THE PRUDENT ANT? 85 



So ends our tale : but we "have yet to disclose the name of 

 that industrious, good-natured, yet withal improvident and 

 rather simple little personage whose adventure it records. 

 There is a certain busy worker of whom it is declared, that 

 "she provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her 

 food in the harvest," for which sagacious proceeding all 

 teachers of morality from the wise monarch of Israel down- 

 wards, have held her up as a bright pattern of industrious 

 forethought. Everybody knows, everybody at least supposes, 

 that this far-seeing animal is, as represented, none other than 

 the prudent Ant. Now our little worker, who, hard as she 

 toiled in summer days, took no care for wintry morrows, 

 displayed no forethought at all ; the provident Ant, therefore, 

 she could not be. In conjunction with her prudence in par- 

 ticular, exemplified by her supposed harvesting of a " store for 

 future want," the prudence in general of the above-named 

 Insect has been no less highly lauded ; but of prudence our 

 simple villager knew nothing, nothing at least of that Image 

 of the Virtue called after her, and set up (a cold statue) in 

 Mammon's temple. Her labours were all for the general 

 profit, not for her own individual benefit ; the prudent Ant 

 she could never be. 



It has also been observed sarcastically and with reference to 

 the same acknowledged prudence, that 



" La Fourmi n'est pas preteuse, 

 C'est Id son moindre defaut ;" 



