CÆSAR AND THE SLAVE.
As Tiberius Cæsar was upon a journey to Naples, he stopped at a house which he had upon the mountain Misenus. As he was walking in the gardens attached to the house, one of his domestic slaves appeared in the walks, sprinkling the ground with a watering pot, in order to lay the dust, and this he did so officiously, and ran with so much alertness from one walk to another, that wherever the Emperor went, he still found this fellow mighty busy with his watering pot. But at last his design being discovered, which was to attract the notice of Cæsar by his extraordinary diligence, in the hope that he would make him free,—part of the ceremony of doing which consisted in giving the Slave a gentle stroke on one side of his face,—his imperial Majesty being disposed to be merry, called the Man to him, and when he came up, full of the joyful expectation of his liberty, Hark you friend, says he, I have observed that you have been very busy a great while; but you were officiously meddling where you had nothing to do, while you might have employed your time better elsewhere; and therefore I must tell you, that I cannot afford a box on the ear at so low a price as you bid for it.
APPLICATION.
Phædrus tells us upon his word, that this is a true story, and that he wrote it for the sake of a set of industrious idle gentlemen at Rome, who were harassed and fatigued with a daily succession of care and trouble, because they had nothing to do. Always in a hurry, but without business; busy, but to no purpose; labouring under a voluntary necessity, and taking abundance of pains to shew they were good for nothing. But what great town or city is so entirely free of this sect, as to render the moral of this Fable useless any where? For it points at all those officious good-natured people, who are eternally running up and down to serve their friends, without doing them any good; who, by a complaisance wrong judged or ill applied, displease whilst they endeavour to oblige, and are never doing less to the purpose than when they are most employed. In a word, this Fable is designed for the reformation of all those who endeavour to gain for themselves benefits and applause, from a misapplied industry. It is not our being busy and officious that will procure us the esteem of men of sense; but the application of our actions to some noble useful purpose, and for the general good of mankind.