They who are of such craving impatient tempers, that they cannot live contented when fortune has blessed them with a constant and continued sufficiency, deserve even to be deprived of what they have. And this has been the case of many ambitious and covetous men, who, by making an essay to grow very rich at once, have missed what they aimed at, and lost what they had before. But this comes so near the sense of the forty-seventh fable, that the same application may very well serve for both. If any thing further can be couched in this, it may possibly be intended to show us the unreasonableness and inconvenience of being solicitous about what may happen hereafter, and wanting to pry into the womb of futurity: which if we could do, all we should get for our pains would be, to spoil our pleasures by anticipation, and double our misfortunes by a previous sense and apprehension of them. There are some things that entertain and delight us very agreeably while we view them at a proper distance; which, perhaps, would not stand the test of a too near inspection. Beauty, being only the external form of a thing which strikes the eye in a pleasing manner, is a very thin glossy being, and, like some nice paintings of a peculiar composition, will not well bear even to be breathed on: to preserve our good opinion of it, we must not approach too close; for if, like the man in the fable, we have a mind to search for a treasure within, we may not only fail of our expectations there, but even lose the constant relish we enjoyed from a remoter contemplation.
FABLE XCVII.
THE DOG AND THE WOLF.
A lean, hungry, half-starved Wolf, happened, one moonshiny night, to meet with a jolly, plump, well-fed mastiff; and, after the first compliments were passed, says the Wolf—'You look extremely well; I protest, I think, I never saw a more graceful comely person. But how comes it about, I beseech you, that you should live so much better than I? I may say, without vanity, that I venture fifty times more than you do; and yet I am almost ready to perish with hunger.'—The Dog answered very bluntly—'Why you may live as well, if you will do the same for it that I do.'—'Indeed! What is that?' says he.—'Why,' says the Dog, 'only to guard the house a nights, and keep it from thieves.'—'With all my heart,' replies the Wolf, 'for at present I have but a sorry time of it; and, I think, to change my hard lodging in the woods, where I endure rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head, and a belly full of good victuals, will be no bad bargain.'—'True,' says the Dog; 'therefore you have nothing more to do but to follow me.' Now, as they were jogging on together, the Wolf spied a crease in the Dog's neck, and, having a strange curiosity, could not forbear asking him what it meant.—'Pugh! nothing,' says the Dog. 'Nay, but pray,'—says the Wolf. 'Why,' says the Dog, 'if you must know, I am tied up in the day-time, because I am a little fierce, for fear I should bite people, and am only let loose a nights. But this is done with design to make me sleep a days, more than any thing else, and that I may watch the better in the night-time; for, as soon as ever the twilight appears, out I am turned, and may go where I please. Then my master brings me plates of bones from the table with his own hands, and whatever scraps are left by any of the family, all fall to my share; for you must know I am a favourite with every body. So you see how you are to live.—Come, come along; what is the matter with you?'—'No,' replied the Wolf, 'I beg your pardon; keep your happiness all to yourself. Liberty is the word with me; and I would not be a king upon the terms you mention.'
The lowest condition of life, with freedom attending it, is better than the most exalted station under a restraint. Æsop and Phædrus, who had both felt the bitter effects of slavery, though the latter of them had the good fortune to have the mildest prince that ever was for his master, cannot forbear taking all opportunities to express their great abhorrence of servitude, and their passion for liberty, upon any terms whatsoever. Indeed, a state of slavery, with whatever seeming grandeur and happiness it may be attended, is yet so precarious a thing, that he must want sense, honour, courage, and all manner of virtue, who can endure to prefer it in his choice. A man who has so little honour as to bear to be a slave, when it is in his power to prevent or redress it, would make no scruple to cut the throats of his fellow creatures, or to do any wickedness that the wanton unbridled will of his tyrannical master could suggest.