APPLICATION.
It is no wonder that our productions should come into the world blind or lame, or otherwise defective, when by forced or unnatural methods we accelerate their birth, and impatiently refuse to let them go their full time. Then it is that the excellent proverb of the more haste the worse speed, is felt and fully verified. This Fable has been pointed at those authors whose itch for scribbling has been an annoyance to the world, rather than of any real use to it; and who have been proud of, and boasted of the numerous but flimsy productions of their vain and shallow brains. It is proper to put such people in mind, that it is not he who does most, but he who does the best, that will meet the approbation of mankind.
Who told the Lamb to suck its Mother’s Paps?
THE SATYR AND THE TRAVELLER.
A Satyr, as he was ranging the forest in an exceeding cold snowy season, met with a Traveller half-starved with the extremity of the weather. He took compassion on him, and kindly invited him home to a warm cave he had in the hollow of a rock. As soon as they had entered and sat down, notwithstanding there was a good fire in the place, the chilly Traveller could not forbear blowing his fingers. Upon the Satyr asking him why he did so? He answered, that he did it to warm his hands. The honest Sylvan having seen little of the world, admired a man who was master of so valuable a quality as that of blowing heat; and therefore resolved to entertain him in the best manner he could. He spread the table with dried fruits of several sorts, and produced a remnant of old cordial wine, which he mulled with some warm spices over the fire, and presented to his shivering guest. But this the Traveller thought fit to blow upon likewise; and when the Satyr demanded a reason why he did so, he replied, to cool his dish. This second answer provoked the Satyr’s indignation as much as the first had kindled his surprise; so, taking the man by the shoulders, he thrust him out of the place, saying, he would have nothing to do with a wretch who had so vile a quality as to blow hot and cold with the same breath.
APPLICATION.
Nothing can be more offensive to a man of a sincere honest heart, than he who blows with different breaths from the same mouth: who flatters a man to his face, and reviles him behind his back. Such double-dealing false friends ought and will always be considered as unworthy of being treated otherwise than as worthless and disagreeable persons: for unless the tenor of a man’s life be always true and consistent with itself, the less one has to do with him the better. It is unfortunately too common with persons of this cast of character, in the exalted stations of life, to serve a present view, or perhaps only the caprice or whim of the moment, to blow nothing but what is warm, benevolent, and cherishing, to raise up the expectations of a dependent to the highest degree; and when they suspect he may prove troublesome, they then, by a sudden cold forbidding air, easily blast all his hopes and expectations: but such a temper, whether it proceed from a designed or natural levity, is detestable, and has been the cause of much trouble and mortification to many a brave deserving man.