'The Mouse in the Chest'

'The Mouse and the Chest', an illustration by John Vernon Lord 

in Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989, page 40.

Here is a 17th century English text with idiosyncratic spelling:

The Mouse in the Chest

A Mouse that was bred in a Chest, and had liv’d all her days there upon what the Dame of the House laid up in’t, happen’d one time to drop out over the Side, and to Stumble upon a very Delicious Morsel, as she was Hunting up and down to find her way In again. She had no sooner the Taste of it in her Mouth, but she brake out into Exclamations, what a Fool she had been thus Long, to Perswade her self that there was No Happiness in the World but in That Box.

Moral: It is recommended to broaden one’s mind and discover new things rather than remaining narrowly confined in the same place all the time.

Text: Roger L’Estrange 1692 (1/255, Abstemius).