A certain Jack-daw was so proud and ambitious, that, not contented to live within his own sphere, he picked up the feathers which fell from the Peacocks, stuck them in among his own, and very confidently introduced himself into an assembly of those beautiful birds. They soon found him out, stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and falling upon him with their sharp bills, punished him as his presumption deserved. Upon this, full of grief and affliction, he returned to his old companions, and would have lived with them again; but they, knowing his late life and conversation, industriously avoided him, and refused to admit him into their company; and one of them, at the same time, gave him this serious reproof: If, friend, you could have been contented with our station, and had not disdained the rank in which nature had placed you, you had not been used so scurvily by those upon whom you intruded yourself, nor suffered the notorious slight which now we think ourselves obliged to put upon you. APPLICATION. To aim at making a figure by the means of either borrowed wit, or borrowed money, generally subjects us at last to a ten-fold ridicule. A wise man, therefore, will take his post quietly, in his own station, without pretending to fill that of another, and never affect to look bigger than he really is, by means of a false or borrowed light. It shews great weakness and vanity in any man to be pleased at making an appearance above what he really is; but if to enable him to do so with something of a better grace, he has clandestinely feathered his nest out of his neighbour’s goods, it is a pity if he should not be found out, stripped of his plunder, and treated like a felonious rogue into the bargain. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Page 257] THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A Lion having laid down to take his repose under the spreading boughs of a shady tree, a company of Mice scampered over his back and waked him. Upon which, starting up, he clapped his paw upon one of them, and was just going to put it to death, when the little suppliant implored his mercy, begging him not to stain his noble character with the blood of so small and insignificant a creature. The Lion, touched with compassion, instantly released his little trembling captive. Not long after, traversing the forest in search of his prey, he chanced to run into the toils of the hunters, and not being able to disengage himself, he set up a loud roar. The Mouse hearing the voice, and knowing it to be the Lion’s, immediately repaired to the place, and bade him fear nothing, for that he was his friend. Instantly he fell to work, and with his little sharp teeth gnawed asunder the knots and fastenings of the toils, and set the royal brute at liberty. APPLICATION.