The fowler’s professions of friendship for the birds, while he aimed
at their destruction, may be paralleled by too many instances in
real life; and however mortifying it may be to reflect upon, yet
so it is, that the designing knave far too often succeeds in his
deep-laid schemes to ensnare, over-reach, and ruin the honest and the
unsuspecting man. Planners and projectors of this character, both of
high and low degree, are suffered to roam at large, and it behoves the
inexperienced to guard against their plots with a watchful eye; for
while they smoothly disclaim taking any mean advantage over those they
are addressing, with their plausible pretensions, their sole study and
aim is to fill their own pockets, and then to hug themselves with the
thoughts of their success, and to laugh at those whom they have duped.
As long as people can be found credulous enough to suffer themselves to
be imposed upon, so long will there arise gentry of this description,
who will live in affluence by taking advantage of their weakness.
[Illustration: _There will be sleeping enough in the Grave._]
[Illustration] [Page 265]