![Edward Arwaker, ‘Fable XXIX: The Coffee-House: Or, A Man’s Credit, is his Cash’, in Truth in Fiction: Or, Morality in Masquerade. A Collection of Two hundred twenty five Select Fables of Aesop, and other authors (London, J. Churchill, 1708), [8], xvi, 326pp.; 8°. BL: 12304.d.17. ESTCT84697. Extract, Book III, pp. 234–6](https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/crclarge/978131509/9781315094649.jpg "Edward Arwaker, ‘Fable XXIX: The Coffee-House: Or, A Man’s Credit, is his Cash’, in Truth in Fiction: Or, Morality in Masquerade. A Collection of Two hundred twenty five Select Fables of Aesop, and other authors (London, J. Churchill, 1708), [8], xvi, 326pp.; 8°. BL: 12304.d.17. ESTCT84697. Extract, Book III, pp. 234–6")
ABSTRACT
A verse fable in imitation of one of Aesop’s Fables, satirising the reception of news in the coffee-house. In the poem, news of an allied military victory is brought to the coffee-house first by a soldier, who is not believed on account of his dirty and poor appearance. When the same news is received from a fashionably dressed fop, it is credible. The moral draws the conclusion. As well as an attack on luxury in dress, Fable XXIX reverses the moral of ‘The Boy who cried Wolf’: in this fable, sound news is rejected because the messenger has low status.
