The Moralists will have _Wisdom_ and _Virtue_ to be meant by the
_Diamond_; the _World_ and the Pleasures of it, by the _Dunghill_; and
by the _Cock_, a _Voluptuous Man_, that Abandons himself to his Lusts,
without any regard, either to the Study, the Practice, or the Excellency
of better Things.
Now, with favour of the Ancients, this Fable seems to me, rather to hold
forth an Emblem of _Industry_ and _Moderation_. The _Cock_ lives by his
_honest Labour_, and maintains his Family out of it; His Scraping upon
the _Dunghill_, is but Working in his _Calling_: The _precious Stone_ is
only a gawdy _Temptation_ that Fortune throws in his way to divert him
from his Business and his Duty. He would have been glad, he says, of a
_Barley Corn_ instead on’t; and so casts it aside as a thing not worth
the heeding. What is all this now, but the passing of a true Estimate
upon the Matter in question, in preferring that which Providence has made
and pronounc’d to be _the Staff of Life_, before a glittering Gew-Gaw,
that has no other Value, than what Vanity, Pride and Luxury have set
upon’t? The Price of the _Market_ to a _Jeweller_ in his _Trade_, is
one thing, but the _intrinsick Worth_ of a thing to a Man of _Sense_,
and _Judgment_, is another. Nay, that very Lapidary himself, with a
coming Stomach, and in the _Cock’s_ place, would have made the _Cock’s_
Choice. The Doctrin, in short, may be this; That we are to prefer things
_necessary_, before things _superfluous_; the Comforts and the Blessing
of Providence, before the dazling and the splendid Curiosities of Mode
and Imagination: And finally, that we are not to govern our Lives by
_Fancy_, but by _Reason_.