A Man cannot look into himself without an Application of this Fable to
his own Soul and Conscience. He was much in the Right, that call’d _Old
Men_ only Great Blockheaded Boys with Beards, that Entertain themselves
with _Bigger Play-things_. There’s an _Ox_ lost, and this Coxcomb runs
a Gadding after _Wild-Fowl_. Is it not our very Case now, that when our
Souls, Good Names, Bodies, and Fortunes are at Stake, we must be running
out at Check, after every Crow, Buzzard, or Jack-daw that comes in the
way, and leave the main Chance at last at Six and Seven? Nay, and here’s
this more in’t too, that the Quarry would not be worth the taking up
neither, if we could Catch it? beside, that it flies away still before
us, and is never to be Overtaken.