Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CCCCXXXI

by Roger L'Estrange

Fab. CCCCXXXI.

A Hare and a Sparrow.

A Sparrow happen’d to take a Bush just as an Eagle made a Stoop at a Hare, and when she had got her in the Foot, Poor Wat cry'd out for Help. VVell, (says the Sparrow) and why don't_ye Run for’t now? I thought your Footmanship would have Sav'd ye. In this very Moment: comes a Hawk, and whips away the Sparrow; which gave the Dying Hare this Consolation in her last Distress, that she saw her Insolent Enemy overtaken with a just Vengeance, and that the Hard-Hearted Creature that had no Pity for Another, could obtain, none for her self neither, when she stood most in need on’t.

The Moral.

'Tis with Men and Governments, as it is with Birds and Beasts. The weaker are a Prey to the Stronger, and so one under another, through the whole Scale of the Creation. We ought therefore to have a Fellow-feeling of one anothers Affictions; for no Body knows whose Turn may be next.

REFLEXION.

Here's a Just Judgment upon Ill-Nature, wherefore let no Man make Sport with the Miserable, that is in danger to be Miserable Himself, as Every Man may be; and in Truth every Man deserves so to be, that has no TTenderness for his Neighbour. It is a High Degree of Inhumanity not to have a Fellow-feeling of the Misfortune of my Brother; but to take Pleasure in my Neighbours Misery, and to make Merry with it, is not only a Brutal, but a Diabolical Barbarity and Folly.