Page:Fables of Aesop and other eminent mythologists.djvu/59

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S a Dog was croing a River, with a Morel of Good Fleh in his Mouth, he aw (as he thought) Another Dog under the Water, upon the very ame Adventure. He never conider'd that the One was only the Image of the Other; but out of a Greedines to get Both, he Chops at the Shadow, and Loes the Subtance.

is the Cae of Unreaonable, and Inatiable Deires; as in Love, Ambition, and the Like; where People are till reaching at More and More, till they loe All in the Concluion.

There are more Meanings of Subtance and Shadow; of Mitaking One for T'other; and Loing All by Chopping at More; than the Bare Sene and Letter of the Dog, the Fleh, and the Image here in the Fable. Under thee Heads are comprehended all Inordinate Deires, Vain Hopes, and Mierable Diappointments. What hall we ay of thoe that pend their Days in Gaping after Court Favours and Preferments; Servile Flatteries; and Slavih Attendances? that Live, and Entertain themelves upon Bleings in Viion? (For Fair Words and Promies, are no more than Empty Appearances) What is all This, but Sacrificing a Man's Honour, Integrity, Liberty, Reaon, Body, Soul, Fortune, and All for Shadows? We place our Trut in Things that have no Being; Diorder our Minds, Dicompoe our Thoughts, Entangle our Etates, and Sell our elves, in One Word, for Bubbles. how wretched is the Man that does not know when he's Well, but paes away the Peace and Comfort of his Life, for the Gratifying of a Fantatical Appetite, or Humour! Nay, and he Mies his Aim, even in That too, while he Squanders away his Interet, and Forfeits his Dicretion, in the Puruit of One Vanity after Another. Ambition is a Ladder that reaches from Earth to Heaven; and the Firt Round is but o many Inches in a Man's way toward the Mounting of All the Ret. He's never well till he's at the Top, and when he can go no Higher, he mut either Hang in the Air, or Fall; For in This Cae, he has nothing above him to Apire to, nor any Foot Hold left him to come down by. Every Man has what's Sufficient, at Hand, and in Catching at more than he can carry away, he loes what he Had. Now there's Ingratitude, as well as Diappointment, in All thee Rambling and Extravagant Motions: Beide, that Avarice is always Beggerly; for He that Wants has as good as Nothing. The Deire of More and More, ries by a Natural Gradation to Mot, and after that to All; Till in the Concluion we find our elves Sick and Weary of All that's poible to be had; ollicitous for omething ele, and then when we have pent our Days in the Quet of the Meanet of Things and at the Feet