Many of the old moralists have interpreted this Fable as a caution never to trust a woman: a barbarous inference, which neither the obvious sense of the apologue, nor the disposition of the softer sex will warrant. For though some women may be fickle and unstable, yet the generality exceed their calumniators in truth and constancy, and have more frequently to complain of being the victims, than to be arraigned as the authors of broken vows. To us this Fable appears to mean little more than merely to shew how easily inclined we are, in all our various expectations through life, to delude ourselves into a belief of any thing which we desire to be true. The lover interprets every smile of his mistress in his own favour, and is then perhaps neglected. The beauty believes all mankind are dying for her, and is then deserted by her train of admirers. The followers of the great reckon a smile or a nod very auspicious omens, and deceive themselves with groundless hopes of employment or promotion, in expectation of which, they, like the Wolf at the Nurse’s door, dangle away the time that might be usefully employed elsewhere, and at last are obliged to retire disappointed and hungry, crying out perhaps against the perfidy of those in power, instead of blaming their own sanguine credulity. [Illustration] [Page 267] THE HARPER. A Man who used to play upon the harp, and sing to it, in little ale-houses, and made a shift in those narrow confined walls to please the dull sots who heard him, from hence entertained an ambition of shewing his parts in the public theatre, where he fancied he could not fail of raising a great reputation and fortune in a very short time. He was accordingly admitted upon trial; but the spaciousness of the place, and the throng of the people, so deadened and weakened both his voice and instrument, that scarcely either of them could be heard, and where they could, his performance sounded so poor, so low, and wretched, in the ears of his refined audience, that he was universally hissed off the stage. APPLICATION.