APPLICATION.

What can this Fable be applied to, but the exceeding blindness and

stupidity of that part of mankind, who wantonly and foolishly trust

their native rights of liberty without good security? Who often chuse

for guardians of their lives and fortunes, persons abandoned to the

most unsociable of vices; and seldom have any better excuse for such an

error in politics, than that they were deceived in their expectation,

or never thoroughly knew the manners of their king, till he had got

them entirely in his power. We ought not to incur the possibility of

being deceived in so important a matter as this; an unlimited power

should not be trusted in the hands of any one who is not endowed with a

perfection more than human.

[Illustration] [Page 283]

The Fables of Æsop, and Others With Designs on Wood · 第 477 / 575 题