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PROVERB LORE

PROVERB LORE

MANY SAYINGS, WISE OR OTHERWISE,
ON MANY SUBJECTS, GLEANED
FROM MANY SOURCES

BY

F. EDWARD HULME, F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF
"WAYSIDE SKETCHES," "MYTHLAND," "NATURAL HISTORY
LORE AND LEGEND," "SYMBOLISM IN ART,"
"WILD FRUITS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE,"
"FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS," ETC.

LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1902

CONTENTS

PROVERB LORE

CHAPTER I

Value of Study of Proverbs—Difficulty of exact Definition—Definitions by various Writers—The Saw—The Adage—The Essentials of a Proverb—The Value of Brevity—Legitimate Use of Hyperbole—Proverbs often one-sided Views of Truth—Sometimes contradict each other—Figurativeness of Language—A very characteristic Feature—Parables of our Lord—Proverbs often condensed Parables—Examples of Word-Pictures—Commonest Objects supply Lessons—Interesting as referring to Usages that have passed away—Some Proverbs enduring, some transient—May have more than one Significance—Some palpable Truisms and Platitudes—Great Antiquity of Proverbs—On Jewellery, Pottery, Furniture, etc.—Rustic Conservatism—The aid of Alliteration—Rhyme as an Aid to Memory

The study of proverbs is one of exceeding interest and value. By means of it our thoughts travel back through the ages to the childhood of the world, and we see at once how amidst the surroundings that vary so greatly in every age and in every clime the common inherent oneness of humanity asserts itself: how, while fashions change, motives of action remain; how, beneath the burning sun of Bengal or Ashanti, in the tents of the Crees, or amidst the snows of Lapland, the thoughts of men on the great problems that confront the race are strikingly at one. Hence, while the outward garb and phraseology of these proverbial utterances must necessarily greatly vary, we find, when we pierce below the surface, a remarkable similarity of idea. When we desire to point out the foolishness of providing any place or person with anything that they are really better able to procure for themselves, the absurdity of "carrying coals to Newcastle" is pointed out, and we might at first sight very naturally say that surely here we have a popular saying that we can specially claim as a piece of English proverbial wisdom. We find, however, in the Middle Ages the popular saying, "Send Indulgences to Rome"; while even before the Christian era the Greeks were teaching the same lesson in the formula, "Owls to Athens," the woods of Attica yielding these birds in abundance, while the city itself, under the special guardianship of Pallas Athene, had, as its device and symbol, on its coinage and elsewhere, the owl, the bird associated with that goddess—coals, owls, indulgences, so different in outward seeming, teaching the self-same truth. Any attempt at classification of proverbs by nationality is exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, since the more one looks into the matter the more one realises what a cosmopolitan thing a proverb is. Gratifying as it would be to patriotic feeling to gather together all the best proverbs in circulation in England and claim them as the product of English wit and wisdom, we should at once on investigation find that in great degree they were, perhaps in actual wording, and certainly in significance, the property of humanity at large.

The necessity of curbing the hasty tongue, the dispraise of folly, the value of true friendship, the watchfulness that enmity entails, the influence of womankind, the fabrication of excuses, the vainglory of boasting and pretension, the exposure of hypocrisy, the evil of ingratitude, the golden irradiation of the pathway of life by hope, the buoyant strength and confidence of youth, the sad decrepitude of old age, the retribution that awaits wrongdoers, were as keenly understood three thousand years ago as to-day, and the trite expression of these verities, crystallised into warning, encouragement, or reproof, is as much a part of the equipment of life to the date-seller of Damascus as to the ploughman in an English shire.

Proverbs have been handed down from generation to generation from the remotest ages, and were in circulation from mouth to mouth long before any written records, since in the earliest writings extant we find them given as obvious quotations. By means of them, primitive peoples entered upon a heritage of sound wisdom and good working common-sense, and had ready to hand counsels of prudence, hints for the conduct of life, warnings of its pitfalls. Much that is interesting in history, in manners and customs, is also preserved in them, and though times change it is scarcely safe to say that any proverb is obsolete. A local allusion may be understood by some old countryman that to the philosopher and savant is nought.

Time after time as we travel onwards through life we find our knowledge somewhat nebulous, our ideas in need of precision and sharpness of definition. We accept so many things, almost unconsciously, on trust, and should find it almost impossible in many cases to give an exact reason for the belief that is in us. The nature and construction of a proverb appears a thing too self-evident for any question to arise, the definition of it one of the simplest of tasks, and we do not at all realise its difficulty until we are fairly brought face to face with the problem, pen in hand, and a sheet of blank paper before us. Waiving a personal definition, we will endeavour by means of the statements of others, men whom we may more or less recognise as authorities and specialists, to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

Dr Johnson, in his noble dictionary, a splendid mass of erudition,[4:A] defines a proverb as "a short sentence frequently repeated by the people; a saw; an adage," but this definition, as it stands, is scarcely sufficient. Having already a fair though nebulous notion of what a proverb is we may perhaps accept it, since we automatically fill in what is wanting, but if we could imagine the case of one who had no previous notion of the nature of a proverb the definition of Dr Johnson would not fill the void, since there are many colloquial phrases in constant use that are not proverbial in their nature at all.[4:B] The Doctor points out, under a second clause in his definition, that a proverb may also be a byeword of reproach, but it would appear needless to dwell specially on this. A proverb may exert its influence on us in many ways, by encouragement, by derision, by warning, and so forth, and there seems no occasion to make a special section of those that yield their lesson to us by way of reproach. As an example of the use of this class we may instance the passage of Milton, from his "Samson Agonistes"—

"Am I not strong and proverb'd for a fool
In ev'ry street: do they not say, how well
Are come upon him his deserts?"

Our readers will doubtless recall, too, how in Holy Writ it is declared that "Israel shall be a proverb and a byeword among all people."

The word saw is Saxon in its origin, and is defined by our great lexicographer as "a saying, a maxim, a sentence, an axiom, a proverb." Shakespeare writes—

"From the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all saws of books,"

and elsewhere of another of his characters he says that "his weapons" were "holy saws of sacred writ." Perhaps, however, the best and best-known Shakespearian instance is in his graphic description of the seven ages of man in "As You Like It," where we are presently introduced to the portly Justice with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, "full of wise saws and modern instances," a well-bound encyclopædia of legal axiom, precedent, and practice.

Milton writes, somewhat more forbiddingly, of

"Strict age and sour severity
With their grave saws."

The word proverb is Greek in its inception, and means, literally, a wayside saying. Adage, a fairly equivalent word, is also of Greek birth. The reference in "Macbeth" will at once be recalled—

"Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage."[5:A]

Synesius, a Christian writer of the early part of the fifth century, affirms, in quoting from a work of Aristotle that is now lost, that "A proverb is a remnant of the ancient philosophy preserved amid many destructions on account of its brevity and fitness for use," and in like strain Agricola declares proverbs to be "short sentences into which, as in rules, the ancients have compressed life." Cervantes puts this yet more pithily in his definition, "Short sentences drawn from long experience." Howell, too, is happy in his declaration, "Sayings which combine sense, shortness, and salt." Russell declares a proverb to be "the wisdom of many and the wit of one"—the one being the man who puts into happy form a truth that many had already felt, and thereby crystallised it for the use of all future time. Bacon, less happily, declares proverbs to be "the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation"; but this definition manifestly covers a far wider area than can be justly claimed for them. We need scarcely here point out that the word spirit does not mean the courage and resolution that summon a nation to the defence of its rights. It is but the Anglicised form of the French esprit, a word that has no entirely satisfactory English equivalent.

Chambers hath it that "proverbs are pithy, practical, popular sayings, expressive of certain more or less general convictions," and this is a definition that really seems to cover very satisfactorily the whole ground. That of Annandale is like unto it, "A proverb is a short and pithy sentence forming a popular saying, and expressing some result of the experience of life in a keen, quaint, and lively fashion." Popularity is an essential feature, an absolute necessity. A saying of some wise man may strike us at once as one of the happiest of utterances, but if from any cause it does not find acceptance and adoption into the common speech, the absence of this popular recognition of its work debars it. It may richly deserve a place amongst the proverbs, being as pithy, as wise as any of them, and possess every essential of a proverb save the one. This one essential of general acceptance being wanting, we have left to us a golden sentence, a striking aphorism, a soul-stirring utterance. This is a point that some of the compilers of lists of proverbs have overlooked, and they have been tempted to insert in their pages brilliant wisdom-chips from the writings of divers clever men, or to coin them for themselves.

Worcester, in his dictionary, defines a proverb as "a common or pithy expression which embodies some moral precept or admitted truth," but we find in practice that some few of these popular sayings are not altogether moral in their teaching. Hazlitt affirms that this popular diction is "an expression or combination of words conveying a truth to the mind by a figure, periphrasis, antithesis, or hyperbole." Here, again, the soundness of the teaching is taken for granted.

Cooper, in his Thesaurus, A.D. 1584, translates proverbium as "an old sayed sawe," and this really, in spite of its great brevity, very nearly touches the root of the matter. Being "old," the popular utterance has the stamp and dignity of antiquity: it is no newfangled thing that may or may not find a lasting resting-place in the minds and consciences of men; while, being "sayed," it is not merely a golden maxim buried deeply in the pages of some venerable tome, it has passed into the daily life and struggle for existence, and become incorporated in the popular speech. It has borne the test of time; generation after generation of the sons of men have recognised its value and accepted it.

