The bird, obedient, from heaven's height,1
Downward directs his rapid flight;
Then cited every living thing

To hear the mandates of his king.
"Ungrateful creatures! whence arise
These murmurs which offend the skies;
Why this disorder? say the cause;
For just are Jove's eternal laws.
Let each his discontent reveal;

To yon sour Dog I first appeal."

"Hard is my lot," the Hound replies, "On what fleet nerves the Greyhound flies; While I, with weary step and slow, O'er plains, and vales, and mountains go. The morning sees my chase begun,

Nor ends it till the setting sun."

"When," says the Greyhound, "I pursue,

My game is lost, or caught in view;
Beyond my sight the prey's secure;
The hound is slow, but always sure;
And had I his sagacious scent,
Jove ne'er had heard my discontent."
The Lion craved the Fox's art;
The Fox the Lion's force and heart:
The Cock implored the Pigeon's flight,
Whose wings were rapid, strong, and light;
The Pigeon strength of wing despised,
And the Cock's matchless valour prized:
The Fishes wished to graze the plain,
The Beasts to skim beneath the main :
Thus, envious of another's state,

Each blamed the partial hand of Fate.

(1) This is a bad line, and forms an exception to Gay's usual accuracy.

(1)

The Bird of Heaven' then cried aloud,
"Jove bids disperse the murmuring crowd;
The god rejects your idle prayers.
Would ye, rebellious mutineers!
Entirely change your name and nature,
And be the very envied creature?—
What, silent all, and none consent?
Be happy, then, and learn content;
Nor imitate the restless mind,

And proud ambition, of mankind."2

"Jovis ales."-VIRGIL.

(2) Perfect good being unattainable, each man's position would be rendered pleasant, or at least tolerable to him, were he to consider, (which he does not,) the infelicities, rather than the apparent enjoyments, of another. The rich envies the poor man's healthy relish of food, let him set against it the latter's constrained self-denial: the pauper craves wealth, instead of contemplating the cares it brings with it. There is a crook in each lot, a sore place in every man's heart; God hath set one thing against the other in all conditions, so that the hardest fate has never yet been found. Were there a window in every one's breast, how often would clouds appear in the lot we consider brightest! how few beggars would then be content to exchange their condition with the wealthiest, without a pause! "Sorte tuâ contentus abi," is a panacea for most ills.

THE WILD BOAR AND THE RAM.

AGAINST an elm a sheep was tied,
The butcher's knife in blood was dyed;
The patient flock, in silent fright,
From far beheld the horrid sight:
A savage Boar, who near them stood,
Thus mock'd to scorn the fleecy brood.

"All cowards should be served like you.
See, see, your murderer is in view:
With purple hands, and reeking knife,
He strips the skin yet warm with life.

Your quarter'd sires, your bleeding dams,
The dying bleat of harmless lambs,
Call for revenge. O stupid race!
The heart that wants revenge is base."

"I grant," an ancient Ram replies,
"We bear no terror in our eyes;

Yet think us not of soul so tame,
Which no repeated wrongs inflame;
Insensible of every ill,

Because we want thy tusks to kill.
Know, those who violence pursue,
Give to themselves the vengeance due;
For in these massacres they find

1

The two chief plagues that waste mankind.
Our skin supplies the wrangling bar,

It wakes their slumbering sons to war;
And well revenge may rest contented,
Since drums and parchment were invented."2

(1)

'Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils."-MILTON.

(2) Patient forbearance under injury is a distinctive trait of true humility, and, it may be said, of wisdom also; since if we leave tyranny to work its way, the end shows that its greatest victim will be itself. Man is not so fearful in his cruelty to the brutes, as he is in his animosity to his fellow, and greater curses have never befallen the world, than litigious strife, under the plea of justice, and war and rapine under the name of glory. Can any intellect comprehend the vast amount of cruelty, lust, and malice, let loose in a campaign, or of injustice, perjury, and fraud, tied up in a piece of red tape?

(1)

THE wind was high, the window shakes,
With sudden start the Miser wakes;
Along the silent room he stalks,
Looks back, and trembles as he walks.
Each lock and every bolt he tries,
In every creek and corner pries;
Then opes the chest with treasure stored,
And stands in rapture o'er his hoard:1

"At midnight thus th' Usurer steals untrack'd

To make a visit to his hoarded gold,

And feast his eyes upon the shining mammon."-OTWAY.

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