Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/371

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Ne was asking a Lazy Young Fellow what made him lye in Bed o long? Why (ays he,) I am hearing of Caues every Morning; that is to ay, I have Two Laes at my Bed-ide o oon as ever I wakes. Their Names are Indutry and Sloth; One bids me get up; 'tother bids me lye till; and o they give me Twenty Reaons why I hould Rie, and why I hould not. 'Tis the part in the mean time of a Jut Judge to hear what can be aid on Both ides; and before the Caue is over, 'tis time to go to dinner.

Fable docs naturally enough et forth an Expotulation betwixt Reaon and Appetite, and the Danger of running out our Lives in Dilatory Deliberations, when we hould rather be Up and Doing. In all thee Caes, 'tis odds that the Paradox carries it againt the true Reaon of the Thing; for we are as Partial to our Corruptions, as if our Undertanding were of Councel for our Frailties, and manage Diputes of this kind, as if we had a Mind to be overcome. The Sluggard’s Cae in this Fable is the Cae of Mankind in all the Duties of a Virtuous and a Well-Govern'd Life, where Judgement and Concience calls us one Way, and our Luts hurry us another. We pend All our Days upon Frivolous Preliminarics, without ever coming to a Reolution upon the Main Points of our Buines. We will, and we will not, and then we will not again,