friend, swallow, the hawk would not eat swallows, but for much the same reason."

The mention of the hawk brought to the swallow's mind his late exclamations; and he could not but blush: "Friends" said he, "I perceive that it is wrong to load any creature with reproach for doing what nature has directed. I see that, in an enlarged point of view, a hawk is as innocent as a swallow. I see, too, that we are apt to congratulate ourselves upon exemption from the faults of others, while we are ourselves guilty of things, which, though different,

are

are equally wrong: one kills a swallow, another a beetle, and another a puceron."

Then, turning to the beetle, he said: "you eat pucerons, and meal, and suck the nectar of flowers, for your subsistence; and I eat beetles for mine. neither I nor you should be accused of cruelty; but as it would be barbarous in me to destroy you now in a deliberate manner, take your liberty, and farewel!"

This incident, Melanthe, taken as a fable, and as such I have invented it, will afford many lessons which you will yourself discover. My intention

was to point out a natural, as well as a moral, truth. I wished to show you that a prejudice against particular creatures, for fancied acts of cruelty is absurd: --to prove that all are innocent, I prove that all are guilty.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

How just the moral in this scene conveyed!
And what without a moral would we read

JAGO.

I HAVE heard a soldier say, "in your first battle you think that you shall certainly be killed; but, having escaped this, you are under no apprehension about your fate in any subsequent engagement." It was thus that, when the Canary-bird heard a hawk was near him, he gave up his life for lost; and, (scarce

ly believed himself to be alive) long after the spoiler was gone. He lamented his folly in taking advantage of the unfastened door to extend the circumference of his range; and began to think, with the Paria of Saint Pierre, that, "the less the space we occupy, the more we are sheltered:" but when he recovered himself from his shock, he no longer regretted his enterprize. On the contrary, he encouraged himself by reflecting that, tho' such a dashing, heedless, headlong creature as a swallow met with a fate which, indeed, was no more than might be expect