APPLICATION.
The moral of this Fable principally instructs us not to be too credulous in believing the insinuations of those who are already distinguished by their want of faith and honesty, for perfidious people ought ever to be suspected in the reports that favour their own interest. When, therefore, any such would draw us into a compliance with their destructive measures, by a pretended civility, or plausible relation, we should consider such proposals as a bait, artfully placed to conceal some fatal hook, which is intended to draw us into danger; and if by any simple counterplot we can unmask the design and defeat the schemes of the wicked, it will not only be innocent, but praise-worthy.
