A Fox scrambling hastily over a hedge, in his flight from the hounds, got his foot severely torn by a Briar. Smarting with the pain, he burst into revilings and complaints at this treatment, which he declared he little expected to meet with for only passing over a hedge; and he could not help thinking it was very bad usage to be thus grappled by the long arms, and cut and wounded by the sharp crooked spines of a Briar. True, says the Briar, but recollect that you intended to have made me serve your turn, and would, without ceremony, have trampled me down to the ground: but none of your freedoms with me, Master Reynard; you may make a convenience of others perhaps, but the family of the Briars are not of that cast. Whoever presumes to use any impudent familiarities with them, is sure to smart for it.
APPLICATION.
Presuming and arrogant people do not hesitate to make a convenience, or a kind of stepping stone, of any one who will suffer them to do so; and if they can only get their turn served, no matter how, they use no ceremony, nor shew any delicacy in accomplishing their ends. But the selfish and impudent gentry, who are so apt to take liberties of this kind, now and then mistake their men, and are justly retorted upon; and however upon these occasions they may be surprized and angry, others, who are indifferent spectators, instead of viewing them as objects of pity, feel a secret satisfaction in seeing them suffer, as proper examples of justice.
THE MAN AND THE WEASEL.
A Man having caught a Weasel in his pantry, was just going to kill it, when the little captive begged that he would not do so cruel a deed, but spare his life; and he assured the Man that he was his friend, and only entered his pantry with a view of destroying the mice with which it was infested. That may be, said the Man, but you do not do this with the intention of serving me, nor with any other view but that of serving yourself; and besides, you are so ferocious and cruel a little creature, that you kill every animal you have within your power, without the least compunction, and seem to delight in killing for killing’s sake; therefore, your pretensions to serve me, and your plea for mercy, are good for nothing.
APPLICATION.
Many people in the world are ever ready to set up the pretensions of their acting with zeal, purely to serve the public, and pretend that it is through the warmth of their friendship that they do the same to individuals; but the main spring of all the actions of the agents of treachery, and of bad men, is set a-going with the view only of serving themselves. It is thus that the unprincipled and mercenary thief-taker would like well to be accounted a public spirited man; and he cannot help boasting of his services as such. The hangman’s pretensions are of the same kind: but however useful and necessary some of such a description of men may be, to keep down the wicked part of mankind, who are a nuisance to civilized society, yet the instruments themselves are very like in character to the Weasel in the Fable. The same may be said of those factious writers, who pester the public with their clamorous charges, under the mask of patriotism, but whose real motive is either to gain money by the sale of their highly seasoned scandals, or to run down their corrupt opponents in order to obtain their places.