took him aſide and told him, Sr I Laugh at your Maſter, that Taught You no better: for what ſignifies a Gen'ral Anſwer to a Particular Queſtion? And 'tis no News Neither that Providence orders All Things: But if you'l turn him over to me, You ſhall see I'le give him another ſort of Reſolve. Xanthus told the Gard'ner, that it was below a Philoſopher to Buſy his head about ſuch Trifles; but ſays he, If you have a Curioſity to be better Inform'd, you ſhould do well to ask my Slave here, and ſee what hele ſay to you. Upon This, the Gard'ner put the Queſtion to Æſop, Who gave him this Anſwer. The Earth is in the Nature of a Mother to what She brings forth of her Self out of her own Bowels; Whereas She is only a kind of a Step-Dame, in The Production of Plants that are Cultivated and Aſſiſted by The Help and Induſtry of Another: ſo that it's Natural for her, to Withdraw her Nouriſhment from the One, towards The Reliefe of the Other. The Gard'ner, upon this, was ſo well ſatiſfied, That he would take no Mony for his Herbs, and deſired Æſop to make Uſe of his Garden for the future, as if it were his own.
There are ſeveral Stories in Planudes, that I ſhall paſs over in this Place (ſays Camerarius) as not worth the while: Particularly The Fables of the Lentills, the Bath, the Sows Feet, and ſeveral Little Tales and Jests that I take to be neither well Lay'd, nor well put together; Neither is it any matter, in Relations of this Nature, Whether they be True or Falſe, but if they be Proper and Ingenious; and ſo contriv'd, that the Reader or the Hearer may be the better for them, That's as much as is required: Wherefore I ſhall now Commit to Writing Two Fables or Stories, One about the bringing his Miſtreſs home again, when ſhe had left her Husband; Which is drawn from the Modell of a Greek Hiſtory ſet out by Pauſanias in his Deſcription of Beotia; The Other, upon the Subject of a Treat of Neates Tongues, which was taken from Bias, as we have it from Plutarch in his Convivium Septem Sapientum.
