Fable XLVI The Beggar and His Dog
’Tis misery to depend upon patrons, whose circumstances make their charity necessary at home.
A Beggar and his Dog sat at the gate of a noble Courtier, and was preparing to make a meal on a bowl of fragments from the Kitchen-maid. A poor Dependant of his Lordship’s, who had been sharing the singular favour of a dinner at the Steward’s table, was struck with the appearance, and stopped a little to observe them. The Beggar, hungry and voracious as any Courtier in Christendom, seized with greediness the choicest morsels, and swallowed them himself; the residue was divided into portions for his children. A scrag was thrust into one pocket for honest Jack, a crust into another for bashful Tom, and a luncheon of cheese was wrapt up with care for the little favourite of his hopeful family. In short, if anything was thrown to the Dog, it was a bone so closely picked, that it scarce afforded a pittance to keep life and soul together. How exactly alike, said the Dependant, is this poor Dog’s case and mine! He is watching for a dinner from a master who cannot spare it; I for a place from a needy Lord, whose wants perhaps are greater than my own, and whose relations more clamorous than any of this Beggar’s brats. Shrewdly was it said by an ingenious writer, a Courtier’s Dependant is a Beggar’s Dog.