once he acted right:
He to the god his fate bemoaned,
Asked pardon, and his folly owned.
Jove, like a tender master, fond to save,
His weakness pityed, and his fault forgave.

MORAL.

He, who presumes the ways of heaven to scan,
Is not a wise, nor yet a happy man:
In this firm truth securely we may rest,--
Whatever Providence ordains is best;
Had man the power, he'd work his own undoing;
To grant his will would be to cause his ruin.

FABLE XXIII.

THE VAIN JACKDAW.

A CERTAIN Jackdaw was so proud and ambitious that, not contented
to live within his own sphere, he picked up the feathers which
fell from the Peacocks, stuck them among his own, and very
confidently introduced himself into an assembly of those
beautiful birds. They soon found him out, stripped him of his
borrowed plumes, and falling upon him with their sharp bills,
punished him as his presumption deserved.

Upon this, full of grief and affliction, he returned to his old
companions, and would have flocked with them again; but they,
knowing his late life and conversation, industriously avoided
him, and refused to admit him into their company; and one of
them, at the same time, gave him this serious reproof: "If,
friend, you could have been contented with your station, and had
not disdained the rank in which nature had placed you, you had
not been used so scurvily by those amongst whom you introduced
yourself, nor suffered the notorious slight which we now think
ourselves obliged to put upon you."

MORAL.

Great evils arise from vanity; for when we try to place ourselves
in a position for which we are not fit, we are liable to be
laughed at, and, when we would return to our former state, we
find we have lost the esteem of our former friends.

FABLE XXIV.

THE VIPER AND THE FILE.

A VIPER, crawling into a smith's shop to seek for something to
eat, cast her eyes upon a File, and darting upon it in a moment,
"Now I have you," said she, "and so you may help yourself how you
can; but you may take my word for it that I shall make a fine
meal of you before I think of parting with you." "Silly wretch!"
said the File, as gruff as could be, "you had much better be
quiet, and let me alone; for, if you gnaw for ever, you will get
nothing but your trouble for your pains. Make a meal of me,
indeed! why, I myself can bite the hardest iron in the shop; and
if you go on with your fo