This Fables carries Three Morals. _1st._ That we are not to Part with a
Certainty for an Uncertainty. _2dly._ That Men of Appetite are not Mov’d
by any Consideration of Virtue. _3dly._ That Things of Use and Necessity,
are to be preferr’d before Matters meerly of Delight and Pleasure.
The _Nightingale_ in the Foot of the _Hawk_, is the Case of many an
Innocent Creature in the Hands of Justice, when the very Equity of the
Law Bends under the Weight of an Over-ruling Rigour. The Belly has no
Ears, and so there’s no Charming of it. Arguments against Power, are
but Wind, when Reason draws One way, and Appetite, Another. There’s no
Moving of any Creature contrary to the Nature of it. _Hang ’em All up_
(says a Pleasant Droll, upon _Venner_’s Rising) _they are not Worth the
Begging_. ’Tis a piece of State-Policy sometimes, to let the Poor and the
Friendless go to Pot; Nay, and to reckon the Execution of them among the
Triumphs of Justice too. There is This further in’t besides; that the
Uttermost Severity upon Those that have not where withal to Bid for their
Lives, raises the Price of the Market upon Those that Have; and Enhances
the Value of the Deliverance, or, in Plain _English_, of the Pardon. The
Poor _Nightingale_ had Nothing to give that the _Hawk_ car’d for, and so
she Dy’d, in truth, because _she was not Worth the Begging_.