AMONG all the different ways of giving counsel, I think the finest, and that which pleases the most universally, is Fable, in whatsoever shape it appears.* If we consider this way of instructing or giving advice, it excels all others, because it is the least mocking, and the least subject to those exceptions which I have before mentioned.

This will appear to us, if we reflect, in the first place, that upon the reading of a fable we are made to believe we advise ourselves. We peruse the author for the sake of the story, and consider the precepts rather as our own conclusions than his instructions. The moral insinuates itself imperceptibly, we are taught by surprise, and become wiser and better unawares. In short, by this method a man is so far over-reached as to think he is directing himself, while he is following the dictates of another, and consequently is not sensible of that which is the most unpleasing circumstance in advice.