Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists/Fable XCIX

by Roger L'Estrange

Fab. XCIX.

A Shepherd turn'd Merchant.

A Countryman was Feeding his Flock by the Sea-side, and it was so Delicate a Fine Day, that the Smoothness of the Water Tempted him to leave his Shepherds Business, and set up for a Merchant. So that in All Hast, he puts off his Stock; Buys a Bargain of Figs; gets his Freight abord, and away presently to Sea. It happened to be very Foul Weather: So that the Mariners were fain to Cast their Whole Lading Over-bord, to save Themselves and the Vessel. Upon This Miscarriage, our New Merchant-Adventurer betook himself to his Old Trade again; And it happen’d One Day, as he was Tending his Sheep upon the very same Coast, to be Just such a Flattering Tempting Sea again, as That which had Betray’d him Before. Yes, yes, says he, When the Devil's Blind! You'd ha’ some more Figs, with a Vengeance, Wou'd ye?

The Moral.

Men may be happy in all Estates if they will but suit their Minds to their Condition. A Shepherd may be as Easy in a Cottage, as a Prince in a Palace, with a Mind Suited to his Station, but if they will be Launching out into Trade, or Bus'ness that they do not understand, they have nothing left them to trust to when they are once Bewilder'd, but the Hope of some Kind Providence to put them in the Right Way Home again.

REFLEXION.

Affliction makes People Honest and Wise. Every Man Living has his Weak Side, and no Mortal was ever yet so much at Ease, but his Shoe Wrung him some where or Other; or he Fancy’d so at least,and Then it did so, The Shepherd would needs be a Merchant; and the Merchant, if he had succeeded would still have been Hankering after something else. His Levity was a Fault, and his Miscarriage was a Judgment upon him for’t. The saving of his Person after the Loss of his Goods was a Providential Mercy to him; and the bringing of Him home to Himself again, was to Convince him of his Error, and to shew him, that he was well at First, if he could have kept so, He was in a State of Ease, Peace, Innocence, and Safety: And he that will Sacrifice all Those Blessings to a Restless Appetite, deserves to be Miserable. Our Shepherd’s Case, in short here, is every Man's Case that Quits a Moral Certainty for an Uncertainty, and Leaps from the Honest Bus'ness he was brought up to, into a Trade he has no Skill in.