We may learn by this Fable the general consequence of an idle life,
and how well rewarded laborious diligent men are in the end, when
they quietly enjoy the fruits of their industry. They who by little
tricks and chicanery, or by open violence and robbery, are enabled
to live in a high expensive way, often despise the poor honest man,
who is contented with the humble produce of his daily labour. But how
often is the poor man comforted, by seeing these wanton villains led
in disgrace and misery to the altar of justice, while he has many a
cheerful summer’s morning to enjoy abroad, and many a long winter’s
evening to indulge in at home, by a quiet hearth, and under an unenvied
roof: blessings, which often attend a sober industrious man, though
the idle and the profligate are utter strangers to them. Luxury and
intemperance, besides their inevitable tendency to shorten a man’s
days, are very apt to engage their besotted votaries in a debauched
life, not only prejudicial to their health, but which engenders in
them a contempt for those whose good sense and true taste of happiness
inspire them with an aversion to idleness and effeminacy, and put them
upon hardening their constitution by innocent exercise and laudable
employment. How many do gluttony and sloth tumble into an untimely
grave! while the temperate and the active drink sober draughts of
life, and spin out the thread of their existence to the most desirable
length.
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