of it a larger measure; or as far as may be possible, to gather of its flowers without exposing ourselves to be wounded by the thorns it bears. This is only to be done by setting out in life with juster feelings and fairer expectations.

It is not true that friends are few and kindness rare. No one ever needed a friend and deserved one, and found them not: but we do not know them when we see them, or deal with them justly when we have them. We must allow others to be as variable, and imperfect, and faulty as ourselves. An old writer has most forcibly said "To say nothing of our friends, will not the sinking of our own hearts below the generous tenor of friendship blast the fruits of it to us? Did we use so little affectation in making a friend, that we need none to keep him? Must not we be always upon the stretch in some minute cautions and industries, in order to content that tender affection we would have in our friend? Can we make our love to him visible amidst the reserve and abstraction of a pensive mind? In our sanguine hours do we not assume too much, and in our melancholy, think ourselves despised?" Whether we feel it or not, this is the truth of ourselves, and if of ourselves, of others also. We do not wish our young readers to love their friends less, but to love them as what they are, rather than as what they wish them to be -and instead of the jealous pertinacity that is

wounded by every appearance of change, and disgusted by every detection of a fault, and ready to distrust and cast away the kindest friend on every trifling difference of behaviour or feeling, to cultivate a moderation in their demands, a patient allowance for the effect of time and circumstance, an indulgence towards peculiarities of temper and character, and above all, such a close examination of what passes in their own hearts, as will teach them better to understand and excuse what they detect in the hearts of others; ever remembering that all things on earth are earthly, and therefore changeful, perishable, and uncertain.

No. XI.

A FABLE.

Beside the several pieces of morality to be drawn out of this vision, I learned from it, never to repine at my own misfortunes, or to envy the happiness of another; since it is impossible for any man to form a right judgment of his neighbour's sufferings.

ADDISON.

I Do not know whether my readers ever felt a desire of the sort, but I have often thought it must be pleasant to listen in the days of sop, when every Thrush could offer counsel in a voice as sweet as that with which she bids farewell to the departing sun, and every Butterfly could whisper a warning to the frivolous and vain, before the cold wind numbed her golden bosom. However remotely wandering from the walks of men, however much. condemned to solitude and silence, he could hear something that was worth the listing; and worth the telling too, as the world has seemed to think; since for ages after it is content to read, what the

Fabler has ceased to tell, and the birds and the beasts have so unkindly ceased to utter.

Perhaps my readers do not believe that it ever has been so. That is a scepticism very unfavourable to the reception of my story-but if it be so, I can only say that all I repeat, I did surely hear, and if they listen they may hear it too--and perhaps they will think with me, that since it cannot be the discourse of creatures rational, I do wisely to attribute it to those we term irrational. Perhaps could these irrationals be heard in their own behalf, they would say our fables do them much injustice. They have shared our miseries but not our sins. The wolf devours the lamb because he is hungry, and the lamb is the food that nature has appointed him : when he no more is hungry, he will no more slay the lamb. He obeys the hard necessity brought on him by man's delinquency, and thinks and knows no wrong. But the jealousy, and the pride, and the hard unkindness, and the restless discontent, and aimless mischief, is all reserved for bosoms rational- -we have put into the mouths of the viper and the lion, words of wrong that amid all created things, perhaps, were never heard but from our own. However this may be, I must proceed with my tale; and if my readers, afer a careful perusal, should be of opinion that I was deceived, and that the creatures I saw and heard were neither birds nor beasts, I willingly submit to their decision.

One day if it was not in the days of Æsop, it must have been in some region not very commonly known-I was wandering by myself in the fairest of scenes, on the finest of days, and in the best of humours How could I be otherwise? It was a day and a scene in which the spirit that delights in nature's charms, feels almost a painful struggle to enlarge its powers that it may enjoy them moreIt was not hot, for the fresh breeze blew from the sea, bearing with it the perfume of the moss and herbage over which it passed-It was not cold, for a bright autumn sun wanted yet some hours of setting; and if now and then a silver fleece passed over it as a veil, it was but to change the tints and vary a prospect nothing could improve. Either my mind was that day free from cares, or in the overwhelming sense of gratitude for the bounty that with so much beauty clothes this perishable world, the remembrance of them was for the time absorbed ; could I be dissatisfied where all beside was harmony and peace? Every thing was beautiful, and every thing as I thought seemed happy. A crowd of living creatures gave animation to the scene, and each one appeared, in my delighted vision, exactly formed to be what it was and to do what it was doing; and could any one be other than itself, I thought it must lose something of its fitness and its charms. Yonder cold Worm, I said, that crawls in naked ugliness upon the soil, and cannot rise from it, should I take it up and lay