may learn from this fable is, in the main, to live contentedly in our own condition, whatever it be, without affecting to look bigger than we are, by a false or borrowed light. To be barely pleased with appearing above what a man really is, is bad enough; and what may justly render him contemptible in the eyes of his equals: but if, to enable him to do this with something of a better grace, he has clandestinely feathered his nest with his neighbour's goods, when found out, he has nothing to expect but to be stripped of his plunder, and used like a felonious rogue into the bargain.

FABLE XLVIII.

One day there happened some words between the Ant and the Fly about precedency, and the point was argued with great warmth and eagerness on both sides. Says the Fly, 'It is well known what my pretensions are, and how justly they are grounded: there is never a sacrifice that is offered but I always taste of the entrails, even before the gods themselves. I have one of the uppermost seats at church, and frequent the altar as often as any body: I have a free admission at court; and can never want the king's ear, for I sometimes sit upon his shoulder. There is not a maid of honour, or handsome young creature, comes in my way, but, if I like her, I settle betwixt her balmy lips, and then I eat and drink the best of every thing, without having any occasion to work for my living. What is there that such country pusses as you enjoy, to be compared with a life like this?'--The Ant, who by this time had composed herself, replied with a great deal of temper, and no less severity--'Indeed, to be a guest at an entertainment of the gods, is a very great honour, if one is invited; but I should not care to be a disagreeable intruder any where. You talk of the king and the court, and the fine ladies there, with great familiarity; but, as I have been getting in my harvest in summer, I have seen a certain person under the town walls, making a hearty meal upon something that is not so proper to be mentioned. As to your frequenting the altars, you are in the right to take sanctuary where you are like to meet with the least disturbance: but I have known people before now run to altars, and call it devotion, when they have been shut out of all good company, and had no where else to go. You do not work for your living, you say,--true: therefore, when you have played away the summer, and winter comes, you have nothing to live upon; and, while you are starving with cold and hunger, I have a good warm house over my head, and plenty of provisions about me.'

APPLICATION.

This fable points out to us the different characters of those that recommend themselves in a vain-glorious way by false and borrowed lights; and of those whose real merit procures them a good esteem wherever they go. Poverty and folly having, at the same time, possession of any one man, cannot fail of making him an object of pity, if not of contempt; but, when an empty conceited pride happens to be joined with them, they render the creature in whom they meet at the same time despicable and ridiculous. One who often attends at court, not because he has a place, but because he has not, should not value himself upon his condition. They who go to church out of vanity and curiosity, and not for pure devotion, should not value themselves upon their religion, for it is not worth a straw. They who eat at a threepenny ordinary, and sometimes not so well, should not boast either of their dinner or company. In short, nobody is a better gentleman, than he whose own honest industry supplies him with a plenty of all necessaries; who is so well acquainted with honour, as never to say or do a mean and unjust thing; and who despises an idle scoundrel, but knows how to esteem men of his own principles. Such a one is a person of the first quality, though he has never a title, and ought to take place of every man who is not so good as himself.

FABLE XLIX.

In the winter season, a commonwealth of Ants was busily employed in the management and preservation of their corn; which they exposed to the air in heaps round about the avenues of their little country habitation. A Grasshopper, who had chanced to outlive the summer, and was ready to starve with cold and hunger, approached them with great humility, and begged that they would relieve his necessity, with one grain of wheat or rye. One of the Ants asked him, how he had disposed of his time in summer, that he had not taken pains, and laid in a stock, as they had done?--'Alas, gentlemen,' says he, 'I passed away the time merrily and pleasantly, in drinking, singing, and dancing, and never once thought of winter.'--'If that be the case,' replied the Ant, laughing, 'all I have to say is, that they who drink, sing, and dance in the summer, must starve in winter.'

APPLICATION.

As summer is the season of the year in which the industrious and laborious husbandman gathers and lays up such fruits as may supply his necessities in winter, so youth and manhood are the times of life which we should employ and bestow in laying in such a stock of all kind of necessaries as may suffice for the craving demands of helpless old age. Yet, notwithstanding the truth of this, there are many of those which we call rational creatures, who live in a method quite opposite to it, and make it their business to squander away, in a profuse prodigality, whatever they get in their younger days: as if the infirmity of age would require no supplies to support it; or, at least, would find them administered to in some miraculous way. From this fable we learn this admirable lesson, never to lose any present opportunity of providing against the future evils and accidents of life. While health and the flower and vigour of our age remain firm and entire, let us lay them out to the best advantage, that, when the latter days take hold of us, and spoil us of our strength and abilities, we may have a store moderately sufficient to subsist upon, which we laid up in the morning of our age.

FABLE L.

