FABLES. 



the man who had bought his stock, to attend the 

 sheep which were once his own. One day, as he 

 sat meditating upon the change that had hap- 

 pened, and viewing the sea calm and unruffled as 

 before, Ah ! says he, thou deceitful tempting 

 element, experience has made me so wise, that 

 if I should again acquire a property, I will never 

 more trust it upon thy faithless bosom. 



APPLICATION. 



THIS Fable is intended to put men of fickle 

 unsettled minds upon their guard against that 

 propensity which often inclines them so strongly 

 to shifting and changing, and leads them to 

 imagine they would be happier in any profession 

 than the one to which they have been brought up. 

 By this disposition they are led away from an 

 honest competency, to adventure their all upon 

 untried schemes, in the hope of bettering their 

 condition. But men of this wavering temper, who 

 are comfortably settled in the world, would do 

 well to reflect, before they change their situation, 

 and rashly venture, perhaps, the acquisitions of 

 their whole life, on projects, the failure of which 

 may subject them to great calamities, which will 

 be the more intolerable to bear, as they will not 

 have adverse fortune to blame, but merely their 

 own folly. Of this truth, experience will convince 

 them when it is too late. 



