raise! what mighty commendation!
But 'twas a Fox who spoke th' oration.
Foxes this government may prize,
As gentle, plentiful, and wise;
If they enjoy the sweets, 'tis plain
We Geese must feel a tyrant reign.
What havoc now shall thin our race!
When every petty clerk in place,
To prove his taste, and seem polite,
Will feed on Geese both noon and night."

MORAL.

Those flatter the plunderer who share in the spoil.

FABLE XCVII.

THE ONE-EYED DOE.

A DOE, that had but one eye, used to graze near the sea, and that
she might be the more secure from harm, she kept her blind side
toward the water, from whence she had no apprehension of danger,
and with the other surveyed the country as she fed.

By this vigilance and precaution she thought herself in the
utmost security; when a sly fellow, with two or three of his
companions, who had been poaching after her several days to no
purpose, at last took a boat, and, fetching a compass upon the
sea, came gently down upon her, and shot her. The Doe, in the
agonies of death, breathed out this doleful complaint:--"Oh, hard
fate! that I should receive my death wound from that side whence
I expected no ill; and be safe in that part where I looked for
the most danger."

MORAL.

Our troubles and dangers frequently arise from the direction we
least expect them.

[Illustration: THE ONE-EYED DOE.]

FABLE XCVIII.

THE FOX, THE RAVEN, AND THE DOVE.

A FOX, who was half-starved with hunger, stretched himself all
along upon the ground, and lay as if he were dead, that he might
entice the harmless birds to come within his reach, and then leap
of a sudden upon them, and make them his prey; but it happened
that a Raven, who was hovering near him, observed that he fetched
his breath; and, by consequence, found it to be only a trick in
him to catch the birds. She, therefore, instantly gave them
notice of it; and forewarned them, as they valued their own
lives, not to come within reach of the Fox, who only feigned
himself to be dead.

The Fox, finding his plot to be discovered, was obliged to go
away hungry; but soon bethought himself of another invention:
which was, to go and kennel himself in a hollow tree, upon which
a Dove had her nest, and was breeding up her young ones. Having
done this, he called to her, that, unless she would throw down to
him sometimes one of her eggs, and sometimes one of her young
ones, he would