In the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana" a proverb is defined as "a common saying, sentiment, or sentence in which all agree"; but while so common a saying, a sentence that all can agree upon, as "twice two make four," comes entirely within this definition, it is in no sense a proverb. Slavery we all feel to be an evil, and we deplore its existence, but while the sentiment does credit to our hearts, and unanimous as we may all be on the point, it is in no degree proverbial. The definition, moreover, requires from us a unanimity of acceptance, but this is by no means always forthcoming, as regards the moral teaching, for example, of some of our ancient adages. If we take, for instance, so well recognised a proverb as "Honesty is the best policy," some persons will see in it a mine of shrewd wisdom, while others will decide that the man who is honest because he thinks that it will pay best is at heart a rogue. Our acceptance or rejection of its teaching does not alter the fact that for good or ill the utterance ranks as a proverb.

The Rev. John Ward, the vicar of Stratford-on-Avon in the reign of Charles the Second, was a great collector of these items of proverbial wisdom, and his stipulations as to the correct structure of a proverb were very definite, though perhaps a little too severe. He declared that in each such utterance six things were essential. It should be short, plain in its language and teaching, in common use, figurative in its expression, ancient, true. When all these requirements are met we have, doubtless, an ideal proverb, but many excellent adages are current that cannot be thus bound in.

Horace declares, wisely enough, in his "Art of Poetry," in favour of brevity:

"Short be the precept which with care is gained
By docile minds, and faithfully retained,"

and it is a very valuable feature. How happy in expression, for instance, are such proverbs as "Fast bind, fast find," "Forewarned, forearmed," "Haste is waste."

That a proverb should be plain in language and teaching is, we take it, by no means an essential. It rather owes often somewhat of its value to the fact that there is something in it that compels analysis, possibly awakens doubt or resistance, startles us by an apparent contradiction, and compels us to delve at some trouble to ourselves before we grasp its significance. Ray, one of the best known students of proverb-lore, realises this when he stipulates for "an instructive sentence in which more is generally designed than expressed" as his ideal.

Quaint exaggeration of statement, the use of hyperbole, is often employed, and very happily, to compel attention. Some men seem to be so specially the children of fortune that they from the most untoward events gain increased advantage, and after a submergence that would drown most men emerge buoyantly from this sea of trouble and go cheerily on their way. Such are very happily described in the Arab proverb, "If you throw him into the sea he will come up with a fish in his mouth." To those who would attempt great tasks with inadequate means how truly may we say, "It is hard to sail across the sea in an eggshell." Of those who labour hard for results that bear no proportion to the effort made we may equally truly say, "He dives deep and brings up a potsherd." In France, if a man attempts a prodigious, or possibly impossible, task, it is said of him, "Il a la mer à boire," while the thoughtless or reckless man, who to avoid a slight and passing inconvenience will run imminent risk of grave misfortune, is said to jump into the river that he may escape the rain, "Il se jette à l'eau, peur de la pluie." The hyperbole employed startles and arouses the attention and drives the lesson home. It is especially characteristic of the Eastern mind, and the Bible, a book of the East, is full of examples of its use.

Proverbial wisdom, it must be borne in mind, deals sometimes with only one aspect of a truth. The necessary brevity often makes the teaching one-sided, as the various limitations and exceptions that may be necessary to a complete statement of a truth are perforce left unsaid. One proverb therefore is often in direct contradiction to another, and yet each may be equally true. Solomon, for example, tells us to "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit," and he also tells us to "answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."[10:A] These two directions are placed one immediately after the other of deliberate forethought that the sharp contrast may force itself on the attention. The two modes of action are in direct contradiction, yet each is equally valuable in its place, and according to circumstances one or other of them would be the right course to pursue. To the restless, unstable man we may well quote the well-known adage, "A rolling stone gathers no moss";[10:B] but, on the other hand, it is equally true that "A tethered sheep soon starves." While one villager is content to remain in the little hamlet where he was born, living hardly throughout his life, the recipient of a scanty wage, of soup and blankets from the vicarage or the hall, and, finally, of a pauper grave, his schoolmate, the rolling stone, goes out into the big world and fights his way into a position of independence.

The fourth stipulation of Ward—figurativeness of expression—while it may appear to somewhat clash with his second, the demand for plainness of utterance, is undoubtedly of great value; but it is not an essential. Such proverbs as "Plough, or not plough, you must pay your rent," "The receiver is as bad as the thief," "The child says what father says," "Misfortunes never come singly," "Extremes meet," "Ill doers are ill deemers," are direct statements to be literally accepted, and to these scores more could be added. The figurative treatment is, nevertheless, still more in evidence, and very justly so. By its employment the attention is at once arrested and the memory helped. This love of picture language is specially characteristic of early days and of primitive peoples, and those who would turn away from an abstract discourse in praise of virtue, temperance, or strenuous endeavour will gladly accept the teaching if presented in more concrete form—the fairy tale, the fable, or the parable.

This figurativeness of language was a marked characteristic of the teaching of our Lord, and the common people, who would have been repulsed by dogma or exhortation, thronged gladly to the Teacher who reached their hearts through the beautiful and simple stories that fascinated them and awoke their interest. The sharp experiences of the wayward son in the far-off land, the story of the anxious housewife seeking at midnight for the lost piece of silver, the lonely traveller sore beset by thieves, the withering grain that fell amidst the roadside stones, the goodman of the house so stoutly guarding his belongings, the sheep that had strayed afar into the perils of the wilderness, the useless tares amidst the fruitful grain, the house upon the shifting sand, the widely-gathering net, the pearl of great price, have been a delight to countless generations, and will ever continue to be so.[11:A]

A proverb that is figurative in its construction may be considered as really a condensed parable. Hence Chaucer, in the prologue of "The Wife of Bathe," refers to "eke the paraboles of Salomon."

Numerous examples of these word-pictures will at once occur to us. How expressive of the reproductive power of evil is the well-known proverb, "Ill weeds grow apace." In one of the Harleian MSS. of about the year 1490 we find it given as "Ewyl weed ys sone y-growe"; or, as another writer hath it,—

"Ill weede groweth fast, ales, whereby the corne is lorne,
For surely the weed overgroweth the corn."

In France it is "Mauvaise herbe croit toujours," and in Italy "Erba mala preste cresce," and in some kindred form it appears in the proverb lore of almost all people. How telling, again, the picture and the lesson in "Still waters run deep."

"Small griefs find tongues: full casks are ever found
To give, if any, yet but little sound;
Deep waters noiseless are, and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth below."—Herrick.

In Germany it is "Stille Wasser sind tief"—"Still waters are deep"—or "gründen tief," "are grounded deep." In its English and German dress we learn that the silent man is a thoughtful man, but in France it is rendered as "Il n'y a pire eau que l'eau qui dort"—"There is no worse water than that which sleeps"—making the considerably stronger assertion that a thoughtful man becomes thereby a distinctly dangerous member of society!

While we are reminded of the restless turmoil of the babbling brook, and gain in its contemplation a hint of the fussy activity that in shallow minds ends in little but outward show, we must nevertheless learn that the day of small things must not be despised, for "Little brooks make great rivers." Recalling the fable of the ensnared lion and the kindly and industrious mouse that came to his rescue, we learn afresh that the weak may often help the great, for "When large ships run aground, little boats may pull them off." How true, too, to experience is it that "To a crazy ship all winds are contrary," when in many lives there seem times when everything goes wrong, and the unfortunate victim of circumstances is buffeted from all directions. Another of these aqueous proverbs reminds us how in such case the most desperate remedies may be tried, for "A drowning man will catch at a straw." To profit, too, by seasons of good fortune is no less needful, for "Every tide will have an ebb," and we may not assume that the opportunities we neglect to-day will be always open to our embrace.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,"

we are told by Shakespeare, who doubtless knew this proverb, and transmuted it by his genius into fine gold—

"Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

In the day of prosperity friends appear to be numerous, but adversity tries their worth, and it is too true for the credit of human nature, that "Men shut their doors against the setting sun." "Strike," then, "while the iron is hot"—"Batti il ferro quando è caldo," say in like manner the Italians. This is a proverb, however, that is met with almost universally, seeing that the necessity for prompt decision is also almost equally universal. Chaucer tells us how

"Pandarus, whiche that stode her faste by,
Felt iron hotte, and he began to smite."

Yet, remember, would one prosper, "Have not too many irons in the fire." These proverbs suggested by the smithy recall yet one other, and a very ancient one, "Inter malleum et incudem"—"Between the hammer and the anvil"—a position so hemmed in with danger that no way of escape seems possible.

When a continuous use of any advantage blinds us to the need of caution, we must remember that "The pitcher goes oft to the well, but is broken at last," and what we have grown careless in the use of we may presently find that we have lost.[14:A] When this day comes another proverb—as to the folly of "shutting the stable door after the horse is stolen"—may be too late recalled. How picturesque and how true to life the well-worn adages, "A new broom sweeps clean," "A creaking door hangs long on its hinges," "One nail drives out another," as portrayed in the new-born diligence that, mayhap, will not last; in the career that drags along despite all probabilities of its survival; in the fickle heart and mind that lightly supplant old friends with new, or drop some hobby that a week ago seemed all-absorbing in favour of some other thing of no greater value, but possessing the attraction of novelty.

To those who live in constant nervous dread of impending misfortune it should be some little comfort to remember that "Every mote doth not blind a man." Things often work out better than the anticipation of them suggested. No action is unimportant, and all have their consequences, seeing "There is no hair so small but hath its shadow." If the action be wrong the results will accord, for "A crooked stick throws a crooked shadow." As one sows, so must they reap; thistles will never yield figs, nor thorns grapes.

As the pains so the gains; and "He that will eat the kernel must crack the nut." For everything the price must be paid, and "One cannot make pancakes without breaking eggs."[14:B] We cannot all be of high position, whatever our zeal and industry, and in every army the rank and file are far in excess of the leaders, and are yet as indispensable as they. The French saying, "Toute chair n'est pas venaison"—"All meat is not venison"—comes in very happily here. When we recall how one revolts against "toujours perdrix," and how the London apprentices rebelled against being expected to eat salmon four days a week, we see that there is abundant welcome in the world for the steady workman, the diligent official, the succulent sirloin, the fragrant bloater.

