People, as to their manners and behaviour, take a strong bias from custom and education, but a much stronger from Nature. Her laws are so strong, that it is in vain for us to go to oppose them; we may refine and improve, but can never totally alter her works. Upon this account it is that we oftentimes see silly awkward blockheads displaying their idiotism and folly through all their ensigns of dignity; for some natures are so coarse and rustic, that all the embroidery of a court cannot conceal them. Doubtless such people were intended by Nature for nothing above driving Hogs to a fair, and laughing at the jokes of a country Merry Andrew. Fortune has found them worthy of her favours, and given them a lift out of the mire: but yet they do not fail to give frequent indications of their true composition, by a thousand little dirty actions. A fine equipage, and a great estate, may raise a man to an exalted station, and procure a respect to his outward person; notwithstanding which it may so happen, that every time he speaks and acts he cannot help playing the fool for the blood of him. FABLE LXXII. [Illustration: THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN.] An Ass finding the skin of a Lion, put it on; and, going into the woods and pastures, threw all the flocks and herds into a terrible consternation. At last, meeting his owner, he would have frightened him also; but the good man, seeing his long ears slick out, presently knew him, and with a good cudgel made him sensible that, notwithstanding his being dressed in a Lion's Skin, he was really no more than an Ass. APPLICATION. As all affectation is wrong, and tends to expose and make a man ridiculous, so the more distant he is from the thing which he affects to appear, the stronger will the ridicule be which he excites, and the greater the inconveniences into which he runs himself thereby. How strangely absurd it is for a timorous person to procure a military post in order to keep himself out of danger! and to fancy a red coat the surest protection for cowardice! yet there have been those who have purchased a commission to avoid being insulted; and have been so silly as to think courage was interwoven with a sash, or tied up in a cockade. But it would not be amiss for such gentlemen to consider, that it is not in the power of scarlet cloth to alter nature; and that, as it is expected a soldier should show himself a man of courage and intrepidity upon all proper occasions, they may, by this means, meet the disgrace they intended to avoid, and appear greater asses than they need to have done. However, it is not in point of fortitude only that people are liable to expose themselves, by assuming a character to which they are not equal; but he who puts on a show of learning, of religion, of a superior capacity in any respect, or, in short, of any virtue or knowledge to which he has no proper claim, is, and will always be found to be, "An Ass in a Lion's Skin." FABLE LXXIII.