THE FOX AND THE GRAPES.
A hungry Fox coming into a vineyard where there hung delicious clusters of ripe Grapes, his mouth watered to be at them; but they were nailed up to a trellis so high, that with all his springing and leaping he could not reach a single bunch. At last, growing tired and disappointed, Let who will take them! says he, they are but green and sour; so I’ll e’en let them alone.
APPLICATION.
To affect to despise that which they have long ineffectually laboured to obtain, is the only consolation to which weak minds can have recourse, both to palliate their inability, and to take off the bitterness of disappointment. There is a strange propensity in mankind to this temper, and there is a numerous class of vain coxcombs in the world, who, because they would never be thought to be disappointed in any of their pursuits, pretend a dislike to every thing they cannot obtain. The discarded statesman, considering the corruption of the times, would not have any hand in the administration of affairs for the world! The needy adventurer, and pretended patriot, would fain persuade all who will listen to them, that they would not go cringing and creeping into a drawing-room, for the best place the king has in his disposal! Worthless young fellows, who find that their addresses to virtue and beauty are rejected; and poor rogues who laugh to scorn the rich and great, are all alike in saying, like sly Reynard, the Grapes are sour!