A SPANIEL, bred with all the care In pamper'd ease his hours were spent: Each little mischief gain'd him praise; The wind was south, the morning fair, He ventures forth to take the air: He ranges all the meadow round, And rolls upon the softest ground; When near him a Chameleon seen, Was scarce distinguish'd from the green. "Dear emblem of the flattering host! What, live with clowns! a genius lost! To cities and the court repair; A fortune cannot fail thee there: Like you, a courtier born and bred, (1) Compare 1 Sam. xvi. 7. How different is thy case and mine? Like those I flatter'd, feed on air.”1 (1) The raillery at court sycophants naturally pervades our poet's writings, who had suffered so much from them: here, however, he intimates something more, namely, the apposite dispensations to men's acts, even in this world. The crafty is taken in his own guile, the courtier falls by his own arts, and the ladder of ambition only prepares for the aspirant a further fall. "Unde altior esset Casus, et impulsæ præceps immane ruinæ."-Juvenal. "GIVE me a son!"-The blessing sent, Were ever parents more content? Wak'd to the morning's pleasing care, With wringing hands and sobbing breast. (1) "I never yet saw that father who, let his son be never so decrepit or scaldpated, would not own him: not but that, unless he were totally besotted and blinded with his paternal affection, he does not well enough discern his defects, but because, notwithstanding all his faults, he is still his."-MONTAIGNE. "Sure some disaster has befell: Speak, Nurse; I hope the boy is well." "Dear Madam, think not me to blame; Your precious babe is hence convey'd, "The woman's blind," the Mother cries, "Lord, Madam, what a squinting leer! "Whence sprung the vain conceited lit, And should we change with human breed, (1) The application of this fable is two-fold; for whilst it slightly touches, by inference, the shortsightedness of human wishes, it also alludes to the false judgment which parental fondness forms, of juvenile error. The severe sarcasm passed by the fairy upon mortal infirmity, is as true, as the readiness with which we allow a reason to operate in our own case, and forbid it in another's, is frequent. Johnson's famous paraphrase upon the tenth Satire of Juvenal, is very concurrent with this fable. |