Perhaps we cannot apply this better than by supposing the fable to be a parable! which may be thus explained. The Deer, viewing itself in the water, is a beautiful young lady at her looking-glass. She cannot help being sensible of the charms which lie blooming in every feature of her face. She moistens her lips, languishes with her eyes, adjusts every lock of her hair with the nicest exactness, gives an agreeable attitude to her whole body; and then, with a soft sigh, says to herself,--'Ah! how happy might I be, in a daily crowd of admirers, if it were not for the censoriousness of the age! when I view that face, where Nature, to give her her due, has been liberal enough of charms, how easy should I be, if it were not for that slender particular, my honour. The odious idea of that comes across all my happy moments, and brings a mortification with it that damps my most flattering tender hopes. Oh! that there were no such thing in the world!'--In the midst of these soliloquies she is interrupted by the voice of her lover, who enters her chamber singing a rigadoon air; and, introducing his discourse in a familiar easy manner, takes occasion to launch out in praise of her beauty; sees she is pleased with it, snatches her hand, kisses it in a transport; and, in short, pursues his point so close, that she is not able to disengage herself from him. But, when the consequence of all this approaches, in an agony of grief and shame, she fetches a deep sigh and says--'Ah! how mistaken have I been! the virtue I slighted might have saved me; but the beauty I prized so much has been my undoing.' FABLE CVII. [Illustration: THE STAG AND THE OX-STALL.]