An Ass and a Cock happened to be feeding together in the same place, when on a sudden they spied a Lion approaching them. This beast is reported, above all things, to have an aversion, or rather antipathy, to the crowing of a Cock; so that he no sooner heard the voice of that bird, but he betook him to his heels, and run away as fast as ever he could. The Ass fancying he fled for fear of him, in the bravery of his heart, pursued him, and followed him so far, that they were quite out of the hearing of the Cock; which the Lion no sooner perceived, but he turned about and seized the Ass; and just as he was ready to tear him to pieces, the sluggish creature is said to have expressed himself thus:—'Alas! fool that I was, knowing the cowardice of my own nature, thus, by an affected courage, to throw myself into the jaws of death, when I might have remained secure and unmolested!'

APPLICATION.

There are many who, out of an ambition to appear considerable, affect to show themselves men of fire, spirit, and courage: but these being qualities, of which they are not the right owners, they generally expose themselves, and show the little title they have to them, by endeavouring to exert and produce them at unseasonable times, or with improper persons. A bully, for fear you should find him out to be a coward, overacts his part, and calls you to account for affronts which a man of true bravery would never have thought of: and a cowardly silly fellow, observing that he may take some liberties with impunity, where perhaps the place or the company protect him, falsely concludes from thence, that the person with whom he made free is a greater coward than himself; so that he not only continues his offensive raillery and impertinence for the present, but probably renews them in some place not so privileged as the former, where his insolence meets with a due chastisement; than which nothing is more equitable in itself, or agreeable to the discreet part of mankind.