Sea ſide with all your Servants and your Trinkets about you, and put on a Countenance, that you are juſt Now about to make good your Undertaking. You'l have Thouſands of Spectators there, and When they are got together, let the Form of the Agreement and the Conditions be read, Which runs to this Effect. That you are to Drink up the Sea by ſuch a Certain Time, or to forfeit your Houſe and Land, upon Such or Such a Conſideration. When This is done, call for a Great Glaſs, and let it be filled with Sea-Water, in the Sight of the Whole Multitude: Hold it up then in your Hand, and ſay as Follows. You have heard Good People, what I have Undertaken to do, and upon what Penalty if I do not go Through with it. I confeſs the Agreement, and the Matter of Fact as you have heard it; and I am now about to drink up the Sea; not the Rivers that run into't. And therefore let All the Inlets be Stop't, that there be Nothing but pure Sea left me to drink, And I am now ready to perform my part of the Agreement, But for any drinking of the Rivers, There is nothing of that in the Contract. The People found it ſo clear a Caſe, That they did not only agree to the Reaſon and Juſtice of Xanthus's Cauſe, but hiſſed his Adverſary out of the Field; Who in the Concluſion made a Publique Acknowledgment, that Xanthus was the Wiſer and Better Man of the Two; But deſired the Contract might be made voyd, and offer'd to Submit Himſelfe further to ſuch Arbitrators as Xanthus Himſelfe ſhould direct. Xanthus was ſo well pleaſed with the Character his Adverſary had given him, of a Wiſe Man, That All was Parted over, And a finall End made of the Diſpute. Plutarch makes this to have be'n the Invention of Bias.
