Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable CCXL
Fab. CCXL.
A Lyon and a Man.
THere was a Controversie Started betwixt a Lyon and a Man, which was the Braver, and the Stronger Creature of the Two. VVhy look ye, says the Man (after a Long Dispute) we'll Appeal to That Statue there, and so he shew'd him the Figure of a Man Cut in Stone, with a Lyon under his Feet. VVell! says the Lyon, if We had been brought up to Painting and Carving, as You are, where you have One Lyon under the Feet of a Man, you should have had Twenty Men under the Paw of a Lyon.
The MORAL.
REFLEXION.
THE Fancies of Poets, Painters, and Gravers, are No Evidences of Truth; for People are Partial in their Own Cases, and Every Man will make the Best of his Own Tale. 'Tis against Common Equity for the same People to be both Parties and Judges, and That's the Case here betwixt the Man and the Lyon. Now the Lyon is much in the Right, that Characters, Pictures, and Images, are All as the Painter, the Carver, or the Statuary pleases; and that there's a Great Difference betwixt a Flight of Fancy, and the History of Nature. 'Tis much Easier for a Man to make an Ass of a Lyon upon a Pedestal, then in a Forrest; and where it lies at his Choice, whether the Giant shall Kill the Squire, or the Squire the Giant. Argument is not the Work of the Chissel; neither does the Design of the Artist conclude the Truth of the Fact: But there is somewhat Heroical yet in the Imagination, though the Piece was never Drawn from the Life.