Of his _Fables_--the best in the language--one of the most interesting is the well-known _Hare and Many Friends_, in which he seems to record some of his own experiences. _The Court of Death_, suggested probably by Milton’s fine passage in the _Paradise Lost_, is one of his most forcible. When the principal Diseases have severally advanced their claims to pre-eminence, Death calls upon _Intemperance_:-- “All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand. Now expectation hushed the band, When thus the monarch from the throne: Merit was ever modest known-- What! no physician speak his right! None here? But fees their toils requite. Let then Intemperance take the wand, Who fills with gold their jealous hand. You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest (Whom wary men as foes detest) Forego your claim. No more pretend-- Intemperance is esteemed a friend. He shares their mirth, their social joys, And as a courted guest destroys. The charge on him must justly fall Who finds employment for you all.” It is in the following fable that Gay especially satirises the sanguinary diet:-- “Pythagoras rose at early dawn, By soaring meditation drawn; To breathe the fragrance of the day, Through flow’ry fields he took his way. In musing contemplation warm, His steps misled him to a farm: Where, on the ladder’s topmost round, A peasant stood. The hammer’s sound Shook the weak barn. ‘Say, friend, what care Calls for thy honest labour there?’ “The clown, with surly voice, replies: ‘Vengeance aloud for justice cries. This kite, by daily rapine fed, My hens’ annoy, my turkeys’ dread, At length his forfeit life hath paid. See on the wall his wings displayed, Here nailed, a terror to his kind. My fowls shall future safety find, My yard the thriving poultry feed, And my barn’s refuse fat the breed.’ “‘Friend,’ says the Sage, ‘the doom is wise-- For public good the murderer dies. But if these tyrants of the air Demand a sentence so severe, _Think how the glutton, man, devours; What bloody feasts regale his hours! O impudence of Power and Might!_ Thus to condemn a hawk or kite, When thou, perhaps, carnivorous sinner, Had’st pullets yesterday for dinner.’ “‘Hold!’ cried the clown, with passion heated, ‘Shall kites and men alike be treated? When heaven the world with creatures stored, Man was ordained their sovereign lord.’ ‘Thus tyrants boast,’ the Sage replied, ‘Whose murders spring from power and pride. Own then this man-like kite is slain _Thy greater luxury to sustain_-- For petty rogues submit to fate That great ones may enjoy their state.’”[138]