12 FABLES. 



before, but the weather being severe and frosty, 

 every thing had put on a very different aspect ; the 

 brook was frozen over, and the poor Swallow lay 

 dead upon the bank. At this, the Youth, smarting 

 under the sense of his own misery, mistakingly 

 reproached the Swallow as the cause of all his mis- 

 fortunes: he cried out, oh, unhappy bird, thou hast 

 undone both thyself and me, who was so credulous 

 as to trust to thy appearance. 



APPLICATION. 



THEY who frequent taverns and gaming-houses, 

 and keep bad company, should not wonder if they 

 are reduced in a very short time to penury and 

 want. The wretched young fellows who once ad- 

 dict themselves to such a scandalous course of life, 

 scarcely think of or attend to any thing besides: 

 they seem to have nothing else in their heads but 

 how they may squander \vhat they have got, and 

 where they may get more when that is gone. They 

 do not make the same use of their reason as other 

 people, but like the jaundiced eye, view every thing 

 in a false light, and having turned a deaf ear to 

 all advice, and pursued their unaltered course until 

 all their property is irrecoverably lost, when at 

 length misery forces upon them a sense of their 

 situation, they still lay the blame upon any cause 

 but the right one their own extravagance and 

 folly; like the Prodigal in the fable, w r ho would not 

 have considered a solitary occurrence as a general 

 indication of the season, had not his own wicked 

 desires blinded his understanding. 