That merit shall not go unrewarded, that fitness for duty may fairly hope to meet full and fair recognition is suggested in the proverb, "A stone that is fit for the wall is not left in the way," and men, sooner or later, receive the recognition of their worth that they deserve, for "The turtle, though brought in at the back door, takes the head of the table." A little influence, a friend at court, and a bribe to blind his eyes therewith have ere now been tried as an aid to fortune, for "A silver key can open an iron lock" in this fallen world it has been found. While this prescription is working the expectant suitor may amuse himself by "building castles in the air."

The commonest objects yield their lesson and are worked into the great mass of proverbial philosophy at the service of those who were daily using them, and could thus most fully realise the point of the utterance. The cooper soon found out that "Empty vessels make the most sound," and that every tub may well be expected to stand on its own bottom; and the miller early grasped the truth that "A little barrel gives but a little meal." He saw, too, that "A torn sack will hold no corn," and that "An empty sack cannot stand upright." The soldier was warned, "Draw not thy bow before thine arrow be fixed," and did not shoot before he had some definite aim. He knew, too, how prudent it was to have "two strings to one's bow," and that "A bow long bent at last waxeth weak." The woodman's experience added to the store of proverbial wisdom, "A blunt wedge will sometimes do what a sharp axe cannot"; that "Willows are weak, but yet they bind other wood"; that "Oaks may fall while reeds remain"; and that "Great trees keep down little ones"; while the gardener saw that "Ripe fruit may grow on rough wall"; and even the nursery yields the declaration that "A burnt child dreads the fire"; and the tailor grasps the wisdom of the advice, "Measure thy cloth thrice ere thou cut it once." Other homely adages are—"At open doors dogs come in," "A spur in the head is worth two in the heels," "The rotten apple injures its neighbour," "Darns are bad, but better than debts."

Proverbs are of immense value, as they furnish an inexhaustible store of epigrammatic utterances, and many of them are of considerable archæological and folk-lore value as keys to usages, beliefs, and so forth, that have now passed away. The many proverbs, for illustration, that deal with bows and arrows are survivals from remote antiquity or mediæval experience.

All proverbs, we need scarcely point out, are not of equal value or popularity. Some, from their going down to the solid bed-rock of human nature and common experience, have lasted for centuries, and will continue, doubtless, while time shall last, their appeal to humanity, while others are transient, local, restricted. While some collections of proverbs run into thousands of examples, it is astonishing how few in these latter days are really in use. If our readers, to test this matter, will turn their thoughts inwards, or consult any of their friends, they will probably find that half a sheet of note-paper will very comfortably suffice to put down their stores, and if a hundred people did this their lists would be curiously alike, showing that only a very limited number have really nowadays found popular acceptance. One hundred per cent. of these lists would include "All is not gold that glitters," "There is a silver lining to every cloud," and "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones," all, it will be noted, being word-pictures. "A rolling stone gathers no moss," and "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," are also very popular proverbs, and greatly for the same reason.

Proverbs may have more than one significance, and smite as two-edged swords. Like the old-fashioned flail, that has now so largely been superseded by the thrashing-machine, they may very smartly return on the head of the careless user of them. If, for example, we quote the adage, "Set the saddle on the right horse," it may signify our intention to see that those whose action in some matter is blameworthy shall be duly held up to execration, or it may with the utmost kindliness desire that the "willing horse," human or equine, shall not be imposed on, and that those shall bear the burden that are most fit to do so.

Some proverbs are merely palpable truisms, and have little or no claim on our consideration. They have largely arisen from the mistaken zeal of some of the old writers in endeavouring to force into their lists anything that could be got together with any semblance of propriety, and in such a case the sharp dividing line that should be in evidence between proverb and platitude was often overstepped. Should A publish a select list of one hundred proverbs, the book of B, which contains two hundred examples—the hundred of A, plus axioms, platitudes to make up the double amount—is not twice as good; it is only half as good, because one has to spend time and energy in separating the gold from the dross. The following may be taken as illustrations of the sort of thing we are protesting against:—"He that does no good does evil," "The act proves the intention," "Defer not charities till death," "Diligence is the mother of good luck," "Books should inspire thought, not supersede it," "Learn first to obey before proceeding to govern," "Great designs require great consideration," "Self is a poor centre," "Affected simplicity is but imposture," "Yield graciously or oppose firmly," "Good cause gives stout heart and strong arm," "It is good to begin well, better to end well," "Procrastination often brings repentance." These, all culled from various collections, are perfectly harmless, and, indeed, praiseworthy. As copy-book headings they might render good service, but they want the "salt" to make them popular or acceptable. As truisms they are superb.

The antiquity of many of our proverbs is very great, and their parentage is enveloped in mystery. Howell, an old writer on the subject, likens them to "natural children legitimated by prescription and long tract of ancestriall time," and these foundlings have certainly been made very welcome. While the name of the coiner is not transmitted with it, the gift he bestows on posterity enjoys an unending popular appreciation that the authors of soul-stirring appeals, of learned treatises, of exquisite poems, sometimes fail to reach. It is a piece of proverbial wisdom that "liars should have good memories," and there is a very modern ring about it, but St Jerome, writing in the fourth century, introduces it to clinch an argument, and refers to it as an old proverb. Quintilian, a contemporary of Martial, Juvenal, Tacitus, during the reigns of Titus and Domitian, some three hundred years before the days of Jerome, also introduced it. How many centuries before this the proverb was in use, who can say? The rule it lays down would be a valuable one any time this three thousand years or more, and as political economists tell us that supply and demand act and react upon each other, we may reasonably assume that in the earliest ages the demand for such an axiom would give it birth. There is a homely ring in the saying that "He who lies down with dogs will rise up with fleas," and we could well imagine it starting into circulation somewhere about the time of our great-grandfathers, when manners were a little coarser, or at all events, a little more coarsely expressed, and when, without circumlocution, a spade was a spade; but over eighteen centuries ago Seneca quoted this proverb, and we find it in his writings in all its homely directness—"Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent."

Hesiod introduces many proverbs in his writings, and we find them again referred to by Plutarch, Cicero, and others. When St Paul warned his hearers that "Evil communications corrupt good manners," he was quoting a saying doubtless well known to them. It may be found again in the writings of the poet Menander. In the Edda we meet with many striking Scandinavian proverbs, and one of the books of the Bible, compiled about a thousand years before the Christian era, is wholly devoted to proverbial teaching.

Proverbs form a branch of that great mass of folk-lore that is more especially the possession of the humbler denizens of our towns and rural districts, and seem to have comparatively little sympathy with the great ones of the earth. In "Eastward Hoe," written in 1605, we have a quaint illustration of their use—where Touchstone declares, "I hired me a small shop, fought low, tooke small game, kept no debt-booke, and garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good wholesome thriftie sentences, as 'Touchstone, keepe thy shoppe and thy shoppe will keepe thee,' 'Light gaines make heavie purses,' ''Tis good to be merrie and wise.'" A great use was made of proverbs and mottoes during the middle ages on jewellery, pottery, furniture, and in fact wherever they could be applied.

"Proverbs," Whateley very happily says, "are somewhat analogous to those medical formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready made up in the chemists' shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct prescription." The uneducated are quite willing to be supplied with happy arguments ready made,[20:A] and having tested their efficacy, are well content to abide by them. Motherwell very aptly observes that "A man whose mind has been enlarged by education, and who has a complete mastery over the riches of his own language, expresses his ideas in his own words, while a vulgar man, on the other hand, uses these proverbial forms which daily use and tradition have made familiar to him, and when he makes a remark which needs confirmation, he clinches it by a proverb." It is of course obvious here that the word vulgar is not used in the offensive sense that has in these latter days been associated with it.

With the uneducated and poorer folk an axiom never becomes hackneyed. In all such matters they are very conservative, and do not readily forsake the old paths. Rustic humour, rustic customs, rustic remedies, all conform to this well-nigh immutable law. Years ago, when we lived in a little Wiltshire village, the leading farmer had a black horse with a broad blaize of white running from between its ears to the nostrils, and anyone meeting the carter leading this animal to plough or stable would accost him as follows: "That harse of yourn looks pretty baad!" to which the carter would reply, "Yees, he looks pretty white about the faace, doant he?" Should this horse, or such a horse, be still to the fore, we do not for a moment doubt—it is only eighteen years since we left—that this formula is still flourishing in perennial youth. Everyone knew just what to say and when to slowly chuckle, and so everybody was entirely satisfied, and the sally was a guaranteed success. It had ripened with age, and had long passed the troublesome experimental stage.

Lord Chesterfield declared that "a man of fashion never had recourse to proverbs," but after all his opinion is not final. The utterance is often quoted, but proverbs still survive his anathema, and the ban under which he would place them has had no binding force. It is, moreover, a matter quite immaterial what the man of fashion thinks of them at all. They yet remain interesting objects of study for the philosopher, and are for the man of the busy world a storehouse of practical wisdom.

The Divine Teacher did not scruple to employ this form of speech. In the synagogue of Nazareth He reminds them of the popular proverb, "Physician, heal thyself," and at the Well of Sychar He declares that saying true, "One soweth, another reapeth."

There is reason in all things, and the "happy medium" is one of the most valuable objects one can strive after in almost every direction. A man who was continuously firing off adages and axioms would be as terrible an infliction as the inveterate anecdotist or the everlasting pun-producer. Shakespeare freely introduces this proverb-lore, and the titles of two of his plays, "Measure for Measure," and "All's Well that Ends Well," owe their titles to popular proverbs of the day. Fuller uses it very largely and effectively in his writings. Butler's "Hudibras" is overflowing with proverbial allusions, and so, too, are the writings of Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes, and many another who might be instanced. We shall have occasion, however, later on to dwell at length on their introduction into literature.

