Roger L'Estrange

“ To Emprove the Moral yet a little farther, we have a Thousand Disappointments in the Ordinary Course of Life to Answer This in the Fable. Many a Man finds this Purse of Gold in a Mistress, in a Bottle, in an Office, and in All other the vain Satisfactions of This World: And what’s the End on't at last, but when he has Compass'd his Longing, Gratify’d his Appetite, or, as he fancies, made his Fortune perhaps: He grows presently Sick of his Purchase; His Conscience is the Hue and Cry That pursues him, and when he reckons upon it that he has gotten a Booty, he has only caught a Tartar. ”

“ People that are not Allow'd to be Sharers with their Companions in Good Fortune, will hardly ever agree to be Sharers in Bad, An Open, and an Honest Candor of Mind carries a Body Safe and Dry through all Ways and Weathers; Whereas in shifting and shuffling, a Man puts himself off his Guard; and the same Rule that serves him at One time, will not serve him at Another, Men are willing enough to have Partners in Loss, but not in Profit; and 'tis not the Traveller alone that cries [I] have found a Purse of Gold, and then Changes his Note upon the Hue and Cry, and says [WE] shall be Hang'd for't ”