1 82 FABLES. 



APPLICATION. 



O let not those, whom honest servants bless. 

 With cruel hands their age infirm oppress; 

 Forget their service past, their former truth, 

 And all the cares and labours of their youth. 



THIS P^able is intended to reprove the ingratitude 

 too common among mankind, which leaves the 

 faithful servant to want and wretchedness, after he 

 has spent the prime of his life in our service fora 

 bare subsistence. Where shivery is allowed, the 

 laws compel the master to provide for the worn-out 

 slave; and where there is no law to enforce the 

 debt of gratitude, none but those who are insensible 

 to all the finer feelings of humanity w r ill neglect it. 

 Those who forget past services, and treat their 

 faithful servants or friends unkindly or injuriously, 

 when they are no longer of use to them, however 

 high their pride, are unworthy of the name of gen- 

 tleman. They are, indeed, commonly of an upstart 

 breed, with whom the failure of human nature 

 itself is imputed as a crime; and servants and de- 

 pendents, instead of being considered their fellow- 

 men, are treated like brutes for not being more than 

 men. The imprudence of this conduct is equal to 

 its wickedness, inasmuch as it directly tends to 

 extinguish the honest desire to please and to act 

 faithfully, in the younger servants, when they 

 see that worn-out merit thus goes unrewarded. 

 Humanity and gratitude are the greatest orna- 

 ments of the human mind, and when they are 

 extinguished, every generous and noble sentiment 

 perishes along with them. 



