1 78 FABLES. 



Hark you, friend, says he, I have observed that you 

 have been very busy a great while ; but you 

 were officiously meddling" where you had nothing 

 to do, where you might have employed your time 

 better elsewhere ; and therefore I must tell you 

 that I cannot afford a box on the ear at so low a 

 price as you bid for it. 



APPLICATION. 



PH.EDRUS tells us upon his word, that this is a 

 true story, and that he wrote it for the sake of a set 

 of industrious idle gentlemen at Rome, who were 

 harassed and fatigued with a daily succession of 

 care and trouble, because they had nothing to do. 

 Always in a hurry, but without business ; busy, but 

 to no purpose : labouring under a voluntary neces- 

 sity, and taking abundance of pains to shew they 

 were good for nothing. But what great town or 

 city is so entirely free of this sect, as to render the 

 moral of this Fable useless any where? For it 

 points at all those officious good-natured people, 

 who are eternally running up and down to serve 

 their friends, without doing them any good; who, 

 by a complaisance wrong judged or ill applied, 

 displease, whilst they endeavour to oblige, and are 

 never doing less to the purpose than when they are 

 most employed. In a word, this Fable is designed 

 for the reformation of all those who endeavour to 

 gain for themselves benefits and applause, from a 

 misapplied industry. It is not our being busy and 

 officious that w r ill procure us the esteem of men of 

 sense; but the application of our actions to some 

 noble useful purpose, and for the general good of 

 mankind. 



