John Kidgell (2)

Here are some more fables from John Kidgell's Original Fables, each of which includes an illustration; you can can click here for more fables by Kidgell here at the blog.

The Dying Stag

A Stag, overcome by the fatigue of the chace, and reduced to the last extremity by the pursuit of his destroyers, submitted himself to the determination of his miserable destiny. 

His mournful sighs were accompanied with tears flowing down his cheeks, which a young sportsman, who had some remaining sentiments of pity, observed, with a more than ordinary surprize. 

"Yes," says the expiring sufferer, "it is a subject which commands astonishment, that nature has given tears so liberally to brutes, and so sparingly to mankind."

The Old Maid

A Lady, who in her youth had resisted the importunity of many suitors, consented, as the found herself upon the decline, to lower her demands, and to accept of a match somewhat inferior to her quality.

Her relations and friends, with very little ceremony, reproached her of the indelicacy of her choice. "Alas, says the old girl, there is no such thing as giving perfect satisfaction in this world. When I was young I was perpetually rated for being cruel; now I advance in years, their objection is, forsooth, that I am tender-hearted."

The Crab-Tree and the Chestnut 

"My dear pretty little folks," said a Crab-Tree to her very numerous progeny, "I do entreat you to have no kind of intimacy with any of the family of the Chestnuts. Those wretches are frightful to an extremity. They are not only a disgrace to our neighbourhood, but really to the whole vegetable creation."

"How, my handsome cousen," quoth an ovehearing Chestnut, "that smooth face, and those vermilion cheeks of thine are not altogether of a piece with your inseparable harshness and asperity! We, 'tis true, have not the most promising aspect in the world, but everybody of taste will acknowledge for us, that our heart is unexceptionable."

The Monkey and the Ape

As a Monkey who had no indifferent regard for his own dear personal figure, was standing upon the verge of a christal brook, divided between the admiration and embellishment of himself; an unlucky rogue of an Ape dexterously pushed the poor beau into the water. 

"As I perceive," says he, "my dear friend, that you are so desperately in love with the beautiful creature in that enchanting element, I thought it a thousand pities but you should come together."

The Turtle-Dove and the Pigeon 

A Turtle-dove was inconsolably lamenting her dear partner, whom an arrow, unfortunately too-well aimed, had laid dead at her feet, when her affectionate grief was interrupted by the friendly, but unseasonable counsel of a Pigeon, "Do not afflict yourself, my dear," said she, "for a loss which is irretrievable. Rather be comforted, that the same fatal shaft did not dispatch you both." 

"That is the very reason," replies the faithful mourner, "which more particularly afflicts me."