"No," replied the Wolf, "I beg your pardon; keep' your happiness all to yourself. Liberty is the word with me; and I would not be a king upon the terms you mention."

MORAL. A man may pay too dear for his whistle.

APPLICATION. Freedom is as essential to the Englishman as the air of heaven. It has long been the boast of our statesmen and people that the slave, by the act of placing his feet on English soil, is free. This passion for freedom is consistent with a love of order. Every man in a well-regulated community is limited in the freedom of his actions, to this extent —that he is prohibited from doing any thing which may interfere with the liberty of his neighbour. True liberty, therefore, resolves itself into a submission to an equal public law, imposed on all, for the promotion of the general good. A universal obedience to this law is the best guarantee for the maintenance of true liberty. This union of liberty and law is attained by the ancient and time-honoured constitutional government established in this land.

Think not that liberty

From order and religion e'er will dwell

Apart; companions they,

Of heavenly seed connate.

It is not to be forgotten that the love of freedom has been made the pretext of great crimes by those who, as Milton expresses it, "mean license when they cry liberty." Madame Roland spoke the truth when, ascending the scaffold of the guillotine, she clasped her hands, and, looking up at the statue of the supposed Goddess of Liberty which overlooked the place of execution, exclaimed: "O Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

This fable has more reference to the question of domestic servitude than of public liberty. Its author knew from bitter experience the miseries of a servile condition, and teaches here that an ample provision for bodily wants is a poor compensation for the loss of personal freedom. The fable, amidst all the mutations of human society, admits of a perpetual application. It stimulates to self-exertion, and to a determination to be independent. The man dependent upon others, like the dog marked with the frettings of the collar, is always called upon to submit to some indignity, and is made to feel the yoke of his dependence. in fact, too dear for his whistle.

He pays,

The love of liberty with life is given,

And life itself, th' inferior gift of Heav'n.

A WOODMAN came one day into a forest, and looked about him as if in search of something. The Trees, with a curiosity natural to some other creatures, asked him what he wanted. He replied, "Only a piece of Wood, to make a handle to my hatchet." Since that was all, it was voted unanimously that he should have a piece of good, sound, tough Ash. He had no sooner received it, and fitted it to his axe, than he began to lay about him, and to hack and hew without distinction, felling the noblest trees in all the forest. Then the Oak is said thus to have spoken to the Beech: "Brother, we must take it for our pains."

MORAL. Let not your own conduct furnish a handle against yourself.

APPLICATION. How often do we hear it said, "that a man is his own worst enemy;" implying, that the person alluded to furnishes those who are unfriendly to him with the means of speaking evil of him. He is guilty of dishonesty, or inattention to business, or forwardness of manner, or want of respect, or lack of temper, or of some other fault, which supplies to the ill-disposed an accusation against him. Such a one may find in this fable an admonition addressed to himself. It points out that little events may lead to great results, even as the loan of a sapling in the wood, for the handle of an axe, led to the demolition of the forest. It teaches men to examine well, lest they create a prejudice against themselves, and cause their good to be evil spoken of, and lest by their own conduct they furnish an excuse to those who desire, from some evil motive or other, to hinder their advancement and prosperity.

The danger's much the same, on several shelves,
If others wreck us, or we wreck ourselves.

THE OLD LION.

A LION, worn out with age, lay fetching his last gasp, and agonising in the convulsive struggles of death; upon which occasion, several of the beasts who had formerly been sufferers by him, came and revenged themselves upon him. The Boar, with his mighty tusks, drove at him in a stroke that glanced like lightning, and the Bull gored him with his violent horns; which, when the Ass saw they might do without any danger, he too came up, and threw his heels into the Lion's face ;-upon which the poor old expiring tyrant uttered these words with his last dying groan: "Alas! how grievous it is to suffer