Page:Florian - The Fables, 1888.djvu/47

Rh  "What! are you kings, that you should be With lives of innocents so free? What right have you, I'd like to know, To deal around you death and woe, Like emperors, whose sport it is, To slay mankind like partridges?"  FABLE XVII.

THE FOX AS A PREACHER.

An old fox, gouty, apoplectic, All broken down, but learn'd and wise, Eloquent and skill'd in logic, His art at moral teaching tries, And to the desert rais'd his cries. His style was fine, his moral good; Under three heads his sermons stood; He plainly proved simplicity, Good manners and integrity, Must end in that felicity To which a lying world allures, But never to our hopes secures, Although we pay for't a large fee. At first he met with no success; None ever came to hear him preach, Save a few squirrels, more or less, Who chanc'd to fall within his reach; Or timid does, of little name, Who could not spread the preacher's fame. At length he wholly chang'd his course, And aimed at tyrants his discourse. 