Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/421

371 ake at lat, that they come off with a whole Skin. And what's the Iue now of all this Noie in the Concluion, but the making of the Noie-Maker till the more Ridiculous?

Here was a Mountebank Trick’d up as Fine as a Lord; a certain Ape, that had a Mind to et up for a Beau, pies him out, and nothing would erve him, but he mut have a Suit and Dres after the ame Pattern; he pres'd the Quack o hard for't, that at lat he told him plainly, Upon condition, ays he, that you hall wear a Silver Chain about your Neck, I'll give ye the very Fellow on’t; for you'll be running away with your Livery ele. Jack agrees to't, and is preently rigg'd out in his Gold and Silver Lace, with a Feather in's Cap, and as Figures go now a-days, a very pretty Figure he made in the World, I can aure ye; though upon Second Thoughts, when the heat of the Vanity was over, he grew Sick of his Bargain; for he found that he had old his Liberty for a Fools Coat.

A Vain Fool can hardly be more Mierable then the Granting of his own Prayers and Wihes would make him. How many Spectacles does every Day afford us, of Apes and Mountebanks in Gay-Coats, that pas in the World for Philoophers, and Men of Honour; and it is no wonder for one Fool to value himelf upon the ame Vanity, for which he eteems another. He that Judges of Men and of things by Sene, Governs himelf by Sene too; and he that well coniders the Practices and Opinions of the Age he lives in, will find, that Folly and Paion have more Diciples then Widom and Vertue. The Feather in a Fools Cap, is a Fools Inclination; nay, it is his Ambition too; for he that meaures the Character of another Man by his Outide, eldom looks further then the Bunes of Dres and Appearance in himelf Beide, that Ill Examples work more upon us then Good, and that we are Forwarder to imitate the one, then to Emulate the other. This now is the Highet Pinch of