class="c6">I love and respect the generous Hound."

A Cat answered, hard by: "This quality fine
I assure you is also a merit of mine."—
"Ah! what's that?" said the Rat, as, in terrible fright
He sprang to his hole, and, when safe out of sight,
Just poking his nose out, he coolly did call:
"You boast of it, hey? I don't like it at all."

The honor which many would freely allow,
They retract, when it lights on an enemy's brow.

Now what say you, my reader? "The fable is one
Which delights and instructs. It is perfectly done.
Esop had, in these things, a way of his own."
Ah! but look, my good sir; from this noddle of mine
It all came. Your friend Esop wrote never a line—
Of the whole.—"Ah, indeed! Then the fable is thine?"

Yes it is, learned man; and I ween you'll not fail.
Being mine, to attack it with tooth and with nail.

FABLE XXII.—XXIII.

THE OWL AND LAMP,

AND

THE DOGS AND THE RAGMAN.

There is a set of dastard knaves,
Vile critics, that will wait to make attack
On authors till their victims are—alack!—
All safe and quiet in their graves;
For living men, they know, might answer back.

To this same purpose, once a little lay
My old grandmother sang to me,
Recounting how a wandering Owl, one day,
Into a convent chanced to make her way;—
I'm wrong—by day it could not be.

For, without doubt, the evening's sun had set
Below the horizon long ago.
Now, as she flew along, our Owl she met
A Lamp or Lanthorn in the passage set—
Which of the two I do not know.

Turning reluctant back, in angry spite,
Thus spoke she out her mind:
"Ah, Lamp! with what unspeakable delight
I'd suck the oil all out of you this night,
But that my eyes you blind!

But if I cannot now,
Since you are such a blaze of dazzling light,—
If I should find you, on some other night,
Unlighted, then, I shall be ready quite
To make a feast, I vow."

Denounced though I may be,
By coward critics, that I here expose—
Because I dare their meanness to disclose;
Their portrait they shall see
In yet another fable ere I close.

Beating an old dust pan,
A Ragman stood, when, barking furiously
As Cerberus, two Dogs, eying him curiously,
With vagabondish man,
As is their wont—howled savagely.

To them a tall Greyhound
Said, "Let the wretch alone,—for he is one
Who from dead dogs will strip the reeking skin
To sell for bread. No honor can you win
On him—for, I'll be bound,
From living dogs the conscious rogue will run."

FABLE XXIV.

THE THRUSH, PARROT AND MAGPIE.

A Thrush, who heard a Parrot talking—
Of him, rather than of his instructor, man,
Desired himself the mystery to learn.
And, in one lesson, such line accent thought
To have attained, that, in his turn,
He the great art of speech began
To the Magpie to teach; and turned his pupil out
A scholar, as accomplished as, no doubt,
Are those who will poor copies and translations scan
For models—Blunder shocking!

FABLE XXV.

THE WOLF AND THE SHEPHERD.

The Wolf a Shepherd blandly once addressed:
"Friend—let me say I really do not know
Why you will view me always as a pest;
You think me a bad fellow. Faith, I am not so.
What a warm coat my skin in winter yields!
It shelters many a man from cold and wetting;
Moreover, too, from sting of flea it shields,
And other insects vile your couch besetting.
Against the withering blight of evil eye
My claws will screen you—counter charm secure.
My fat for hurts a sovereign remedy—
The uses of my teeth you know, I'm sure."

The Shepherd answered: "Animal perverse!
Upon thy head be Heaven's eternal curse!
On endless mischief bent—no thanks to you
If, now and then, some good you chance to do."

To many books, in these our days, my verse
Allots the Wolf's foul character and curse.

FABLE XXVI.

THE LION, EAGLE AND BAT.

The Eagle and Lion
Held solemn debate;
To settle between them
Some matters of state

Loud complaints of the Bat
Made the Eagle—"How long
Shall this pitiful creature
Dare do us such wrong?

With my vassals mixing,
To her birdship she clings,—
As proof irrefragable,
Showing her wings;

But says, when she chooses
Our laws to defy,
I'm no subject of yours;
A plain quadruped I.

Would you call me a Bird?
A sad blunder you've made!
For I wear a broad snout,
And no beak, on my head?

With my vassals, she slanders
The Beasts of your reign;
When among you she wanders,
Of the Birds will complain."

"In my realm," said the Lion,
"No more shall she come."—
"Nor in mine," said the Eagle—
"Let that be her doom."

Thenceforward, in darkness,
She wanders alone;
No Bird and no Beast
Such companion will own.

Bats of authors, who seek
To be two things at once,
Take care lest ye prove
In both—but a dunce!

FABLE XXVII.

THE MONKEY.

A Monkey, clothed in silk,
Will a Monkey still remain;
So says an ancient proverb,
And so say I again;
As to all, it clearly will appear,
Who listen to our fable here.

In dress of gaudy hues,
Such as harlequin would choose,
A Monkey tricked herself.
But I rather think the elf
From her master got her finery;
For else, I hardly see
How Monkey could or cloth or tailor find find—
Yet so the story goes—but never mind.
Seeing herself so gay,
She through the window sprang
Upon a roof that lay
Below, then took her way
Unto the far-off land of Tetuan.
The proverb don't say this;
But there a history is,
Which I cannot call to mind,—
For the book is very rare,—-
Which doth the truth unravel
Whither she did travel;
Which to discover must have cost a world of care
But the author does not say,
And neither can I guess.
If by ship, or by the way
Of the Isthmus of Suez:
All that we know is, that she certainly went there.
Here our fine lady found
A jolly Monkey