"Apt alliteration's artful aid" is sometimes invoked. Such precepts as "Live and let live," "No silver, no servant," "Like likes like," "Out of debt, out of danger," "Time tryeth troth,"[22:A] and "No cross, no crown," and the Latin, "In vino veritas,"[22:B] are the more easily retained in the memory in consequence.

Another valuable aid to remembrance is found in rhyme, and many of our most widely current proverbs owe, no doubt, some at least of their popular acceptance to the catching jingle that fixes them on the ear. The following are examples:—"Who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing," "Store is no sore," "The counsels that are given in wine will do no good to thee or thine," "Little strokes fell great oaks," "One drop of ink may make a million think." Very familiar examples are these—"Little pot, soon hot," "A stitch in time saves nine," "Many a little makes a mickle," "No gains without pains," and "Man proposes, God disposes." How true to life is it in a censorious world that "When I did well I heard it never, when I did ill I heard it ever." There is a touch of sarcasm in the following:—"As a man is friended so the law is ended," and the old saying, "In vino veritas," reappears in this, "What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals." The equally well-known "Bis dat qui cito dat" is seen in the adage, "He giveth twice who gives in a trice," "He that by the plough would thrive, himself must either hold or drive," for "Well begun is half done," and "By hawk and by hound small profit is found." There are "No gains without pains," and it is "Better small fish than empty dish," "He that leaves certainty and sticks to chance, when fools pipe he may dance." He will find it true enough that "Great spenders are bad lenders," and so it is a case of "Help, hands, for I have no lands," and "Be the day never so long, at last it cometh to evensong." "Easy fool is knave's tool," but "He that mischief hatcheth mischief catcheth." "He has wit at will that with an angry heart can hold him still," but far better yet, "A little house well filled, a little land well tilled, a little wife well willed," for "A good wife and health is a man's best wealth."

Naturally, as rhyming proverbs are found to be valuable as aids to memory in England, they are equally esteemed elsewhere; thus in France we have "L'homme propose et le Dieu dispose,"[23:A] and "Ami de table est variable"—"The friend of one's table is of very little value,"—while the Spaniard says, "A malas hadas, malas bragas"—"Ill fortune is shabbily attired." "Asi es el marido sin hecho, como casa sin techo"—"A husband without ability is like a house without a roof." "El que lleva la renta que adobe la venta"—"Let him who receives the rent repair the inn." Those who take the profits should also bear the expense. In Latin we have "Durum et durum non faciunt murum,"[23:B] that is to say, two hard materials do not come well together in building a wall, we must have some soft yielding substance to soften their asperities, and to bind them together. In other words, two headstrong, domineering people will never get on well alone: there must be the intervention of some gentler spirit to palliate, to excuse, to be a peacemaker, and avert friction. "Nocumentum, documentum" is another illustration. Its significance is that trouble teaches a man and opens his eyes, the wise course being to profit by our misfortunes. "Via crucis, via lucis," and "Qualis vita, finis ita" are other examples of the rhyming proverb. Portuguese examples are, "De ora em hora Deus mellora," "Agua molle em pedra dura tanto dà até que fura," "Quem do alheio veste na praça o despe." Greek, German, Italian and other proverbs equally conform to this custom of aiding the memory by a rhyming treatment; but enough has been brought forward to indicate the point.

Sometimes actual rhyme is absent, but there is nevertheless a certain catch or jingle in the wording that attracts the attention; as, for example, "The law of love is better than the love of law," "Look rather on the good of evil men than on the evil of good men," "It is better to suffer without cause than to have cause for suffering," and "Take heed when thou seest no need of taking heed." A Latin example is, "Præmonitus, præmunitus," being forewarned one is forearmed, and prepared to defend oneself from a threatened mischief.

Such rhymes, alliterations, and quaint turns of diction have at all times had a great attraction to children and to primitive people, and to the great mass of mankind. That "Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper" is of overwhelmingly more interest, for instance, in the nursery than that George Piper should have ground a pound of coffee. When Cæsar reported his success to Rome in the words "Veni, vidi, vici," there can be little doubt that by both sender and recipients it was considered that he had put the matter very neatly, and the kindly Gregory and his hearers no doubt equally felt that a decidedly happy remark had been made when he hailed the fair-haired Saxon children as "Non angli sed Angeli."

A very interesting Greek inscription that reads the same either backwards or forwards is found in many English and foreign churches—"Nipson anonemata me monan opsin." In the Greek lettering the reversal is complete, but in English characters the "ps" is two letters instead of one, and when read backwards becomes "sp." The significance is, "Cleanse thy sins and not thy face only." It appears ordinarily on the font, and, less usually, on the sacred vessels, and may be taken as a fair equivalent of the scriptural precept, "Rend your heart and not your garments." Examples will be found in England in Hadleigh Church, Suffolk; West Shefford, Berks; Clipston Church, Northampton; Worlingworth Church, Suffolk; Harlow, in Essex; Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, and other places. One notable and interesting example of its introduction was on the font of the Basilica of the Heavenly Wisdom at Constantinople, but on the conversion of this building into a mosque this font was destroyed.

FOOTNOTES:

[4:A] "A dictionary of the English language, in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best authors." This early edition is in two massive quarto volumes, and the later abridgments that are now alone seen give no conception of the value of the original work.

[4:B] The two illustrative quotations appended are from the writings of Bacon and Addison respectively. The first runs as follows:—"The proverb is true that light gains make heavy purses; for light gains come thick, whereas great come but now and then"; while the second, from Addison, declares that "the proverb says of the Genoese that they have a sea without fish, land without trees, and men without faith." This latter would appear to be rather an epigram than a proverb.

[5:A] We shall later on, when we deal with proverbial philosophy suggested by the various traits of animal life, find that the cat furnishes material for several popular sayings. The particular facts here brought out are the two antagonistic points in the feline economy—a great liking for fish, and a great disliking to getting wet, so that "I dare not" becomes the insurmountable obstacle to "I would." In a sixteenth century manuscript this adage is given as "a cat doth love the fishe, but she will not wett her foote," and, with various slight modifications of diction, the proverb is an oft-quoted one.

[10:A] A great use is made in the Bible of this thought-compelling antithesis. One illustration will suffice: "There is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that is glory and grace."

[10:B]

"The stone that is rouling can gather no mosse,
Who often remooueth is sure of losse,
The riche it compelleth to paie for his pride;
The poore it vndooeth on euerie side."

[11:A] "In manye suche parablis he spak to hem the word, as thei myghten here, and he spak not to hem withoute parable."—Wiclif's translation of the Bible.

"The holye scripture hath her figure and historye, her mysterye and veritie, her parable and playne doctryne."—Bale.

[14:A] "Or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the cistern."—Ecclesiastes xii. 6.

[14:B] "Ou ne fait point d'omelettes sans casser les œufs," says the Frenchman, and the Spaniard agrees, "No se hacen tortillas sin romper huevos."

[20:A]

"My reasoning your reason setteth nought by,
But reason for reason yee so stiffly lay,
By proverbe for proverbe that with you doe way."—Heywood.

[22:A] Nearly equivalent to the delightful saying of classic times, "Veritas temporis filia."

[22:B] To some extent preserved in the modern equivalents, "La verdad está en el vino," "Dans le vin on dit la vérité."

[23:A] In modern Portuguese, "O homem impoem, Deus dispoem."

[23:B] In modern Portuguese, "Duro com duro nao faz bom muro."

CHAPTER II

Ancient Collections of Proverbs—The Proverbs of Solomon—Ecclesiasticus—The Work of D'Anvers on Solomon's Proverbs—The Collections of De Worde, Trevisis, and Lydgate—The "Adagia" of Erasmus—Tavernar's "Garden of Wisdom"—Heywood's Collection of Proverbs—Camden's "Remaines"—Davies, the "Scourge of Folly"—The "Apophthegms" of Lord Bacon—The "Outlandish Proverbs" of G. H.—Herbert's "Jacula Prudentum"—The Work of Howell and Cotgrave—The "Gnomologia" of Fuller—The Difficulties of Proverb-classification, by Country, by leading Word, by Subject, etc.—Ray's "Collection of English Proverbs"—The "Paræmiologia" of Walker—Palmer on Proverbs—The Sayings of "Poor Richard"

The collecting of proverbs appears at almost all periods to have exercised a great fascination, and even in classic times we find writers either amassing stores of them or introducing them freely into their writings. Many of these sayings arose, there is no doubt, in the leisurely and sententious East, and from thence found their way to the widely-spreading colonies of Greece and Phœnicia, and in due course to Rome, where a still greater area of diffusion was thrown open for their dispersal. The Jewish proverbs used by our Saviour, or by St Paul and the other apostles, can be traced back to India, where they were in use centuries before they found their way through Babylonia and Persia to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Æsop, Solon, Aristotle, Phædrus, and many other ancient writers introduced them. Menander made a fine collection of them under the title of Sententiæ Monostichæ. Pythagoras drew up a collection of adages for his disciples, and Plato, Theophrastus, and Chrysippus accumulated stores of them. During the Roman Empire collectors of antiquarian tastes carried on the work, Zenobius and Diogenianus, during the reign of Hadrian, being perhaps the most notable and enthusiastic in this pursuit, and to these, though of much later date, we may add the names of Gregorius, Cyprius, and Macarius.

Zenobius made an epitome of the proverbs collected by two older writers, Tarraeus and Didymus, in number five hundred and fifty-two, and Diogenianus, living about the same time, the beginning of the second century, accumulated seven hundred and seventy-five. Andrew Schott edited these two lists, plus fourteen hundred from Suidas and some few others from various sources at Antwerp in the year 1612.

