APPLICATION.
It is generally the design of hypocritical persons to delude and impose upon others, with an eye to derive some benefit to themselves, when they pretend to feel a flattering anxiety for their welfare; or sometimes they may perhaps, with impertinent folly, mean no more than merely to mock and befool men who are weak enough to become their dupes. In both cases they are enemies to truth and sincerity, which adorn and tend so greatly to promote the happiness of society, and they ought to be exposed as such. For although men of penetration see through the pretence, and escape its dangers, yet the weak, the vain, and the unsuspicious are put off their guard, and have not discernment enough to shun the trap so pleasingly baited. The Fable also furnishes a hint against hypocritical, legacy hunters, whose regard is generally of the same nature as that of the Fox for the Hen.
