[Illustration: THE PEACOCK'S COMPLAINT.]
The Peacock presented a memorial to Juno, importing how hardly he
thought he was used in not having so good a voice as the Nightingale;
how that pretty animal was agreeable to every ear that heard it, while
he was laughed at for his ugly screaming noise, if he did but open his
mouth. The goddess, concerned at the uneasiness of her favourite bird,
answered him very kindly to this purpose: 'If the Nightingale is blest
with a fine voice, you have the advantage in point of beauty and
largeness of person.'--'Ah!' says he, 'but what avails my silent
unmeaning beauty, when I am so far excelled in voice!'--The goddess
dismissed him, bidding him consider, that the properties of every
creature were appointed by the decree of fate: to him beauty; strength
to the Eagle; to the Nightingale a voice of melody; the faculty of
speech to the Parrot; and to the Dove innocence. That each of these was
contented with his own peculiar quality; and unless he had a mind to be
miserable, he must learn to be so too.