The Biblical book known as the Proverbs of Solomon must certainly not be overlooked, as it is a collection of quite inestimable worth, having a counsel for every emergency in the troublous life of man, an encouragement for the weak, a reproof for the froward. To the conceited man it cries "Be not wise in thine own eyes," "Cease from thine own wisdom," while man swollen up with pride is warned that "Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall," so that "When pride cometh there cometh shame." The value of friendship is very fully enforced: we are warned that "A man who hath friends must show himself friendly" in turn, that we must not resent the honest counsel proffered, for "Faithful are the wounds of a friend," and we must not too hastily assume that all who profess to be our friends are really so, for "Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts," and only adversity could prove their real value. The mischief done by the hasty tongue is repeatedly dwelt upon—"A fool's mouth is his destruction," "The words of a tale-bearer are as wounds," and "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." The man of business is warned that "Divers weights are an abomination to the Lord," while the man who honestly endeavours is encouraged to believe that his labours shall not be lost to him, for "Whoso keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof, while the slothful man" excuses his idleness and apathy, and "saith there is a lion without." The vindictive man is admonished that "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein," while the value of forethought and common-sense is enforced in the hint, "Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." That we should read those counsels aright, and not draw false conclusions, we are reminded that "The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools."[28:A]

The priceless gift of wisdom, far in value above rubies, is dwelt upon and enforced, and its saving strength referred to time after time. The wisdom enshrined in this book, if incorporated in the heart and illuminating the life, would suffice as a complete vade mecum.

The writings of the son of Sirach are worthy of attentive study: they will be found in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, and are of very similar character to the proverbs of Solomon.[28:B] That the one writer should appreciate the work of the other was most natural, and the wisdom of Solomon is thus eulogised:—"How wise wast thou in thy youth, and as a flood filled with understanding. Thy soul covered the whole earth, and thou filledst with dark parables. Thy name went far into the islands, and for thy peace thou wast beloved. The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs, and proverbs, and parables, and interpretations."

"O Salomon, richest of all richesse,
Fulfilled of sapience and worldly glorie,
Ful worthy ben thy wordes to memorie
To every wight that wit and reason can."

Chaucer, The Marchantes Tale.

This book, though spoken of as one and as the work of Solomon, is really divided into several sections, and was doubtless the work of different authors and the product of different times. All was finally collected into a single book, but there is absolutely no clue as to how much is the fruit of the wisdom of Solomon and how much sprang from the experience of others. Two other contributors are mentioned in the book, Lemuel and Agur, writers of whom nothing is elsewhere known. The first nine chapters are chiefly a description and commendation of wisdom, and these are followed by others that are largely made up of sentences very loosely strung together. The proverbs of Agur are much more artificial in style than the others, while the proverbs of King Lemuel are in commendation of chastity, temperance and justice, and the praise of the ideal wife.[29:A]

In the year 1676 one Henry D'Anvers collated these proverbs, and arranged them in alphabetical sequence as an aid to the memory. He entitled it "A Presentation of the Proverbs of Solomon in English Dress." At the opening of the book the writer, as in the Biblical original, seeks wisdom. His search is at first fruitless:—

"Fare wel (said I), for yet it don't appear,
That Wisdom (whom I seek for) dwelleth here.
So I departed thence with speedy feet,
When as I found that was not Wisdom's seat."

At last, however, he seeks it in the Bible, and his perseverance is here rewarded:—

"She's glorious within, enlightened eyes
Do see such beauty which they can't but prize.
She hath one room all hung with Pearls (you'll see),
King Solomon's Proverbs, full of dignity."

This simile of the pearls is to the compiler a very attractive one, and we find it repeated more than once in the book, as, for instance:—

"Who searches oft in small things worth descries.
A Pearl is small and yet of a great price:
A Proverb is a Pearl then, rich though small,
But Scriptural most precious is of all.
King Solomon hath left Posterity
A rich and everlasting Legacy:
A cabinet of Pearls, which all may take
Nor shall they yet their fellows poorer make;
You may perhaps be owner of't, and yet
I also may enjoy the Cabinet.
Who will not then this Cab'net prize and keep?
They're precious Pearls, although they're in a heap.
You'l say, perhap, they're mixt together; well,
Loke here, each Jewell hath its proper Cell;
And as your use requires, you may repair
To such a Cell, and have a Jewell there."

This latter part refers to the alphabetical arrangement under such headings as honour, diligent, slothful. On the right-hand page all through his book he gives the same proverbs in Latin.

The definition of proverbs by D'Anvers is a happy one, "Short, wise sentences, containing much in a little." He goes on to say that "they are in the Scriptures sometimes called the Sayings of the Antients (1 Sam. xxiv. 13), because delivered by the wise antient Fathers or Elders, and therefore called the words of the wise (Prov. i. 6); and sometimes the sayings of old (2 Sam. xx. 18, Ps. lxxviii. 2), because the approbation and consent of Ages went to make them the usage of a Nation, being brought by Custom and Tradition to every mouth."

D'Anvers carefully calls attention to a point that is sometimes overlooked, that such figurative language is sometimes of intent employed to veil rather than to reveal. Hence sometimes "an obscure and enigmatical way of speaking," and therefore called "the word of the wise and their dark sayings," and "dark sayings of old." And therefore it is said to our Saviour upon His explanation of some teaching that had not been grasped by His hearers, "Now speakest thou plainly and speakest no proverb," opposing plain speaking to proverbial and parabolical.

The comprehensiveness of the book of Proverbs is very happily brought out by D'Anvers when he speaks of it as "containing not only the true Wisdom (in teaching the fear of the Lord) but all other necessary learning as well—Ethicks, viz., matters pertaining to moral virtues, as Prudence, Temperance, Justice. As Oeconomicks, viz., matters of Domestick and Family-concerns, relating to the duties of Husbands, Wives, Parents, Children, Masters and Servants, and Politicks, also, relating to Government and matters of State." We may therefore, on recognition of this, find no difficulty in assenting to his declaration that "Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and other Heathenish School-Authors are not to be named with Solomon who so instructs to every good word and work."

A manuscript preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is of considerable interest in the bibliography of proverbs. It was written in the beginning of the thirteenth century and is a translation into Latin of some of the more popular sayings of the time. Thus, for example, the well-known adage, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," appears as "Plus valet in manibus avis unica quam dupla silvis." "When the dog eats his bone he loves not company," is given as "Dum canis os rodit, sociari pluribus odit." In an old French collection we find the equivalent of this, "Chen en cosyn compagnie ne desire"—"The dog while in the kitchen desires no fellow."

Another is the interesting collection got together by Wynkyn de Worde and Peter Trevisis early in the sixteenth century. The wording is very quaint, but we are able to recognise many proverbs that are still in use, the difference of their wording often making them still more attention-compelling. How delightful, for example, is the variation on the well-worn theme as to the impropriety and want of delicacy in looking in a gift-horse's mouth, "A gyuen hors may not be loked in the tethe." The fate that may attend unasked-for offers of assistance is graphically brought before us in the rendering, "Profred seruyce stynketh." The difference in result between the idle aimless wish and the strenuous endeavour is excellently brought home to us in "Wysshers and wolders ben smal housholders." "Be ye dayes neuer so long at ye last cometh euensonge," when "the ploughman homeward plods his weary way." It is very refreshing, too, to meet another old friend, "Thou hyttest the nayle on the heed," though in these latter days we make a point of its being "the right nail." The collection is entitled "Vulgaria Stambrigi."

The "Prourbes of Lydgate," a black letter-treatise of about the same date as the book just referred to, may also be consulted. Many of the proverbs, though some are good, appear to have now passed out of use. We have for instance a somewhat selfish motto, "Payne thee not eche croked to redresse," a counsel not to worry over other people's troubles. "Galle under suger hathe double bytternesse," is expressive and suggestive. It tells of lost friendship, of confidence treacherously betrayed, of bright hopes dashed. The advice to look at home and to mind primarily one's own business is brought out in the line, "Loke in thy mirrour and deme none other wyghts." There is, as will be noted in the examples we have given, a certain tone of cynicism and selfishness that is not a pleasant feature and which we would fain hope is at least one reason for many of them having gone out of service.

Michael Apostolius of Byzantium in the middle of the fifteenth century compiled a book of ancient proverbs, on which he made comments and gave explanations where he deemed it needful. The collection contained 2027 examples. The man, however, who in these earlier days did most in this direction was Erasmus, and his labours supplied for subsequent writers a mass of very valuable material, for the work was one of gigantic toil. Erasmus largely contributed in many ways to the advancement of learning in Europe. The first edition of his book, the "Adagia," was published in Paris in the year 1500. The work was at once greeted with acclamation, and fresh editions were repeatedly called for. On each occasion Erasmus made additions, until at length the book contained over 4000 examples. These were mostly the proverbs to be found in the early Greek and Roman writers. The book is a monument of perseverance and erudition; it still remains unrivalled, and it became on its issue the medium through which the knowledge of many proverbs was disseminated throughout Europe: the similarity of many of the proverbs of England, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain, was at least in some measure owing to the fact that the Latin treatise of Erasmus supplied an abundant store for general appropriation.

Erasmus was one of the many who sought to reform the Church. The dissolute were denounced whatever their rank, and abuses were fulminated against with unsparing zeal, so that the people were prepared for some great change either of mending or ending. Hence it has been said that Erasmus laid the egg of the Reformation and Luther hatched it. Great enmity was aroused, and the divines who had had cause to wince, endeavoured to persuade the Pope, Leo X., to have the "Adagia" condemned. The morals and comments added to some of the proverbs told very heavily against the clergy, and they very naturally did not take kindly to the issue of such a book. The ecclesiastics, however, in session at the Council of Trent, before whom the matter was brought, liberally decided that the book was of too great value to be wholly suppressed, so they contented themselves with ordering its strict revision, everything which they deemed offensive to the papal sway and the influence of the priesthood being under their ban. This garbled version was published in Florence in the year 1575, the name of the author being suppressed, but the book had ere this passed through so many editions and had been scattered so far and wide over Europe that any action of this kind came altogether too late to be of any efficacy.

