74 FABLES. 



us; for every man who has engaged himself in a 

 vicious or wicked course of life, fiend-like, makes 

 himself, as it were, the natural adversary of virtue. 

 It is in vain for innocent men, under oppression, to 

 complain to those who are the occasion of it: all 

 they can urge will but make against them ; and 

 even their very innocence, though they should say 

 nothing, would render them sufficiently suspected. 

 The moral, therefore, that this Fable brings along 

 with it, is to inform us that there is no trusting, nor 

 any hopes of living well, with wicked unjust men ; 

 for their disposition is such, that they will do mis- 

 chief to others as soon as they have the opportunity. 

 When vice flourishes, and is in power, were it 

 possible for a good man to live quietly in its neigh- 

 bourhood, and preserve his integrity, it might be 

 sometimes perhaps convenient for him to do so, 

 rather than quarrel with and provoke it against 

 him: but as it is certain that rogues are irrecon- 

 cileable enemies to men of worth, if the latter would 

 be secure, they must take methods to free them- 

 selves from the power and society of the former. 



