asked, by certain delegates
That came from Rat United States,
For some small aid, for they
To foreign parts were on their way,
For succor in the great cat-war:
Ratopolis beleaguered sore,
Their whole republic drained and poor,
No morsel in their scrips they bore.
Slight boon they craved, of succor sure
In days at utmost three or four.
"My friends," the hermit said,
"To worldly things I'm dead.
How can a poor recluse
To such a mission be of use?
What can he do but pray
That God will aid it on its way?
And so, my friends, it is my prayer
That God will have you in his care."
His well-fed saintship said no more,
But in their faces shut the door.
What think you, reader, is the service,
For which I use this niggard rat?
To paint a monk? No, but a dervise.
A monk, I think, however fat,
Must be more bountiful than that.

The fable entitled "Death and the Dying" is much admired for its union
of pathos with wit. "The Two Doves" is another of La Fontaine's more
tender inspirations. "The Mogul's Dream" is a somewhat ambitious flight
of the fabulist's muse. On the whole, however, the masterpiece among the
fables of La Fontaine is that of "The Animals Sick of the Plague." Such
at least is the opinion of critics in general. The idea of this fable is
not original with La Fontaine. The homilists of the middle ages used a
similar fiction to enforce on priests the duty of impartiality in
administering the sacrament, so called, of confession. We give this
famous fable as our closing specimen of La Fontaine:--

The sorest ill that Heaven hath
Sent oil this lower world in wrath,--
The plague (to call it by its name),
One single day of which
Would Pluto's ferryman enrich,
Waged war on beasts, both wild and tame.
They died not all, but all were sick:
No hunting now, by force or trick,
To save what might so soon expire.
No food excited their desire:
Nor wolf nor fox now watched to slay
The innocent and tender prey.
The turtles fled,
So love and therefore joy were dead.
The lion council held, and said,
"My friends, I do believe
This awful sc