moralists of all ages a continual theme for censure and animadversion.

Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason,-man is not a fly.

The humblest being born is great,

If true to his degree;
His virtue illustrates his fate,
Whatever that may be.

Then let us daily learn to love

Simplicity and worth ;

For not the eagle, but the dove,
Brought peace unto the earth.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part there all the honour lies.

A Fox being caught in a steel trap by his tail, was glad to escape with the loss of it. On coming abroad into the world, he began to be so sensible of the disgrace such a defect would bring upon him, that he almost wished he had died rather than left it behind him. However, to make the best of a bad matter, he called an assembly of foxes, and proposed that they should all dock their tails, as a fashion which would be very agreeable and becoming. He made a long harangue upon the unprofitableness of tails in general, and endeavoured chiefly to show the awkwardness and inconvenience of a fox's brush in

particular; adding, that it would be both more graceful and more expeditious to be altogether without them; and that, for his part, what he had only imagined and conjectured before, he now found by experience; for that he never enjoyed himself so well, or found himself so easy, as he had done since he cut off his tail. He said no more, but looked about him with a brisk air, to see what proselytes he had gained; when a sly old fox in the company, who saw through the reasons of his advice, answered him with a smile, “I believe you may have found it convenient to escape from the trap with the loss of your tail; and when we are in the same circumstances, perhaps we may do so too."

MORAL. Do not be led into mischief by the example of your friends.

APPLICATION. A singular but common trait of human nature is illustrated in this fable. Men who fall into errors or misfortunes are often found, by a strange infatuation, to be pleased if others are involved in the same calamities as themselves. The old Latin proverb,—

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris,

exactly describes this idiosyncrasy. The Fox exerts his eloquence in vain. This fable teaches the young

to avoid rather than to imitate those who, by their own previous bad conduct, prove themselves to be unfitted to give advice, and to comply with their friends no further than conscience approves.

Example is a living law, whose sway

Men more than all the written laws obey.

A CROW having taken a piece of cheese out of a cottage-window, flew up into a high tree with it, in order to eat it; which a Fox observing, came and sat underneath, and began to compliment the Crow upon her beauty. "I protest," says he, "I never observed it before, but your feathers are of a more delicate white than any thing I ever saw in my life! Ah! what a fine shape and graceful turn of body is there! And I make no question but you have a tolerable voice! If it is but as fine as your complexion, I do not know a bird that can pretend to stand in competition with you." The Crow, tickled