Thus Esop has the folly shown,
To build on merits not our own.
A Jackdaw, empty, pert, and vain,
Who held his equals in disdain,
One day some beauteous feathers found,
Left by a Peacock on the ground.
When in the gaudy plumage drest,
The shallow thing his fortune blest;
With stately gesture strode along,
And boldly join'd the Peacock throng;
Who, his impertinence to pay,
First stript him, and then chas'd away.
The crest-fall'n coxcomb homeward sneaks,
And his forsaken comrades seeks;
Where'er he comes, with scorn they leave him,
And not a Jackdaw will receive him.
Says one he had disdain'd, at last,
"Such as thou art, thou mightst have past,
And hadst not now been cast behind,
The scorn and scandal of thy kind."
Source: Boothby - Phaedrus 1.3.
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