"As the Chameleon, which is known
To have no colours of his own,
But borrows from his neighbour's hue
His white or black, his green or blue."
Gay, in his charming fable of the Spaniel and the Chameleon, "scarce distinguished from the green," makes the latter thus reply to the taunts of the pampered spaniel:—
"'Sir,' says the sycophant, 'like you,
Of old, politer life I knew:
Like you, a courtier born and bred,
Kings lean'd their ear to what I said:
My whisper always met success;