Taverner, an Englishman, issued a book of proverbs, axioms, and epigrams in the year 1539. It is in black-letter, and has avowedly been largely constructed "with newe addicions" out of the monumental work of Erasmus. It is "the Garden of Wysdome, conteyning pleasant floures, that is to saye, propre and quycke sayinges of Princes, Phylosphers, and other sortes of men, Drawen forth of good Authours by Rycharde Tauerner." His comments on the various adages are often very shrewd. "Lawes," he says, "be lyke spyders webbes, wherein the weakest and most feble beastes be catched and stycke faste, but the strongest breake out. So lawes do bynde the poore and meane persons but the rich cobbes escape vnpunyshed"; and again, "An angrye bodye dothe nothynge dyffer from a mad man, but in the tariannce of tyme, sygnifyeng that wrathe is a short frensye." Many of his "quycke sayinges"[35:A] are very happy, thus, "Demanded what is a frend, Zeno answered an other I, sygnifyeng that an entyer and hartye frende no lesse loveth his frende then hymselfe." We read, too, with interest, of "a certayne person which rose erly in the mornynge and found his hose knawen and eaten of the rattes, and being troubled wyth this syght, thynkyng it a prognosticatiō (a tokē of some misfortune) he cometh to Cato to aske his coūsaile and to know of hym what euyl thys thyng portended. Cato maketh hym thys answere, Certes my frend it is no mōstrouse syght to se rattes eat mens hose, but yf thy hose had eaten the rattes that had been a monstrouse syght." This answer was so entirely to the point that one would fain hope that the man of the knawen hose went on his way rejoicing that he knew the worst.

Books of like nature with that of Taverner will be found in the works of Florio—one of these is entitled "Merie proverbes, Wittie Sentences and golden Sayings," and another is the "Garden of Recreation." This latter contains some six thousand Italian proverbs. They doubtless passed through divers editions; the copies that came under our own notice were dated 1578 and 1591 respectively.

A valuable sixteenth century collection of proverbs may be found in a rhyming treatise written by John Heywood. The first edition that we have seen is a black-letter quarto of the year 1547. It is entitled "A Dialogue, contayning in effect the number of al the Proverbs in the English tongue, compact in a matter concerning two Marriages." In an issue in 1598 that has come under our notice the title is, "A dialogue wherein are pleasantlie contrived the number of all the effectuall proverbs in our English tongue, compact in a matter concerning two marriages. Together with three hundred epigrams upon three hundred proverbs." Heywood always refers to the proverbs as already old sayings and praises them, though he at times dressed up as proverbs some of his own ideas, and altered others, depriving them of somewhat of their rugged directness. He says of them:

"Our common, plaine, pithie proverbes olde
Some sense of some of whiche beying bare and rude,
Yet to fine and fruitfull effect they allude,
And their sentences include so large a reache
That almost in all thinges good lessons they teache.
This write I not to teach but to touch: for why?
Men know this as well or better than I.
But this and that rest: I write for this,
Remembering and considering what the pith is,
That by remembering of these, Proverbs may grow."

This poem on marriage may make an excellent vehicle for the introduction of these old English sayings, but as a poem it is in itself most cheerless and disagreeable, the view taken being a most unfavourable one. One gets no notion of anything like conjugal felicity being possible, the rhymes being a snarl and a wrangle all through.

John Heywood was a friend of Sir Thomas More. His book at once sprang into popularity, and was ten times reprinted during the sixteenth century. He also wrote the "Mery playe betwene the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte." The whole tone of this is as hostile to the clergy as the other to Hymen. Another of his productions was the "Play of the Wether," where a "gentylman, wynde-miller, marchaunt, launder," and others all fall foul of the weather, and at last appeal to Jupiter. The gentleman, for instance, "wants no wynde to blow for hurt in hys huntynge," while "she that lyveth by laundry must have wether hot and clere her clothys to dry." He wrote several other plays and other things.

The following extracts from Heywood give an illustration of his rhyming treatment:—

"The cat would eat fish and would not wet her feete.
They must hunger in frost that will not worke in heate.
And he that will thrive must aske leave of his wife,
But your wife will give none, by you and her life."

"Haste must provoke
When the pigge is proffered to hold up the poke.
When the sun shineth make hay: which is to say
Take time when time com'th, lest time steale away.
And one good lesson to this purpose I pike
From the smith's forge, when th' iron is hot, strike."

The reasons may be sound enough, but the rhymes are deplorable. Thus "pike" is no doubt an example of "poetic license," as pick, the word he really wants, would not rhyme with strike!

"From suspicion to knowledge of yll, for sothe,
Coulde make ye dooe but as the flounder dothe—
Leape out of the frying-pan into the fyre,
And chaunge from yl peyn to wurs is smal hyre."

For badness of rhyme it would be hard to surpass this—

"But pryde she sheweth none, her looke reason alloweth,
She lookth as butter would not melt in her mouth."

That "newe broom swepth cleene" is the text for another atrociously bad rhyme. It limps as follows:—

"But since all thing is the worse of the wearing
Decay of cleene sweeping folke had in fearing."

In the year 1586 appeared the first edition of Camden's Britannia. The book was a very popular one, and repeatedly issued. The author accumulated a vast store of information, more than he found himself able to utilise in his book, the result being yet another book, the "Remaines." This, like the first, was received with much favour. The title was "Remaines concerning Britaine; but especially England and the Inhabitants thereof, their Languages, Names, Surnames, Allusions, Anagrams, Armories, Monies, Impresses, Apparell, Artillarie, Wise Speeches, Prouerbs, Posies, Epitaphs." William Camden was Clarenceaux, King of Armes, surnamed "the Learned" by some of his contemporaries, and his heraldic and archæological tastes are clearly seen in his choice of subjects when dealing with so vast a theme as the thousand and one interests that divers Englishmen would look for in such a book; the sportsman, the botanist, the merchant, for example, each having their special interests quite outside those that seemed to Camden so specially characteristic and essential to a right comprehension of England.

The book is a very interesting one, and full of valuable matter, but it is with one section alone, that on proverbs, that we now deal. His reason for their insertion is as follows:—"Where as proverbs are concise, witty, and wise Speeches grounded upon long experience, containing for the most part good caveats, and therefore profitable and delightfull: I thought it not unfit to set down here, alphabetically, some of the selectest and most usuall amongst us, as being worthy to have place amongst the wise Speeches." In the book they immediately succeed these wise speeches.

We give a selection from these proverbs, held to be worthy of such commendation. "An ynche in a miss is as good as an ell." "Looke not to hie least a chip fall in thine eie." "It is euill waking of a sleeping dogge." "Many stumble at a strawe and leape over a blocke." "Of little medling commeth great ease." "Poore and proud, fy, fy." "Saue a thiefe fro the gallowes and heele cut your throat." "So long goes the pot to the water that at length it comes home broken." "Tread a worme on the taile and it must turne againe." "Where be no receauers there be no theeues."[39:A] "When the skye falleth we shall have larkes."

Though the exigencies of space prevent anything like individual comment, we trust that our readers will not hurry through these as a mere list to be got through. Each is excellent, and well worthy of quiet thinking over; while a second theme of interest may, we think, often be discovered in the recognition of proverbs well known to us in a somewhat different wording, as, for instance, Camden's version—"A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drinke without he will," and "An inche in a misse is as good as an ell,"—proverbs in common use still, but given here with a certain quaintness of variation that has a charm.

Other happy utterances in the Camden collection are: "A friend is not so soon gotten as lost."[39:B] "A leg of a lark is better than the body of a kyte." "A man far from good is near to harm." "A man may buy golde too deare." "One piece of a kid is worth two of a cat." "It is a proud horse that will not bear his own provender." "As good sit still as rise up and fall." "Blind men should judge no colours." "He that will have a hare for breakfast must hunt overnight." "It is hard to teach an old dog tricks." "It is not good to have an oare in every man's boat." "One ill weede marreth a whole pot of pottage." This latter is in an especial degree, in its literal wording, a proverb of the past, though its inner significance will hold good till the end of time. It clearly refers to a time when the herbs of the field were utilised, and vegetable gardens did not supply the needful requisites for the table. In these present days well-ordered ranks of beans, onions, lettuce, and other crops are to hand, and a mistake is scarcely possible, but in these earlier days, when the wild growths of the hedgerow were utilised, one can readily see that a little ignorance in the gathering might contribute an ingredient that would mar all—a touch of hemlock, for instance, in lieu of parsley.

It is strikingly true, too, that as on the one hand a soft answer turneth away wrath, so, on the contrary, "one ill worde asketh another," and probably does not ask in vain. It is equally true in one's experience of life that not uncommonly "One beateth the bush and another catcheth the birds." The necessity of caution in permitting innovations is well brought out in, "Once a use then ever a custom"; and the fact that there is more skill in even the simplest art than the onlooker quite realises is very effectively brought out in, "There is craft in daubing." The motto of the Order of the Garter has prepared us for "Shame take him that shame thinketh." Other happy renderings in the collection under consideration are, "Such an one hath a good wit if a wise man had the keeping of it." "No penny, no paternoster." "The beggar may sing before the thiefe," for, having no property to lose, the highwayman or the burglar have no terrors for him. "Three may keepe counsell if two be away." "Who medleth in all things may go shoe the gostlings." We have by no means exhausted the list. The only one amongst the whole collection that appears unworthy of a place is "Struggle not against the streame." This appears to point to a cowardly surrender, a floating easily down when a stout resistance should be made. A policy of "Do as the others do; ask no questions; raise no difficulties; make no protest; keep quiet, or shout with the majority; we are no worse than other people." We cannot recall the name of any man or woman whose life shines bright in history whose principles were built up exactly on these lines.

