I I 8 FABLES. 



belongs to him, justly deserves to lose what he has. 

 Yet nothing is more common, and at the same time 

 more pernicious, than this selfish principle. It 

 prevails from the king to the peasant ; and all 

 orders and degrees of men are more or less infected 

 with it. Great monarchs have been drawn in by 

 this greedy humour, to grasp at the dominions of 

 their neighbours ; not that they wanted any thing 

 more to feed their luxury, but to gratify their in- 

 .satiable appetite for vain-glory; and many states 

 have been reduced to the last extremity by at- 

 tempting such unjust encroachments. He that 

 thinks he sees the estate of another in a pack of 

 cards, or a box and dice, and ventures his own in 

 the pursuit of it, should not repine, if he finds him- 

 self a beggar in the end. 



