The doctrine taught us by this fable is no more than this, that we ought
to consider who it is that advises us before we follow the advice: for,
however plausible the counsel may seem, if the person that gives it is a
crafty knave, we may be assured that he intends to serve himself in it
more than us, if not to erect something to his own advantage out of our
ruin.
The little, poor, country attorney, ready to perish, and sunk to the
lowest depth of poverty for want of employment, by such arts as these
draws the esquire, his neighbour, into the gulf of the law; till, laying
hold on the branches of his revenue, he lifts himself out of obscurity,
and leaves the other immured in the bottom of a mortgage.