John Davies, a native of Hereford, in the year 1611 or thereabouts wrote a book which he called the "Scourge of Folly." The work is now a scarce one, and the world is no great loser in consequence. He was a versifier at once prolific and drearily dull. The first edition we have not seen, but that of 1620 is entitled, "The Scourge of Folly, consisting of satyricall Epigrams and others in honour of many noble Persons and worthy Friends, together with a pleasant (though discordant) Descant upon most English Proverbs and others." The epigrams are, most of them, of a most offensive character. The references to the names of the persons satirised carry now no meaning, but at the time they were written they must have been of the most grossly personal character. "Against Formias brauery and unceessant prating," "against Cleophus, the Time observer," "against faint-hearted bragging Bomelio," "against wordy Classus," are examples of the headings, and the lines that in each case are appended are grossly insolent. There are two hundred and ninety-two of these scoundrelisms. His proverbs are four hundred and nineteen in number, and he adds to each a rhyming comment of his own. They are mostly very feeble, and many of them much too gross for quotation.

"Fast binde, fast finde, but Rufus, bound as fast
As bonds could do, to pay a debt he ought,
Stole quite away, ere quite the day was past,
And nowhere can be found, though he be sought."

He lengthens and shortens the proverbs as rhythmical exigencies call for, and his great idea throughout seems to be to show that these old proverbs were quite absurd and valueless, and that John Davies was the real fount of wisdom.

We append a few of these couplets, the first line being a proverb and the second the comment of Davies upon it. Anything more feeble and pointless than the latter could scarcely be imagined.

"A Mouse may in time bite in two a cable—
That may she at once if she be able."

"No more can we have of the fox but his skin;
Yes, Bones to make dice, which now is no sin."

"Three may keep counsell if two be away,
And so may all three if nothing they say."

"A dead Bee will make no Hony,
But from dead Bees it's had for money."

"Ill newes are commonly true,
Not if a lyer made them new."

"The Cat would eat fish but for wetting her feete,
To eat ere she wash is fowle and unsweete."

"Throw no Guift at the Giver againe;
Yes: if he give me a blow Ile thanke him with twaine."

"A scabb'd Sheepe will marre a whole flocke,
Faith, then the Shepherd's a Knave or a Block."

"Who is worse Shood than the Shoomaker's wife?
Faith, Geese, that never wore Shoes in their life."

About this time also was published a book called "The Crossing of Proverbs." The copy before us as we write is, we see, dated 1616. It is on the same lines as the preceding book, except that it is not in rhymes. "It is far to the bottom of the sea," says the old proverb. "Not so," says the author, "'tis but a stone's cast." We will spare our readers any further extracts. To give several extracts from the "Scourge of Folly" and then to merely add that "The Crossing of Proverbs" is just such another book, will give a quite sufficient measure of justice to both.

In the year 1625 the "Apothegms new and old" of Lord Bacon made their appearance. The study was a favourite one with him, and he often in his writings and discourses made a very judicious use of the material he had collected. He affirms that "Apothegms are not only for delight and ornament but for business also and civil use," for "they are, according to Cicero, mucrones verborum, pointed speeches." He also calls them Salinas, salt pits from whence one can draw the salt of discourse. "By their sharp edge they penetrate the knots of business, and serve to be interlaced in continued speech or recited upon occasion by themselves." He regrets greatly that Cæsar's book was lost. "I imagine these apothegms were collected with judgment and care; for as his history, and those few letters of his which we have and those apothegms which were his own excel all others so I suppose would his collection of them have done. As for those which are collected by other writers either I have no taste in such matters, or else their choice has not been happy." Elsewhere he declares that the modern writers on the subject "draw much of the dregs."

With all possible respect to the erudition of Bacon we find his book a somewhat heavy one, the subject appearing to call for a lightness and delicacy of touch that he would very possibly have considered beneath the dignity of literature. If we turn, for instance, to his comments on friendship, we are referred to verse 14 of Psalm xxvii. We read, "He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him," and this calls forth the following comment: "Moderate and seasonable praises uttered upon occasion, conduce much to men's fame and fortune; but praises immoderate, noisy, and importunately poured out, profit nothing: nay rather, do a good deal of hurt. First, they manifestly betray themselves to proceed either from excess of love and kindness, or that they are designed and affected, so that they may rather ingratiate themselves with the person commended by false encomiums rather than set him off by just and deserved eulogisms. Secondly, sparing and modest praises commonly invite such as are present to add something of their own to the commendation; on the contrary, profuse and immoderate ones detract and take away something. Thirdly, which is the principal point, too much magnifying a man stirs up envy; since all immoderate praises seem to tend to the reproach of others, who are no less deserving." This is quite Baconian, almost Johnsonian, in its weighty precision and formal enunciation, but a thousand proverbs thus handed over to the commentator would be a ponderous tome that few would dare to open, and the esprit and quaintness of these familiar utterances would be utterly lost, buried, in such a flow of exposition.

In the year 1640 was published a volume entitled, "Outlandish Proverbs." The name of the author was not given, "selected by Mr G. H." being all the information vouchsafed. As these proverbs were those in common use, the title strikes one as being particularly inappropriate. The collection was a somewhat meagre one. All gross sayings were omitted, or softened down. That anything objectionable should be left out seems to our present ideas so entirely a matter of course that the mention of the fact appears uncalled for, nevertheless this omission differentiated the labours of Mr G. H. from much that had gone before. The softening down process is perhaps not quite so justifiable. A proverb, like a hymn, should not be edited. All that seems fair and justifiable is to accept it as it stands or else refuse it admission.

Some considerable time after the appearance of this book on "Outlandish Proverbs" a second edition appeared, but this time the title was "Jacula Prudentum, or outlandish proverbs, sentences, etc.," and the authorship was no longer veiled by mere letters but stands revealed—"selected by Mr George Herbert, Late Orator of the University of Cambridge." This second issue contains a great many more proverbs than the first, and the title, Jacula Prudentum, "javelins of the wise," indicates the value placed by Herbert upon these popular sayings.

The mystery of the anonymous publication, like that of the Waverley novels, and other cognate cases, excited some little public interest, one writer of the day advances we see the somewhat startling thesis, "It is not a thing that, hastily regarded, one would have expected from Herbert, hence the genuineness is the more probable!" This is a very sweeping and far-reaching argument, that because a thing appears well-nigh impossible there is much to be said in favour of its probability. It seems so unlikely that Bala lake will ever flood out Westminster that all prudent persons resident there will at once provide themselves with life-belts.

A well-known proverb warns us against letting the cat out of the bag, and this seems to have been just what Herbert very nearly did, another book of his, of more devotional type, "A priest to the Temple," supplying to critical eyes a clue. In it he says that "the Country Parson doth bear in mind in the morning the outlandish proverb that prayers and provender never hinder a journey." Also in one of his letters that he wrote to his brother he added, "Take this rule, and it is an outlandish one, which I commend to you now as being a father, 'The best bred child hath the best portion.'" The introduction of the title of the book and the liking for the use of proverbs were held strong proofs in favour of his being the Mr G. H. who was being sought for. As we are told that nothing succeeds like success, we are invited to admire the sapience of the mystery-hunter, but there really seems no reason why, the title of the book being in men's minds, some other person might not have thus referred to it and introduced into his book or letters proverbs that this book had brought before him and that had attracted his notice.

Most of the proverbs in the Jacula Prudentum are admirably chosen, and as many of them are now passing away from the minds of men we make no apology for quoting freely from the book.

The re-appearance of old proverbs in a slightly altered setting than that we are now familiar with, is a point of interest in these old collections that we have already referred to, but each author we consult gives us anew this pleasure. How refreshing, for instance, is Herbert's version, "Whose house is of glasse must not throw stones at another," or this, "You may bring a horse to the river, but he will drinke when and what he pleaseth," or this, yet again, "A feather in hand is better than a bird in the ayre." A proverb that is often used at the present time amongst us in its French dress is found here as "It is a poore sport that's not worth the candle."

How true and how pithily put are these, "He that studies his content wants it." "Not a long day but a good heart rids worke." "Hearken to Reason and shee will bee heard." "He that staies does the businesse." "Prosperity lets go the bridle." "Still fisheth he that catches one." "Give a clowne your finger and he will take your hand."[47:A] And this one like unto it, "Let an ill man lie in the strawe, and he looks to bee thy heire." "The back-dore robs the house." "One sword keeps another in the sheath." An excellent motto this last. The Peace Society may have its uses, but there is no doubt that this side the millennium efficient army corps and magnificent navies supply yet more cogent arguments. "Si vis pacem pare bellum."

How sound again the teaching, "He is not poor that hath little, but he that desireth much." "God provides for him that trusteth." "A cheerful look makes a dish a feast." "Sometimes the best gain is to lose." "He that sows trusts in God." "Divine ashes are better than earthlie meale."

How excellent the prudence that gives value to the following: "Send a wise man on an errand and say nothing unto him." "Although it rain cast not away thy watering-pot." "Who hath no more breade than nede must not keepe a dog." "The best remedy against an ill man is much ground between." "Love your neighbour, yet pull not down your hedge." "Send not a catt for lard." It is well, too, to remember that "Courtesie on one side only lasts not long," that a commensurate price has to be paid for everything, and so "a lion's skin is never cheape," that one's position must be frankly accepted and its duties adequately met, for "he that serves must serve," that gentle measures will often succeed better than rough ones, for "he that will take the bird must not skare it." It is at once a comfort and a warning that "none is a foole alwaies, everyone sometimes," and that the crafty at last over-reach themselves and in the end Nemesis awaits them. "At length the fox is brought to the furrier," and the farmyard knows him no more.

