[Illustration: THE FOX WITHOUT A TAIL.]

MORAL.

It is common for men to wish others reduced to their own level,
and we ought to guard against such advice as may proceed from
this principle.

FABLE VII.

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE SNAIL.

As in the sunshine of the morn,
A Butterfly, but newly born,
Sat proudly perking on a rose,
With pert conceit his bosom glows;
His wings, all glorious to behold,
Bedropt with azure, jet and gold,
Wide he displays; the spangled dew
Reflects his eyes, and various hue.

His now forgotten friend, a Snail,
Beneath his house, with slimy trail,
Crawls o'er the grass; whom, when he spies,
In wrath he to the gardener cries:

"What means yon peasant's daily toil,
From choaking weeds to rid the soil?
Why wake you to the morning's care?
Why with new arts correct the year?
Why glows the peach with crimson hue?
And why the plum's inviting blue?
Were they to feast his taste designed,
That vermin, of voracious kind?
Crush, then, the slow, the pilf'ring race;
So purge thy garden from disgrace."

"What arrogance!" the Snail replied;
"How insolent is upstart pride!
Hadst thou not thus, with insult vain,
Provoked my patience to complain,
I had concealed thy meaner birth,
Nor traced thee to the scum of earth:
For, scarce nine suns have wak'd the hours,
To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers,
Since I thy humbler life surveyed,
In base, in sordid guise arrayed;
A hideous insect, vile, unclean,
You dragg'd a slow and noisome train;
And from your spider-bowels drew
Foul film, and spun the dirty clue.
I own my humble life, good friend;
Snail was I born, and Snail shall end.
And what's a Butterfly? At best,
He's but a Caterpillar, dress'd;
And all thy race (a numerous seed)
Shall prove of Caterpillar breed."

MORAL.

All upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.

FABLE VIII.

THE WOLF AND THE CRANE.

A WOLF, after too greedily devouring his prey, happened to have a
bone stick in his throat, which gave him so much pain that he
went howling up and down, and importuning every creature he met
to lend him a kind hand in order to his relief; nay, he even
promised a reward to anyone who should undertake the operation
with success. At last the Crane, tempted with the lu