insults, even from the brave and the valiant! but to be spurned by so base a creature as this is worse than dying ten thousand deaths."

MORAL. Respect thyself, and thou wilt win the respect of others.

APPLICATION. This fable affords as little pleasure to the reader as any contained in this collection. It is not, however, without its uses. The animals represented here as offering these painful indignities to the expiring Lion, are described as having been great sufferers, during his life-time, from his rule and tyranny. They now, when they can do so with impunity, show their indignant sense of the treatment they had experienced. This conduct can by no means be approved or justified; for, under such circumstances, forgiveness of past injuries would have been the truest revenge. The fable, however, in its broad features, is designed to show that the best title of rulers to the respect of the people whom they govern must be founded on their actions; and that they best conciliate the affections of their subjects by equitable government, an impartial administration of justice, and a preservation of the liberties of the nation. They who most respect themselves, best insure the respect of others.

The fable also enforces a lesson of general utility.

It shows, if any man would have in later life those

compensations

Which should accompany old age, .

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

he must earn them by a virtuous youth, a useful manhood, and a well-spent life.

Unless above himself he can

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

To a soul that ever felt the sting
Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing.

THE HORSE AND THE LOADED ASS.

AN idle Horse and an Ass labouring under a heavy burden were travelling the road together; they both belonged to a country fellow, who trudged it on foot by them. The Ass, ready to faint under his heavy load, entreated the Horse to assist him, and lighten his burden by taking some of it upon his back. The Horse was ill-natured, and refused to do it; upon which the poor Ass tumbled down in the midst of the highway, and expired in an instant. The countryman, discovering that his Ass was dead, ungirthed his pack-saddle, laid it, with all its burden, upon the Horse, and added to it the skin of the dead

R

Ass; so that the Horse, by his moroseness in refusing to do a small kindness, justly brought upon himself a greater inconvenience.

MORAL. A small unkindness is a great offence.

APPLICATION. A disobliging temper carries with it its own punishment, and generally produces unhappiness to its possessor. The design of the fable is to teach sympathy with the needs and necessities of our neighbours, and to enjoin the duty of relieving them to the best of our ability, especially in cases in which we know that the applicants for our assistance are doing their best, like the laden Ass in this narrative, to help themselves. Under the influence of this admonition, we should learn to avoid a spirit of selfishness, and should exert ourselves, as opportunities may allow, to lighten the sorrows and to alleviate the distresses of those who are less blessed than we are with the gifts of health, fortune, and worldly prosperity.

To each his sufferings; all are men,

Condemned alike to groan :

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

E'en he whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly need the gen'rous tear he pays.

A POOR, feeble Old Man, who had crawled out into a neighbouring wood to gather a few sticks, had made up his bundle, and, laying it on his shoulders, was trudging homeward with it. Wearied with age and the length of the way and the weight of his burden, he grew so faint and weak, that he sunk under it, and, as he sat on the ground, called upon Death to come once for all and ease him of his troubles. Death no sooner heard him but he came, and demanded what he wanted. The poor Old Man, who little thought Death had been so near, and was frighted out of his senses at his terrible aspect, answered him, trembling: "That having, by some mishap, let fall