ld him that
they came up to him from the Isle of Paphos, and that he every day
received Complaints of the same nature from that whimsical Tribe of
Mortals who are called Lovers. I am so trifled with, says he, by this
Generation of both Sexes, and find it so impossible to please them,
whether I grant or refuse their Petitions, that I shall order a
Western Wind for the future to intercept them in their Passage, and
blow them at random upon the Earth. The last Petition I heard was from
a very aged Man of near an hundred Years old, begging but for one Year
more of Life, and then promising to die contented. This is the rarest
old Fellow! says Jupiter. He has made this Prayer to me for above
twenty Years together. When he was but fifty Years old, he desired
only that he might live to see his Son settled in the World; I granted
it. He then begged the same Favour for his Daughter, and afterwards
that he might see the Education of a Grandson: When all this was
brought about, he puts up a Petition that he might live to finish a
House he was building. In short, he is an unreasonable old Cur, and
never wants an Excuse; I will hear no more of him. Upon which, he
flung down the Trap-Door in a Passion, and was resolved to give no
more Audiences that day.

Notwithstanding the Levity of this Fable, the Moral of it very well
deserves our Attention, and is the same with that which has been
inculcated by Socrates and Plato, not to mention Juvenal and Persius,
who have each of them made the finest Satire in their whole Works upon
this Subject. The Vanity of Mens Wishes, which are the natural Prayers
of the Mind, as well as many of those secret Devotions which they offer
to the Supreme Being, are sufficiently exposed by it. Among other
Reasons for set Forms of Prayer, I have often thought it a very good
one, that by this means the Folly and Extravagance of Mens Desires may
be kept within due Bounds, and not break out in absurd and ridiculous
Petitions on so great and solemn an Occasion.

I.

[Footnote 1: Iliad, Bk ix.]

[Footnote 2: Menippus was a Cynic philosopher of Gadara, who made money
in Thebes by usury, lost it, and hanged himself. He wrote satirical
pieces, which are lost; some said that they were the joint work of two
friends, Dionysius and Zopyrus of Colophon, in whom it was one jest the
more to ascribe their jesting to Menippus. These pieces were imitated by
Terentius Varro in Satir