FABLE IX. The Bull and the Mastiff. SEEK you to train your fav'rite boy? Each caution, ev'ry care employ: And ere you venture to confide, Let his preceptor's heart be try'd: Weigh well his manners, life, and scope; On these depends thy future hope. As on a time, in peaceful reign, A Bull enjoy'd the flow'ry plain, A Mastiff pass'd; inflam'd with ire. His eyeballs shot indignant fire; He foam'd, he rag'd with thirst of blood. Spurning the ground, the monarch stood, And roar'd aloud-Suspend the fight; In a whole skin go sleep to-night: Or tell me, ere the battle rage, What wrongs provok'd thee to engage? Is it ambition fires thy breast, Or avarice, that ne'er can rest? From these alone unjustly springs The world-destroying wrath of Kings. The surly Mastiff thus returns:Within my bosom glory burns. Like heroes of eternal name, Whom poets sing, I fight for fame. The butcher's spirit-stirring mind To daily war my youth inclin'd; He train'd me to heroic deed, Taught me to conquer, or to bleed. Curst dog! the Bull reply'd, no more I wonder at thy thirst of gore; For thou (beneath a butcher train'd, Whose hands with cruelty are stain'd; His daily murders in thy view) Must, like thy tutor, blood pursue. Take, then, thy fate. With goring wound, At once he lifts him from the ground: Aloft the sprawling hero flies; Mangled he falls, he howls, and dies! FABLE X. The Elephant and the Bookseller. THE man who, with undaunted toils, Sails unknown seas to unknown soils, With various wonders feasts his sight: What stranger wonders does he write! We read, and, in description, view Creatures which Adam never knew; For, when we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction. Those things that startle me or you, I grant, are strange, yet may be true. Who doubts that Elephants are found, For science and for sense renown'd? Borri records their strength of parts, Extent of thought, and skill in arts: How they perform the law's decrees, And save the state the hangman's fees; And how, by travel, understand How learn'd was that sagacious breed! He, the chief flatt'rer, Nature made. How can the fox's theft and plunder No man is better pay than I am; When wrinkling with a sneer his trunk, FABLE XI. The Peacock, the Turkey, and the Goose. IN beauty faults conspicuous grow; The smallest speck is seen on snow. As near a barn, by hunger led, A Peacock with the poultry fed, All view'd him with an envious eye, And mock'd his gaudy pageantry; He, conscious of superior merit, Contemns their base reviling spirit, His state and dignity assumes, And to the sun displays his plumes, Which, like the heav'n's o'erarching skies, Are spangled with a thousand eyes. The circling rays, and varied light, At once confound their dazzled sight. On every tongue detraction burns, And malice prompts their spleen by turns Mark with what insolence and pride The creature takes his haughty stride! The Turkey cries. Can spleen contain? Sure never bird was half so vain! But were intrinsic merit seen, We Turkeys have the whiter skin. From tongue to tongue they caught abuse; And next was heard the hissing Goose. What hideous legs! what filthy claws! I scorn to censure little flaws. |