Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists… (1692)
“ A Lyon and a Goat. A Lyon spy’d a Goat upon the Crag of a High Rock, and so call'd out to him after this Manner: Hadst not thou better come Down now, says the Lyon, into This Delicate Fine Meadow? Well, says the Goat, and so perhaps I would, if it were not for the Lyon that's there Before me: But I'm for a Life of Safety, rather then for a Life of Pleasure. Your Pretence is the Filling of My Belly with Good Grass; but your Bus'ness is the Cramming of your Own Guts with Good Goats-Flesh: So that ‘tis for your Own Sake, not Mine, that you'd have me come down. ”
