The same thing which recommends us to the esteem of good people, will make those that are bad have nothing but hatred and ill-will towards us; for every man who has engaged himself in a vicious or wicked course of life, fiend-like, makes himself, as it were, the natural adversary of virtue. It is in vain for innocent men, under oppression, to complain to those who are the occasion of it: all they can urge will but make against them; and even their very innocence, though they should say nothing, would render them sufficiently suspected. The moral, therefore, that this Fable brings along with it, is to inform us that there is no trusting, nor any hopes of living well, with wicked unjust men; for their disposition is such, that they will do mischief to others as soon as they have the opportunity. When vice flourishes, and is in power, were it possible for a good man to live quietly in its neighbourhood, and preserve his integrity, it might be sometimes perhaps convenient for him to do so, rather than quarrel with and provoke it against him. But as it is certain that rogues are irreconcileable enemies to men of worth, if the latter would be secure, they must take methods to free themselves from the power and society of the former. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Page 75] THE WOLVES AND THE SICK ASS. An Ass being sick, the report was spread abroad in the country, and some did not scruple to say, that she would die before another night went over her head. Upon this, several Wolves went to the stable where she lay, under pretence of making her a visit; but rapping at the door, and asking how she did, the young Ass came out, and told them that his mother was much better than they desired. APPLICATION. If the kind enquiries after the sick were all to be interpreted with as much frankness as those in the Fable, the porters of the great might commonly answer with the strictest propriety, that their masters were much better than was wished or desired. The charitable visits which are made to many sick people, proceed from much the same motive with that which induced the hungry Wolves to make their enquiries after the sick Ass, namely, that they may come in for some share of their remains, and feast themselves upon the reversion of their goods and chattels. The sick man’s heir longs for his estate; one friend waits in anxious expectation of a legacy, and another wants his place; it, however, does not unfrequently happen, that the mask of these selfish visitants, and their counterfeit sorrow, are seen through, and their impertinent officiousness treated with the contempt it so justly deserves. [Illustration: ’Tis \the\ a world! floating about, like an illumined mote, in the immensity of endless space--and is inhabited by nations of proud pismires.--] [Illustration] [Page 77] THE DOG IN THE MANGER.