A villager, in a frosty, snowy winter, found a snake under a hedge, almost dead with cold. He could not help having compassion for the poor creature, so brought it home, and laid it upon the hearth near the fire; but it had not lain there long, before (being revived with the heat) it began to erect itself, and fly at his wife and children, filling the whole cottage with dreadful hissings. The Countryman hearing an outcry, and perceiving what the matter was, catched up a mattock, and soon dispatched him; upbraiding him at the same time in these words--'Is this, vile wretch, the reward you make to him that saved your life? Die, as you deserve; but a single death is too good for you.'

APPLICATION.

It is the nature of ingrates to return evil for good: and the moralists, in all ages, have incessantly declaimed against the enormity of this crime, concluding, that they who are capable of hurting their benefactors, are not fit to live in a community; being such, as the natural ties of parent, friend, or country, are too weak to restrain within the bounds of society. Indeed, the sin of ingratitude is so detestable, that as none but the most inhuman temper can be guilty of it, so, in writing to men, there is no occasion to use many words, either in exposing the vice itself, or dissuading people from the commission of it. Therefore it is not likely that a person of Æsop's sagacity would have compiled this fable, without having something else in view besides this trite and obvious subject. He certainly intended to put us in mind that, as none but a poor silly clown would go to take up a Snake and cherish it, so we shall be very negligent and ill-advised if, in doing good offices, we do not take care to bestow our benevolence upon proper objects. It was not at all unnatural in the Snake to hiss, and brandish his tongue, and fly at the first that came near him; as soon at the person that saved his life as any other; indeed, more likely, because nobody else had so much to do with him. Nor is it strange at any time to see a reprobate fool throwing his poisonous language about, and committing his extravagancies against those, more especially, who are so inadvertent as to concern themselves with him. The Snake and the reprobate will not appear extraordinary in their malevolence: but the sensible part of mankind cannot help thinking those guilty of great indiscretion, who receive either of them into their protection.

FABLE LI.

It was reported that the Lion was sick, and the beasts were made to believe that they could not make their court better than by going to visit him. Upon this they generally went; but it was particularly taken notice of, that the Fox was not one of the number. The Lion therefore dispatched one of his Jackals to sound him about it, and ask him why he had so little charity and respect, as never to come near him, at a time when he lay so dangerously ill, and every body else had been to see him?--'Why,' replies the Fox, 'pray present my duty to his majesty, and tell him, that I have the same respect for him as ever, and have been coming several times to kiss his royal hand: but I am so terribly frightened at the mouth of his cave, to see the print of my fellow-subjects feet all pointing forwards and none backwards, that I have not resolution enough to venture in.' Now the truth of the matter was, that this sickness of the Lion's was only a sham to draw the beasts into his den, the more easily to devour them.

APPLICATION.

A man should weigh and consider the nature of any proposal well before he gives into it; for a rash and hasty compliance has been the ruin of many a one. And it is the quintessence of prudence not to be too easy of belief. Indeed the multitude think altogether in the same track, and are much upon a footing. Their meditations are confined in one channel, and they follow one another, very orderly, in a regular stupidity. Can a man of thought and spirit be harnessed thus, and trudge along like a pack-horse, in a deep, stinking, muddy road, when he may frisk it over the beauteous lawns, or lose himself agreeably in the shady verdant mazes of unrestrained contemplation? It is impossible. Vulgar notions are so generally attended with error, that wherever one traces the footsteps of the many, tending all one way, it is enough to make one suspect, with the Fox in the fable, that there is some trick in it. The eye of reason is dulled and stupified when it is confined, and made to gaze continually upon the same thing: it rather chooses to look about it, and amuse itself with variety of objects, as they lie scattered up and down in the unbounded prospect. He that goes implicitly into a thing, may be mistaken, notwithstanding the number of those who keep him company; but he that keeps out till he sees reason to enter, acts upon true maxims of policy and prudence. In short, it becomes us, as we are reasonable creatures, to behave ourselves as such, and to do as few things as possible, of which we may have occasion to repent.

FABLE LII.

A Calf, full of play and wantonness, seeing the Ox at plough, could not forbear insulting him. 'What a sorry poor drudge art thou,' says he, 'to bear that heavy yoke upon your neck, and go all day drawing a plough at your tail, to turn up the ground for your master! but you are a wretched dull slave, and know no better, or else you would not do it. See what a happy life I lead: I go just where I please; sometimes I lie down under the cool shade; sometimes frisk about in the open sunshine; and, when I please, slake my thirst in the clear sweet brook; but you, if you were to perish, have not so much as a little dirty water to refresh you.' The Ox, not at all moved with what he said, went quietly and calmly on with his work; and, in the evening, was unyoked and turned loose. Soon after which he saw the Calf taken out of the field, and delivered into the hands of a priest, who immediately led him to the altar, and prepared to sacrifice him. His head was hung round with fillets of flowers, and the fatal knife was just going to be applied to his throat, when the Ox drew near, and whispered him to this purpose--'Behold the end of your insolence and arrogance; it was for this only you were suffered to live at all; and pray now, friend, whose condition is best, yours or mine?'

APPLICATION.