The beasts whose breasts were battle-proof. It consequently came to pass,

Not first, but, as we say, in fine,
For king the creatures chose the ass-
He, for prime minister the swine.

"Tis thus that party spirit
Is prone to banish merit.

THE CAT AND THE THRUSH.

A THRUSH that sang one rustic ode
Once made a garden his abode,
And gave the owner such delight,
He grew a special favourite.
Indeed, his landlord did his best

To make him safe from every foe;
The ground about his lowly nest

Was undisturb'd by spade or hoe.
And yet his song was still the same;
It even grew somewhat more tame.
At length Grimalkin spied the pet,
Resolved that he should suffer yet,
And laid his plan of devastation
So as to save his reputation;
For, in the house, from looks demure
He pass'd for honest, kind, and pure.
Professing search of mice and moles,
He through the garden daily strolls,
And never seeks our thrush to catch;
But when his consort comes to hatch,
Just eats the young ones in a batch.
The sadness of the pair bereaved
Their generous guardian sorely grievca.
But yet it could not be believed
His faithful cat was in the wrong,

Though so the thrush said in his song.
The cat was therefore favour'd still

To walk the garden at his will;
And hence the birds, to shun the pest,
Upon a pear-tree built their nest.

Though there it cost them vastly more,
'Twas vastly better than before.
And Gaffer Thrush directly found

His throat, when raised above the ground,
Gave forth a softer, sweeter sound.
New tunes, moreover, he had caught,
By perils and afflictions taught,
And found new things to sing about:
New scenes had brought new talents out.
So, while, improved beyond a doubt,
His own old song more clearly rang,
Far better than themselves he sang
The chants and trills of other birds;
He even mock'd Grimalkin's words
With such delightful humour that
He gain'd the Christian name of Cat.

Let Genius tell in verse and prose,

How much to praise and friends it owes.
Good sense may be, as I suppose,

As much indebted to its foes.

In 1844 Mr. Wright wrote the Preface to the first collected edition of the works of the poet J. G. Whittier ; and soon after he seems to have become completely absorbed in politics, and in the mighty anti-slavery struggle, which constituted the greater part of the politics of the United States in those and many succeeding years. He became a journalist in the anti-slavery cause; and, in 1850, he wrote a trenchant answer to Mr. Carlyle's then just published "Latter Day Pamphlets." Later on, slavery having been at length abolished, he appeared as a writer in yet another field, publishing several works, one as lately as 1877, on life-assurance.

LONDON, 1891.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS TRANSLATION.

[BOSTON, U.S.A., 1841.]

FOUR years ago, I dropped into Charles de Behr's reposi tory of foreign books, in Broadway, New York, and there, for the first time, saw La Fontaine's Fables. It was a cheap copy, adorned with some two hundred woodcuts, which, by their worn appearance, betokened an extensive manufacture. I became a purchaser, and gave the book to my little boy, then just beginning to feel the intellectual magnetism of pictures. In the course of the next year, he frequently tasked my imperfect knowledge of French for the story which belonged to some favourite vignette. This led me to inquire whether any English version existed; and, not finding any, I resolved, though quite unused to literary exercises of the sort, to cheat sleep of an hour every morning till there should be one. The result is before you. If in this I have wronged La Fontaine, I hope the best-natured of poets, as well as yourselves, will forgive me, and lay the blame on the better qualified, who have so long neglected the task. Cowper should have done it. The author of "John Gilpin," and the "Retired Cat," would have put La Fontaine into every chimney-corner which resounds with the Anglo-Saxon tongue. Το you who have so gene

rously enabled me to publish this work with so great advantages, and without selling the copyright for the promise of a song, I return my heartfelt thanks. A hatchetfaced, spectacled, threadbare stranger knocked at your

doors, with a prospectus, unbacked by "the trade," soliciting your subscription to a costly edition of a mere translation. It is a most inglorious, unsatisfactory species of literature. The slightest preponderance of that worldly wisdom which never buys a pig-in-a-poke would have sent him and his translation packing. But a kind faith in your species got the better in your case. You not only gave the hungrylooking stranger your good wishes, but your good names. A list of those names it would delight me to insert; and I should certainly do it if I felt authorized. As it is, I hope to be pardoned for mentioning some of the individuals, who have not only given their names, but expressed an interest in my enterprise which has assisted me in its accomplishment. Rev. John Pierpont, Prof. George Ticknor, Prof. Henry W. Longfellow, William H. Prescott, Esq., Hon. Theodore Lyman, Prof. Silliman, Prof. Denison Olmsted, Chancellor Kent, William C. Bryant, Esq., Dr. J. W. Francis, Hon. Peter A. Jay, Hon. Luther Bradish, and Prof. J. Molinard, have special claims to my gratitude. . . . The work as it is, not as it ought to be-I commit to your kindness. I do not claim to have succeeded in translating “the inimitable La Fontaine,❞—perhaps I have not even a right to say in his own language—

"J'ai du moins ouvert le chemin."

However this may be, I am, gratefully,

Your obedient servant,

DORCHESTER, September, 1841.

ELIZUR WRIGHT, Jr.