Victories may be purchased at too dear a rate, if we solicit the
assistance of allies capable of becoming our most formidable enemies,
and it will be vain to flatter ourselves, that the yoke of slavery,
if we once willingly suffer it to be laid upon our shoulders, can be
easily shaken off, when the ends for which we bore it are accomplished.
The Fable is intended to caution us against consenting to any thing
that might prejudice public liberty, as well as to keep us upon our
guard in the preservation of that which is of a private nature. This
is the use and interpretation given of it by Horace, one of the best
and most polite philosophers that ever wrote. After reciting the Fable,
he applies it thus: This, says he, is the case of him, who, dreading
poverty, parts with that invaluable jewel, liberty; like a wretch as he
is, he will always be subject to a tyrant of some sort or another, and
be a slave for ever, because his avaricious spirit knew not how to be
contented with that moderate competency, which he might have possessed
independent of all the world.
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