Fable XX. The Ape

AN old mifchieyous ape having died» his ghost defceoded into Pluto's dreary abode» where it l>egged leave to return among the living. Pluto had a inind to remit it into the body of ap heavy stupid ass* in order to deprive it of its suppleness, vivacity, aod mifchievoufoefs. but it played fo many pleasant and wanton tricks, that the grim King of hell could not forbear smiling, and left it the choice of its condition, it desired to enter into the body of a parrot; for fo, said it, I (hall at lead preserve some resemblance to men, whom I fo long have imitated: when I was an ape, I made gestures like them, and being a parrot, I (hall talk with them in the mod agreeable conversations. scarce was the ape's soul introduced into this new employment, when a prating old woman bought him: (he made him her darling, and put him in a fine cage; he fared sumptuously, and chattered all day with the old dotard, who spoke no more fendbly than him(els. to his new talent of deafening every body, he joined somewhat of his former profefHon; he would wag his head ridiculously, make his bill crack, (hake his wings in a hundred different ways, and with his paws play many little tricks, which dill favoured of the diilortioRs of a jack-pudding, the old woman would every now and then be putting on her spe^acles to admire him: (he was very sorry to be a ts£, and thereby to lose some words of her Poll, •m (he found more wit than in any body, the thus fpoiledy became a prattling, impertinent le fo tofTed and tumbled about in his cage, and fo much wine with his old miflrefs, that he f died, and now behold him returned before who resolved this time to make him pass into dy of a fish, in order to render him dumb; but In played a farce before the King of ghosts; and ( seldom resist the requests of buffoons that flatnn. Pluto granted, therefore, to this, that hs go into the body of a man; but as the god was;d to send him into the body of a wife and virman, he afligHed him the bocfy of a tedious^:some coxcomb, who was incdflantly lying, ng, and making ridiculous gestures; who laugh* Yery body, and would interrupt the most polite >lid conversations, in order to say nothing, or ise. Mercury knowing him again in this new said merrily to him; O ho! friend, I smoke thee» irt nothing but a compound of the ape and par-bat I have seen formerly; whoever would take thy gestures, and thy words, learned by rote, at judgment, would leaie nothing at all of thee 1; a pretty ape aud good parrot make but a 1 man. O! how many men are there in the world formal gestures, a little prittle prattle, and an ' fu$ciencyy that hare neither sense nor condodl

TWO YOUNG LYONS,