The Governess [64]
you are so lean and meagre, and seem scarcely able to exert that voice you thus make your boast of?' 'Alas!' replied the parrot, 'poor Poll's lady has kept her bed almost this week; the servants have all forgot to feed me; and I am almost starved.' 'Pray observe,' said the eagle, 'the folly of such pride! Had you been able to have conversed only with your own kind, you would have fared in common with them; but it is to this vaunted imitation of the human voice, that you owe your confinement, and consequently (though living in a golden cage) your dependence upon the will and memory of others, even for common necessary food.'
Thus reproved, the parrot, with shame, hastily retired from the assembly.
Next stood forth the daw, and, having tricked himself in all the gay feathers he could muster together, on the credit of these borrowed ornaments, pleaded his beauty, as a title to the preference in dispute. Immediately the birds agreed to divest the silly counterfeit of all his borrowed plumes; and, more abashed than the parrot, he secretly slunk away.
The peacock, proud of native beauty, now flew into the midst of the assembly. He displayed before the sun his gorgeous tail. 'Observe (said he) how the vivid blue of the sapphire glitters in my neck; and when thus I spread my tail, a gemmy brightness strikes the eye from a plumage varied with a thousand glowing colours.' At this moment, a nightingale began to chant forth his melodious lay; at which the peacock, dropping his expanded tail, cried out, 'Ah what avails my silent unmeaning beauty, when I am so far excelled in voice by such a little russet-feathered wretch as that!' And, by retiring, he gave up all claim to the contended-for preference.
The nightingale was so delighted with having got the better of the peacock, that he exerted his little voice, and was so lost in the conceit of his own melody, that he did not observe a hawk, who flew upon him, and carried him off in his claws.
The eagle then declared, 'That as the peacock's envy had taken away all his claim, so no less had the nightingale's self-conceit frustrated all his pretensions; for those who are so wrapped up in their own perfections, as to mind nothing but themselves, are forever liable to all sorts of accidents.' And, besides, it was plain, by the exultation the nightingale expressed on his imagined glory over the peacock, that he would have been equally dejected on any preference given to another.
And now the owl, with an affected gravity, and whooting voice, pleaded his well-known wisdom; and said, 'He doubted not but the preference would be granted to him without contest, by all the whole assembly for what was so likely to produce happiness as wisdom?'
The eagle declared, 'That, if his title to wisdom could be proved, the justice of his claim should be allowed; and then asked him, how he could convince them of the truth of what he had advanced?' The owl answered, 'That he would willingly appeal to the whole assembly for their decision in this point; for he was positive nobody could deny his great superiority as to wisdom.' Being separately asked, they most of them declared, that they knew no one reason, either from his words or actions, to pronounce him a wise bird; though it was true, that by an affected solemnity in his looks, and by frequent declarations of his own, that he was very wife, he had made some very silly birds give him that character; but, since they were called upon to declare their opinions, they must say, that he was ever the object of contempt to all those birds who had any title to common understanding. The eagle then said, 'He could by no means admit a plea, which as plainly appeared to be counterfeit, as were the jay's borrowed feathers.' The owl, thus disappointed, flew away, and has ever since shunned the light of the sun, and has never appeared in the daytime, but to be scorned and wondered at.
It would he endless to repeat all the several pleas brought by the birds, each desiring to prove, that happiness ought to be his own peculiar lot. But
Thus reproved, the parrot, with shame, hastily retired from the assembly.
Next stood forth the daw, and, having tricked himself in all the gay feathers he could muster together, on the credit of these borrowed ornaments, pleaded his beauty, as a title to the preference in dispute. Immediately the birds agreed to divest the silly counterfeit of all his borrowed plumes; and, more abashed than the parrot, he secretly slunk away.
The peacock, proud of native beauty, now flew into the midst of the assembly. He displayed before the sun his gorgeous tail. 'Observe (said he) how the vivid blue of the sapphire glitters in my neck; and when thus I spread my tail, a gemmy brightness strikes the eye from a plumage varied with a thousand glowing colours.' At this moment, a nightingale began to chant forth his melodious lay; at which the peacock, dropping his expanded tail, cried out, 'Ah what avails my silent unmeaning beauty, when I am so far excelled in voice by such a little russet-feathered wretch as that!' And, by retiring, he gave up all claim to the contended-for preference.
The nightingale was so delighted with having got the better of the peacock, that he exerted his little voice, and was so lost in the conceit of his own melody, that he did not observe a hawk, who flew upon him, and carried him off in his claws.
The eagle then declared, 'That as the peacock's envy had taken away all his claim, so no less had the nightingale's self-conceit frustrated all his pretensions; for those who are so wrapped up in their own perfections, as to mind nothing but themselves, are forever liable to all sorts of accidents.' And, besides, it was plain, by the exultation the nightingale expressed on his imagined glory over the peacock, that he would have been equally dejected on any preference given to another.
And now the owl, with an affected gravity, and whooting voice, pleaded his well-known wisdom; and said, 'He doubted not but the preference would be granted to him without contest, by all the whole assembly for what was so likely to produce happiness as wisdom?'
The eagle declared, 'That, if his title to wisdom could be proved, the justice of his claim should be allowed; and then asked him, how he could convince them of the truth of what he had advanced?' The owl answered, 'That he would willingly appeal to the whole assembly for their decision in this point; for he was positive nobody could deny his great superiority as to wisdom.' Being separately asked, they most of them declared, that they knew no one reason, either from his words or actions, to pronounce him a wise bird; though it was true, that by an affected solemnity in his looks, and by frequent declarations of his own, that he was very wife, he had made some very silly birds give him that character; but, since they were called upon to declare their opinions, they must say, that he was ever the object of contempt to all those birds who had any title to common understanding. The eagle then said, 'He could by no means admit a plea, which as plainly appeared to be counterfeit, as were the jay's borrowed feathers.' The owl, thus disappointed, flew away, and has ever since shunned the light of the sun, and has never appeared in the daytime, but to be scorned and wondered at.
It would he endless to repeat all the several pleas brought by the birds, each desiring to prove, that happiness ought to be his own peculiar lot. But