FAVOURITE FABLES.

“‘ What means yon peasant’s daily toil,
From choaking weeds to rid the soil ?
Why wake you to the morning’s care?
Why with new arts correct the year?
Why glows the peach with crimson hue?
And why the plum’s inviting blue?
Were they to feast his taste designed,
That vermin, of voracious kind ?

Crush, then, the slow, the pilPring race;
So purge thy garden from disgrace.’

“What arrogance!’’ the Snail replied ;
‘‘ How insolent is upstart pride!
Hadst thou not thus, with insult vain,
Provoked my patience to complain,
I had concealed thy meaner birth,
Nor traced thee to the scum of earth:
For, scarce nine suns have wak’d the hours,
To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers,
Since I thy humbler life surveyed,
In base, in sordid guise arrayed ;
A hideous insect, vile, unclean,
You drageg’d a slow and noisome train ;
And from your spider-bowels drew
Foul film, and spun the dirty clue.