'A Viper chanc'd his head to pop Into a neighbouring blacksmith's shop. Long near the place had he been lurking, And stayed till past the hours for working. As with keen eyes he glanc'd around In search of food, a File he found: Of meats he saw no single item Which tempted hungry jaws to bite 'em. So with his fangs the eager fool Attack'd the rough impassive tool; And whilst his wounded palate bled, Fancied on foreign gore he fed. When thus the File retorted coolly: "Viper! this work's ingenious, truly! No more those idle efforts try; Proof 'gainst assaults like yours am I. On me you'd fracture ev'ry bone; I feel the teeth of Time alone." Thus did a Poet,[57] vain and young (Who since has palinody sung), His fangs upon a Minstrel's lay[58] Fix hard. 'Twas labour thrown away! On that sweet Bard of Doric strain This venom'd bite was tried in vain: His flights, thro' no dark medium view'd, Derive from fog no magnitude; But bright and clear to charm our eyes His vivid pictures boldly rise. In painting manners, arms, and dress, sure Time show'd him all his form and pressure. Bard of the North! thou still shalt be A File to Critics, harsh as he. Tho' Time has teeth, thou need'st not fear 'em; Thy verse defies old Edax Rerum!' It must be confessed that the general moral here is not very obvious, though the special application of the fable to the circumstances of Byron's attack on Scott, and his subsequent recantation--with the fabulist's eulogy of the 'Bard of the North'--are expressed in charming and faultless verse. John Gay, who was born in the parish of Landkey, near Barnstaple, Devonshire, in 1685, and died in London, on December 4, 1732, aged forty-seven, is, without question, the best of the English fabulists. Unlike most writers in this department of literature, his fables are almost all original. His language is choice and elegant, yet well suited to his subject. His rhymes are perfect, and at times he almost rises into poetry. His fables, however, are lacking in humour, and they have not that abounding _esprit_ and _naïveté_ which characterize La Fontaine. Gay was a writer of much industry,[59] producing during his lifetime almost every species of composition. His 'Beggar's Opera' is yet occasionally seen on the stage, and this, after his fables, is his best-known work.