Ingratitude is Abhorr’d both by God and Man, and there is a Certain
Vengeance Attends those that Repay Evil for Good, and seek the Ruin of
their Protectors. This Fable Exposes the Baseness of That Horrid Vice,
and it Preaches Thankfulness and Justice. The Obligations of Hospitality
and Protection are so Sacred, that Nothing can Absolve us from the
Discharge of Those Duties. ’Tis True, that This particular Instance holds
better in the Morality of the Application, then it does in the Reason
of the Thing: for the Question is not what the Beast does in his Kind;
but what Ought to be done, with a respect to such a Benefit receiv’d.
If a Man should Launch into the History and Practice of Humane Nature,
we should find Nothing more Common there, then one Rebellion Started
upon the Pardoning of Another; and the very Minions of Princes Link’d in
Conspiracies against their Master. But Those Things ever were, and ever
will be, so long as Men are Men, and carry their Corruptions about them.
There will be _Goats_, in fine, and there will be _Vines_, to answer This
Moral, _in Sæcula Sæculorum_.