Fell prone; o'erturn'd the pannier lay,
And her mash'd eggs bestrew'd the way.
She, sprawling in the yellow road,
Rail'd, swore, and cursed: "Thou croaking toad,
A murrain take thy whoreson throat!

I knew misfortune in the note."

"Dame," quoth the Raven, "spare your oaths,
Unclench your fist, and wipe your clothes.
But why on me those curses thrown?
Goody, the fault was all your own;
For had you laid this brittle ware
On Dun, the old sure-footed mare,
Though all the Ravens of the Hundred,

With croaking had your tongue out-thunder'd,
Sure-footed Dun had kept her legs,

And you, good woman, saved your eggs.'

(1) Self-love is so involved in the very elements of our mental economy, that the instant we fall into misfortune by our own fault, we lay the blame on luck, fortune, or some unmeaning superstitious fatality. Yet these would never have existed in our thought as operative agents to our good or ill, had not indolence or stupidity vaguely looked out for some imaginary culprit, to bear the blame of their own error. Well says Juvenal,

"Nos te,

"Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, cœloque locamus."

When, however, "imagination," to use Swift's quaint expression, "gets at cuffs with reason," there is no end to the absurdities which the latter is forced either tacitly to obey, or loudly to resist. Hence pages might be filled with accounts of the effect of superstition upon ignorance; indeed, it has been truly called "the religion of weak minds," from the servile obedience with which the latter bow down to it; so that whilst, on the one side, labour is paralysed, and duty omitted, on the other, injustice and cruelty are perpetrated, and charity utterly forgotten. For the ludicrous effects of superstition, see Montaigne, and Drake's Shakspeare, with the History of Witchcraft; and any one who would desire to confirm the saying of Lucretius,

"Sæpe peperit olim scelerosa atque impia facta,
Religio,-"

-where the last word is used in its bad sense of " superstition,"-may find examples in the history of the Popish Church, passim.

IN other men we faults can spy,

And blame the mote that dims their eye;1
Each little speck and blemish find,
To our own stronger errors blind.

A Turkey, tired of common food,

Forsook the barn, and sought the wood;

(1) This word "mote" does not rightly convey the antithesis to "beam," as the original gives it, for the translation, instead of "mote," ought to be "splinter," which is the true meaning of kúppos in the Greek. Vide Dr. Bloomfield on Matt. vii. 3.

Behind her ran an infant train,

Collecting here and there, a grain.

"Draw near, my Birds!" the mother cries,
"This hill delicious fare supplies.

Behold the busy negro race,

See millions blacken all the place!
Fear not; like me with freedom eat;
An Ant is most delightful meat.
How blest, how envied, were our life,
Could we but 'scape the poulterer's knife!
But man, curs'd man, on Turkeys preys,
And Christmas shortens all our days.
Sometimes with oysters we combine,
Sometimes assist the savoury chine;
From the low peasant to the lord,
The Turkey smokes on every board.
Sure men for gluttony are curs'd,

Of the seven deadly sins, the worst.”

An Ant, who climb'd beyond his reach,
Thus answer'd from the neighbouring beech:

"Ere you remark another's sin,

Bid thy own conscience look within;

Control thy more voracious bill,

Nor, for a breakfast, nations kill."1

(1) A friend of Tedyuscung once said to him whena little intoxicated, "There is one thing very strange, and which I cannot account for; it is, why the Indians get drunk so much more than the white people!" "Do you think that strange?" said the old chief; "why, it is not strange at all. The Indians think it no harm to get drunk whenever they can; but you white men say it is a sin, and yet get drunk nevertheless." The cause of censoriousness, I may observe also, is, that men are so taken up with playing the part of judges, that they forget their own proper condition is that of culprits.

THE Man to Jove his suit preferr'd;
He begg'd a wife: his prayer was heard.
Jove wonder'd at his bold addressing;
For how precarious is the blessing!

A wife he takes: and now for heirs Again he worries Heaven with prayers. Jove nods assent: two hopeful boys And a fine girl reward his joys.

Now more solicitous he grew,
And set their future lives in view;
He saw that all respect and duty

Were paid to wealth, to power, and beauty.
"Once more," he cries, "accept my prayer;
Make my loved progeny thy care:

Let my first hope, my favourite boy,
All Fortune's richest gifts enjoy.
My next with strong ambition fire;
May favour teach him to aspire,
Till he the step of power ascend,
And courtiers to their idol, bend.
With every grace, with every charm,
My daughter's perfect features arm.
If Heaven approve, a Father's bless'd."-
Jove smiles, and grants his full request.
The first, a miser at the heart,
Studious of every griping art,

Heaps hoards on hoards with anxious pain,
And all his life devotes to gain.

He feels no joy, his cares increase,
He neither wakes, nor sleeps, in peace;
In fancied want (a wretch complete)
He starves, and yet he dares not eat.1
The next to sudden honours grew;
The thriving art of courts he knew;
He reach'd the height of power and place,
Then fell, the victim of disgrace."

"Like a miser midst his store

Who grasps and grasps till he can hold no more;

And when his strength is wanting to his mind,

Looks back and sighs on what he left behind."-DRYDEN.

(2) See the fall of Sejanus magnificently described in the Tenth Satire of Juvenal; and Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.

K