Page:Little fabulist, or, Select fables.pdf/17

(17) A Tortoise, weary of passing her days in the same obscure corner, conceived a wonderful inclination to visit foreign countries. Two Ducks, whom the simple Tortoise acquainted with her intention, undertook to oblige her, upon the occasion. Accordingly they told her, that it she would fasten her mouth to the middle of a pole, they would take the two ends, and transport her whithersoever she chose to be conveyed. The Tortoise approved of the expedient; and every thing being prepared, the Ducks began their flight with her. They had not travelled far in the air, when they were met by a Crow, who enquiring what they were bearing along, they replied, the Queen of the Tortoises. The Tortoise, vain of the new and unmerited appellation, was going to confirm the title, when opening her mouth for that purpose, she let go her hold, and was dashed to pieces by her fall.

The Atheist and the Acorn.

T was the fool who said in his heart, There is no God: into the breast of a wise man such a thought could never have entered.

One of those refined reasoners, commonly called Minute Philosophers, was sitting at his ease beneath the shade of a large oak,