Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/190

136 Away Scoures the Lyon, and the As after him: Now ‘twas the Crowing of the Cock that Frighted the Lyon, not the Braying of the Ae as That Stupid Animal Vainly Fancy’d to Himelf, for o oon as ever they were gotten out of the Hearing of the Cock, the Lyon turn'd hort upon him, and tore him to pieces, with Thee Words in his Mouth: Let never any Creature hereafter that has not the Courage of a Hare, Provoke a Lyon.

a Bragging Coxcomb is Ruin'd by a Mitake of Fear in an Enemy, and a Fancy of Courage in Himelfe. Baudoin Remarks upon the Lyons's Averion to the Cock, that there’s Nothing fo Great, but it has its Failings, and o he makes the Puruit of the Lyon to be a Particular Mark of the Aes Weaknefs. Melier will have the Fear to be Counterfeited, with a Deign to Surprize the Puruer; but This Fable eems till to look Another way.

It may appear a very Extravagant, Surprizing Encounter, that Æop has Exhibited to us in This Fable. Here's a Lyon running away from a Cock, and an Ae Puruing a Lyon: That is to ay, here are Two of the mot Unlikely Things in Nature brought together, in the Semblance of Fear in the One, and of Reolution in the Other: But the Moral is never the Wore yet for the Seeming Diproportions of the Figure; and the Characters in the Fiction, are well enough Suited to the Truth, and Life of the Cae, The Flight of the Lyon mut be Imputed here to the Natural Averion that he has to the Crowing of a Cock. This is the Tradition; but it hall break No Squares whether it be o or not: For the Philoophy holds good in Other Intances No les Wonderfull, whether it be True or Fale in This. How many Inuperable Diagreements do we Meet with, in the Bus'nes of Meats, Drinks, and Medicines; in Plants, Minerals, and Living Creatures! Now Thee Impules are no more to be Controll'd, then the Primary, and the Unchangeable Powers and Laws of Nature: And Thee Intincts, after All, are no more to be Reaon’d upon, then they are to be Reited; and therefore it is, that we call them Occult Qualities; which is All One with Saying that we do not Undertand how they Work, or What they Are. Now 'tis One Thing to Submit to an Abolute Force, Another thing to Fly and Yield to a Natural Infirmity: So that 'tis No Departure from the Dignity of a Lyon to Fly, when Nature Drives him: Neither is it at all to the Aes Reputation, to Purue, when Vanity, Folly and Rahnes Tranport him.

The Ae, we ee, lyes under Many Mitakes here, and the More, and the Groer they are, the more Suitable till to his Character. How many uch Aes are there in the World, that Huffe, Look Big, Stare, Dres, Cock, Swagger, at the ame Noie-Blutring Rate; and Nothing more Familiar then for a Whiffling Fop, that has not o much as One Grain of the Sene, or Soul of a man of Honour in him, to play the part of a Heroe.