This Fable is levelled against those worthless hirelings, who slide over their time in negligent disorder, and this not so much for want of capacity as honesty; their own private interest almost solely occupying their attention, while that of their master, whose wages they receive, and whose bread they eat, is postponed, or entirely neglected. Such servants deserve not to be inmates in any good man’s house; but where they are, it is absolutely necessary for the governors of families to look into their affairs with their own eyes; for though they may happen not to be in personal danger from the treachery of their domestics, they are perpetually liable to injuries from their negligence, which leaves the master open to the artifices of those who would defraud him. Few families are reduced to poverty merely by their own extravagance: the inattention of servants swells every article of expence in domestic economy; and the retinue of great men, instead of exerting their industry to increase their master’s wealth, commonly exercise no other office than that of caterpillars, to consume and devour it. The fate of the Stag also warns us not to engage in any hazardous speculation, the success of which is to depend upon the ignorance or carelessness of those with whom we have to deal; for though we may over-reach one or two, yet some master-eye is sure at last to pierce our covering of straw, and make us pay dearly for deviating from the straight road of candour and prudence. [Illustration] [Page 249] THE FOWLER AND THE RING-DOVE. A Fowler took his gun, and went into the woods a-shooting. He spied a Ring-dove among the branches of an Oak, and clapping the piece to his shoulder, took his aim, and made himself sure of killing it. But just as he was going to pull the trigger, an Adder, which he had trod upon under the grass, bit him so painfully in the leg, that he was obliged to quit his design, and throw his gun down in an agony. The venom immediately infected his blood, and his whole body began to mortify; which, when he perceived, he could not help owning it to be just. Fate, says he, has brought destruction upon me, while I was contriving the death of another. APPLICATION. The mischief that bad men meditate to others, commonly, like a judgment, falls upon their own heads; and the punishment of wickedness is so just in itself that the sufferer, who has made others feel it, cannot, if he think rightly, but confess that he deserves the like inflicted on himself. The hardened unfeeling heart of a cruel and unjust man, can, however, continue to do a thousand bitter things to others, until he tastes calamity himself, and then only it is that he feels the insupportable uneasiness it occasions. Why should we think others born to hard treatment more than ourselves, or imagine it can be reasonable to do to another what we should think very hard to suffer in our own persons? [Illustration] [Illustration] [Page 251] THE HARES AND THE FROGS.