Fable XXX The Daw With Borrowed Feathers
To aim at figure by the means either of borrowed wit, or borrowed money, generally subjects us at least to tenfold ridicule.
When a pert young Templar or city apprentice sets up for a fine gentleman, with the assistance of an embroidered waistcoat and Dresden ruffles, but without one qualification proper to the character, how frequently does it happen that he is laughed at by his equals, and despised by those whom he presumed to imitate!
A pragmatic Jackdaw was vain enough to imagine that he wanted nothing but the coloured plumes to render him as elegant a bird as the Peacock. Puffed up with this wise conceit, he dressed himself with a sufficient quantity of their most beautiful feathers, and in this borrowed garb, forsaking his old companions, endeavoured to pass for a Peacock; but he no sooner attempted to associate with these genteel creatures, than an affected strut betrayed the vain pretender. The offended Peacocks, plucking from him their degraded feathers, soon stripped him of his finery, reduced him to a mere Jackdaw, and drove him back to his brethren, by whom he was now equally despised, and justly punished with derision and contempt.