Saving the Incongruity of making the _Ass_ a Beast of _Prey_, we are to
learn from hence the danger of Unequal Alliances; where the Poor and the
Weak lye at the Mercy of the Rich and the Powerful; and no Remedy but
Patience and Resignation.
People should have a care how they Engage themselves in Partnerships
with Men that are too Mighty for them, whether it be in Mony, Pleasure,
or Bus’ness. _Find out something_, says a Court-Minion, and then upon
the Discovery, he lays hands on’t for himself. So Says, and so Does the
_Lion_ here to the _Ass_ and his Companions. Now this is only a State-way
of Fishing with Cormorants. Men in Power, Plunge their Clients into the
Mud, with a Ring about their Necks; So that let them bring up what they
will, nothing goes down with them that they shall be ever the Better for.
And when they come in Conclusion to Cast up the Profit and Loss of the
Purchase, or the Project; what betwixt Force, Interest, and Good Manners,
the Adventurer scapes well if he can but get off at last with _his Labour
for his Pains_.
Ambition, and the Insatiable Thirst of Mony, Greatness, and Glory,
know no other Bonds of Justice or Conscience, then the Measures of a
Corrupt Appetite. Services are paid with Smoak and Fair Words; and there
goes a World of Unprofitable Ceremony to the Mortifying of an Honest
Man. Promises and Protestations are only Passages of Course, and meer
Expletives; that in the Construction of Civility, and Good Breeding,
signifie no more then [_Your Humble Servant Sir._] All, in short, that
the _Lion_ says and does, in this Instance, is but according to the
Practice of Men in Power in a Thousand other Cases.