“_Article 3d._—Men must be employed to perform the drudgery of printing.
“_Article 4th._—The Fox must find an intelligent philanthropic publisher.”
Here the Fox shook his head dolefully, and said he would try. “I have,” he continued, “imposed on myself the severest task of all, as the profits of publication must, for a long time, be absorbed in corrections, discounts, and advertising.”
A vote of confidence passed in favour of the speaker’s integrity and ability closed the proceedings. Before the Assembly broke up, it was announced, amid loud applause, that the Ape, Parroquet, and Village Cock would enter at once on their duties as Editors in Chief of the “Public and Private Lives of Animals,” and that the work would open with the “History of a Hare.”
In which the Magpie begins.—Some preliminary reflections by the Author of this history.—The Hare is made prisoner.—The Hare’s theory of courage.
One day last week, as I stood on the branch of an old tree, meditating on the closing lines of a poem I was about to dedicate to my race, my attention was arrested by a Leveret running at full speed across a field. He turned out to be a personal friend of my own, great-grandson of the hero of this tale.
“Mr. Magpie,” he cried, quite out of breath, “grandfather lies yonder in a corner of the wood. He sent me to call you.”
“Good child,” I said, while I patted his cheek with my wing, “go your grandfather’s errands, but do not run so fast, else you will come to an untimely end.”
“Ah!” he replied, sadly, “love feels no fatigue. But come to one who needs your counsel. My grandfather is ill, bitten by the keeper’s dog.”
Repairing at once to the scene of the disaster, I found my old friend suffering intense pain from a wound in his right foot, which he carried slung in a willow-band. His head was also bandaged with soothing leaves brought by a neighbourly Deer.
Blood still flowed, affording fresh testimony of man’s tyranny.
“My dear Magpie,” said the venerable sufferer, whose face, although grave even to sadness, had lost nothing of its original simplicity, “our lot in this world is, at best, an unhappy one.”
“Alas!” I replied, “we encounter fresh tokens of our misery every day.” { 14}
“I know,” he continued, “that one ought always to be on one’s guard, and that the Hare is never certain to die peacefully in his form. The campaign begins badly. Here am I, perhaps blind of an eye, and certainly lamed so that a Spaniel might easily outrun me. Worse than all, I am told the shooting begins in a fortnight. I must therefore put my affairs in order, and leave the history of a short, but not uneventful life, to posterity to profit by. When mingling in the society of the world, one is constrained to observe a polite and prudent silence, and to disguise one’s true sentiments. But in prospect of death, brought face to face with the last enemy, one can never hope to win his clemency by polished lying and hypocrisy. My tale will therefore be unreserved and true. Besides, in bequeathing a valuable history to posterity there is a satisfaction in feeling that one’s influence will live, and prove a real power in the world long after the author’s death.”