This Fable is levelled at that numerous part of mankind, who, out of their own ample fortunes take care to accomplish themselves in every thing but common sense, and seem not even to bestow a thought upon the important consequences of cultivating their understandings. The smooth address and plausible behaviour of the varnished fop may indeed pass current with the ignorant and superficial, but however much he may value himself upon his birth or figure, he never fails exciting the contempt or the pity of men of sagacity and penetration, and the ridicule of those who are disposed to amuse themselves at the folly and vanity of such as put on the mask of wisdom to cover their want of brains. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Page 53] THE THIEF AND THE DOG. A Thief coming to rob a certain house in the night, was thwarted in his attempts by a fierce vigilant Dog, who kept barking at him continually. Upon which the Thief, thinking to stop his mouth, threw him a piece of bread; but the Dog refused it with indignation, telling him that before he only suspected him to be a bad man, but now upon his offering to bribe him, his suspicions were fully confirmed; and that as he was entrusted with the guardianship of his master’s house, he would never cease barking while such a rogue was lurking about it. APPLICATION. Nothing can alter the honest purpose of him whose mind is embued with good principles. He will despise an insidious bribe, and the greater the offer which is designed to buy his silence, the louder and more indignantly will he open out against the miscreant who would thus practise upon him. He knows that the favours held out to him are not marks of the love and regard of him who would confer them, but are meant as the price at which he is to sell his honour and his virtue. With a mind unpolluted, his noble resolution never fails to produce the happiest consequences, by preserving his friends and himself from the mischievous projects laid against them. So true it is, that virtue is its own reward; while corruption and venality are sure in the end to bring the greatest miseries on those, and their adherents, who are so base, or perhaps inconsiderate, as to subject themselves to future evils of the most fatal nature, for the sake of a little present profit. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Page 55] THE MAN AND HIS GOOSE. A certain Man had a Goose, which laid him a golden egg every day. But not contented with this, which rather increased than abated his avarice, he was resolved to kill the Goose, and cut up her belly, that by so doing he might come at the inexhaustible treasure which he fancied she had within her. He did so, and to his great sorrow and disappointment, found nothing. APPLICATION.