Stultifera Navis :: :: University of Virginia Library

O say, thou silly, curious elf,
Hast thou nought else to do thyself,
Than be the meddling dolt, and try
In other men's concerns to pry?
Is there, in thee, no cause for blame,
When thou woulds't publish others' shame?
Say, when thou pick'st the hole in other's coat,
Art sure thou row'st not in the self same boat ?

Thou, cunning, finds't out John to be
Contented cuckold , just like thee.

And, while thou'rt scoffing, pr'ythee, mark,
At thee thy dame jeers with her spark:
Or, with a wench, if wedded, Will
His carnal purpose should fulfil:
Think not, when thou enact'st the same fond game,
But others know, and all thy sin proclaim.

Hast thou thy course so even run,
That thou need'st know thy neighbour's dun?
With thee so jocund passeth time,
That folly's peal doth never chime;
That thou, in conscious purity
Unblushing, others' faults may'st see?
Away, conceited fool; some plan devise,
To hoodwink men; for they, like thee, have eyes.

L'ENVOY OF THE POET.

The curious fool, who others' acts must know,
Finds out the semblance of his own disgrace;
And, while he ridicules their faults, doth show
His own reflected, as on mirror's face.

THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS.

Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis,
Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis.

This itch for discovering the faults of others, and acting the part of censor with respect to those very vices we are ourselves addicted to, is, by no means, confined to any particular class of society, nor to either sex; as men and women are equally subject to the contagion: of whom we may say with Cicero, Est proprium stultitiæ aliorum cernere vitia: oblivisci suorum.

Curiosity does not only brand its votary with the stigma of meanness; but is very frequently productive of more dangerous consequences. In sacred writ, even the command of Heaven was not sufficient to allay this desire: as the wife of Lot, for her folly and punishment, testifies. And, according to the fable of the ancients, Orpheus, the renowned son of Apollo and Calliope, for disobedience to the ordinance of Pluto, lost his beloved wife Eurydice.

The poet, certainly, could not have hit upon a discovery more easily to be made, at the present period; and the disgrace of which is more likely to be attachable to the discoverer; for the wives of this age afford an ample field for the scrutiny of prying fools; of whom it may be said with justice, that “Listeners hear no good of themselves;” as it is ten to one but the story applies to them, equally with the person of whom it is related. Thus every man hides his own antlers under the hood of his neighbour.

In the fairy tales of the Countess d'Aulnoi, is an excellent story, well calculated as a lesson on this head, which runs as follows:

“Fouribon, (the hump-backed prince) followed the queen, without saying a word: but stopped at the door, and laid his ear to the key-hole, putting his hair aside, that he might the better hear what was said. At the same time Leander entered the court-hall of the palace, with his red cap upon his head, so that he was not to be seen; and perceiving Fouribon listening at the door of the king's chamber, he took a nail and an hammer, and nailed his ear to the door.” The tale then proceeds to relate, that the cries of Fouribon reaching his mother, she flew to the portal; when, in the hurry of opening it, to learn the cause of his distress, she adds to his first punishment, by tearing off the ear which had been so nailed to the door.