Fab. LXXXI.
An Old weazle and Mice.
AN Old Weazle that was now almoſt paſt Mouſing, try’d what ſhe could do by her Wits, when ſhe found ſhe could live no longer upon the Square, and ſo Conveys her ſelf into a Meal-Tub for the Mice to come to Her, ſince ſhe could not go to Them. They came thick and threefold for a time, as ſhe expected they ſhould, till at laſt, One Experienc'd Stager that had Baffled Twenty Traps and Tricks Before, Diſcover’d the Plot, and quite Spoyld the Jeſt.
The Moral.
REFLEXION.
KNAVES live as Naturally upon Fools, as Spiders do upon Flyes, and the Want of Downright Force muſt be ſuppy'd by Art. But Time that Diſcovers the Truth of Things, lays open Frauds too and Double Dealings; and after that Diſcovery, there’s No Paſſing the ſame Trick upon the Mice and Rats here over again. A Body would think now that Reaſonable Creatures ſhould at leaſt have the Wit of Vermine, and not run their Necks over and over into the ſame Nooſe: But in Deſpite of Claps and Surfeits, Men we fee will be Whoring and Faddling-on ſtill. And the ſame Baite of Liberty and Property will ſerve for the Common People in ſæcula ſæculorum, Even after they have been Choak’d, Begger'd, and Poyſon’d with it five Hundred times before.
Fab LXXXII.
An Old Tree Tranſplanted.
A Certain Farmer had One Choice Apple-Tree in his Orchard that he Valu'd above all the reſt, and he made his Landlord Every Year a Preſent of the Fruit on't: He lik'd the Apples ſo very well, that Nothing would ſerve Him but Tranſplanting the Tree into his Own Grounds, It Witherd preſently upon the Removal, and ſo there was an end of both Fruit and Tree together. The News was no ſooner brought to the Landlord, but he brake out into This Reflexion upon it: This comes, ſays he, of Tranſplanting an Old Tree, to Gratifie an Extra-vagant
