Proud of the clothes with which you are equipt,
You of your pride may easily be stript.
Reflection.
People would never envy the pomp and splendour of greatness, if they did but consider either the cares and dangers that go along with it, or the blessings of peace and security in a middle condition. No man can be truly happy, who is not every hour of his life prepared for the worst that can befall him. Now this is a state of tranquillity never to be attained but by keeping perpetually in our thoughts the certainty of death, and the lubricity of fortune; and by delivering ourselves from the anxiety of hopes and fears.
It falls naturally within the prospect of this fiction to treat of the wickedness of a presumptuous arrogance; the fate that attends it; the rise of it; and the means of either preventing or suppressing it; the folly of it; the wretched and ridiculous estate of a proud man, and the weakness of that envy that is grounded upon the mistaken happiness of human life.
The folly both of the Horse and Ass may be considered here; the one in placing his happiness upon anything that could be taken away; and the other, in envying that mistaken happiness, under the abuse of the same splendid illusion and imposture. What signify gay furniture, and a pampered carcase, or any other outward appearance, without an intrinsic value of worth and virtue? what signify beauty, strength, youth, fortune, embroidered furniture, gaudy bosses, or any of those temporary and uncertain satisfactions that may be taken from us with the very next breath we draw? what assurance can any man have of a possession that every turn of state, every puff of air, every change of humour, and the least of a million of common casualties, may deprive him of?
Moreover, the envy of the Ass was a double folly; for he mistakes both the Horse’s condition and his own. ’Tis madness to envy any creature that may in a moment become miserable, or for any advantage that may in a moment be taken from him. The Ass envies the Horse to-day; and, in some few days more, the Horse comes to envy him: wherefore let no man despair, so long as it is in the power either of death, or of chance, to remove the burden. Nothing but moderation and greatness of mind can make either a prosperous or an adverse fortune easy to us. The only way to be happy is to submit to our lot; for no man can be properly said to be miserable that is not wanting to himself. It is certainly true, that many a poor cobbler has a merrier heart in his stall, than a prince in his palace.