What an excellent lesson against jumping to conclusions is seen in this, "Stay till the lame messenger come, if you will know the truth of the thing," against concluding too hastily that the work we are engaged upon is finished, for "One flower does not make a garland."

The evil wrought by the tongue is a constant and perennial theme of the moralist, and the makers of proverbs are in complete accord, "The tongue talks at the head's cost." "More have repented speech than silence." Those who suffer at the hands, or rather the tongues, of others may learn how effectually to avenge themselves, for "Pardon and pleasantnesse are great revengers of slanders," and the experiment is one that is well worth trial. In any case, "Neither prayse nor disprayse thyself: thy actions serve the turne." "The effect speakes, the tongue need not." How full of wisdom is this final cluster of pearls, this sheaf of javelins: "A gift much expected is paid, not given." "Pleasing ware is half sould." "The hole calls the thief"—a warning against putting temptation in the way and thereby causing a brother to offend. The man who has gone far on the path of reformation is not safe so long as any relic of the past yet clings round his heart, for "The horse that draws after him his halter has not altogether escaped." "Whither shall the oxe goe where he shall not labour?" How can one hope to evade the responsibilities of his position? The proverb is an interesting reminder of the custom once common enough, and which we ourselves have seen in Sussex and Wiltshire, on the heavy down-lands, of ploughing with a yoke of oxen. There is quaint humour in this, "The chicken is the countrey's, but the citie eateth it." "If the old dog barke he gives counsell." "A married man turns his staffe into a stake," his wandering days are over.

A not unpleasant cynicism gives point to the assertion that "Nothing dries sooner than a teare," while it is equally one's experience of life that "When the tree is fallen all goe with their hatchet," and that "Men speak of the fair as things went with them there." It is a rather touching assertion that "The reasons of the poor weigh not," and it is too true. Their poverty makes the poor despised and their words unheeded by many who, richer in this world's goods, treat with contempt the struggling and the unsuccessful. Poverty is not a crime: it may be a badge of shame if the result of vice, or it may be a badge of honour where a man has scorned to stoop to shuffling dishonesties that may have enriched some who presume to despise him.

In 1659 James Howell issued a series of proverbs, and some of these were incorporated in Randle Cotgrave's dictionary in the following year. This latter has been deemed "that most amusing of all dictionary makers." He quotes many French proverbs, and then gives English adages that more or less match them. Thus under faim he gives "A la faim il n'y a point de mauvais pain," which, he explains, means that "To him who is hungry any bread seems good"—not quite a sufficiently literal translation, we should have thought, for a dictionary-maker—and adds, "We say hungrie dogs love durtie pudding."[49:A] Howell's proverbs were, as a whole, not very judiciously selected, and he had the presumption and bad taste to spin out of his own imagination a series of what he called "New Sayings which may serve for Proverbs for posterity." These were very poor, and posterity has declined to have anything to do with them.

In this same year, 1659, a small volume of adages, compiled by N. R. (Nathaniel Richards), appeared.

They are all in English, but are mostly of foreign origin, and are of no great interest or value.

A much more notable book is the "Gnomologia: Adagies and proverbs; wise sentences and witty sayings, ancient and modern, foreign and British, collected by Thomas Fuller, M.D." As the compiler gives over six thousand proverbs, we may regard the book as a fairly adequate one. He gives in it no indication of the sources from whence the adages are derived, adds no explanatory notes, and works on no system. This is equivalent to writing a natural history and leading off with panther and earwig. It is, as a matter of fact, very difficult to classify a collection of such disconnected units as proverbs. If we attempt to do it by countries we may soon find that it is in most cases quite impossible to guess where the adage originated, and the general borrowing that has been going on for centuries makes anything like a local claim to exclusive possession impossible. It would be quite easy to write out a list of fifty proverbs, illustrating them exclusively by passages from Cervantes and other Spanish writers, and, on the strength of this, claiming them as Spanish, but it would be equally easy afterwards for Dane, Russian, and German, Englishman, Italian, and Greek to come and each claim so many of these items that the speedy outcome would be an almost absolute disappearance from our list of anything purely Iberian.

There is a good deal to be said in favour of the alphabetical arrangement, but only on condition that the leading word of the adage be taken. It is a mere absurdity to take the first word. How can we reasonably put under letter A, "A rolling stone gathers no moss"? It may be objected that we are putting an extreme case, but extreme cases have to be considered as much as any others. In one book before us we find that the old author in scores of instances produces results as grotesquely inadequate. Under the letter D, for instance, we find, "Do not spur a willing horse," though surely everyone, with the exception of the compiler of the list, would at once realise that the pith of the adage does not in any way rest in "do." We may at once see this if we take the proverb in another of its popular forms, "Spur not a willing horse."

The classification of these old saws according to their subject, such as friendship, pride, industry, and the like, is sometimes adopted, and it has many advantages; but we very soon find that we come to something that declines to be thus pigeon-holed. If we take the Russian proverb, for instance, "The burden is light on the shoulders of another," how shall we classify it? It will clearly not come under "friendship," and it is equally not at home in the section on "industry." While some adages decline to fit into any section, others we find might with almost equal appropriateness find a home under three or four headings.

Fuller defines a proverb as "much matter decocted into a few words," and a very good definition it is. He declares that "six essentials are necessary for the compleating of a perfect Proverb. Namely that it be—

As he was evidently a little nervous that some persons might think the subject a little beneath the dignity of Dr Fuller, he allows an imaginary objector to have his fling, and then proceeds to demolish him. The "objection" raised by this anonymous disciple of Mrs Grundy is that "it is more proper for a person of your profession to imploy himself in reading of, and commenting on, the Proverbs of Solomon, to know wisdome and instruction, to perceive words of understanding. Whereas you are now busied in what may be pleasant, not profitable, yet what may inform the fleshlie not edifie the inward man." As many proverbs do undoubtedly build up the inner man this judgment is wanting in charity, and as a student ourselves in the subject we are gratified to find that the doctor declines to accept this vote of censure, and is able to make out a good case for himself. His reply is somewhat longer than a quotation permits, and one must give all or none.

In his preface, also, he alludes to "snarling persons" who have deprecated his labours. This preface of his is distinctly interesting.

"All of us," he writes therein, "forget more than we remember, and therefore it hath been my constant Custom to note down and record whatever I thought of myself, or received from Men or Books worth preserving. Amongst other things I wrote out Apothegms, Maxims, Proverbs, acute Expressions, vulgar Sayings, etc., and having at length collected more than ever any Englishman has before me I have ventur'd to send them forth to try their Fortune among the People. In ancient Times, before methodical Learning had got Footing in the Nations and instructive Treatises were written, the Observations that were from Experience were us'd to be gather'd and sum'd up into brief and comprehensive Sentences, which being so contriv'd as to have something remarkable in their Expressions might be easily remember'd and brought into Use on Occasions. They are call'd Adagies or Maxims.

"Also the Men of Business and the common People, that they might in their Affairs and Conversation signify and communicate this Sense and Meaning in short, with Smartness and with Pleasantness fell into customary little Forms of Words and trite Speeches, which are call'd Proverbs and common Sayings. The former of these are from Judgment, and are us'd by Men of Understanding and Seriousness; the other are from Wit, and are accommodate to the Vulgar and Men of Mirth. I conceive it is not needful for me accurately to determine which are to be call'd Adagies and Proverbs; nor nicely to distinguish the one from the other. All that I here take upon me to do is only to throw together a vast confus'd heap of unsorted Things, old and new, which you may pick over and make use of, According to your Judgment and Pleasure. Many of these are only plain bare Expressions, to be taken literally in their proper Meaning: others have something of the Obscure and Surprize, which, as soon as understood, renders them pretty and notable.

"It is a matter of no small Pains and Diligence (whatever lazy, snarling Persons may think) to pick up so many independent Particulars as I have done, And it is no trifling or useless thing neither: it being what many of the most learned and wisest Men of the World have in all Ages employ'd themselves upon. The Son of Syrac will be held in everlasting Remembrance for his Ecclesiasticus, but, above all, that most glorious of Kings and wisest of Men, Solomon, wrote by Divine Appointment and Inspiration, Proverbs, Precepts and Counsels.

"No man ought to despise, ridicule, or any ways discourage the Diligence and Kindness of those that take Pains to bring home to others without Price those things of Profit and Pleasure. I picked up these Sentences and Sayings at several times, according as they casually occurr'd, and most of them so long ago that I cannot remember the Particulars: and am now (by reason of great Age and ill Sight) utterly unable to review them; otherwise I would have struck out all such as are not fit for the Company, or are indecent to be spoke in the Presence of wise, grave, virtuous, modest, well-bred people." These closing words one can hardly accept. Years before age and failing sight had come these various items had been growing bit by bit, and the striking-out process might well have been going on at the same time as the collecting.

"Our excellent Mr Ray," as a contemporary writer terms him, was another great collector of proverbs, and he, too, made a book of them. The first edition of this work appeared in 1670, and a second in 1678. The first was altogether too gross, so that the second edition gave an opportunity, which was embraced, for some little amendment. This is beyond all doubt the coarsest set of proverbs that has come under our notice.

Ray was a Master of Arts and a Fellow of the Royal Society. The title of his book is as follows:—"A Collection of English Proverbs Digested into a convenient Method for the speedy finding any one upon occasion: with short Annotations. Wherunto are added Local Proverbs with their Explications, old Proverbial Rhythemes, Less known or Exotick Proverbial Sentences and Scottish Proverbs." The second edition was enlarged by the addition of several hundred more English Proverbs, and by an appendix of Hebrew sayings. The annotations of Ray on various proverbs are often very feeble. Thus to the adage, or saw, or whatever it may be, "I would not trust him though he were my brother," he adds to a thing sufficiently tame in itself the comment, "This is only a physiognomical observation." The truth is, our learned author, or compiler, seems to have heaped together all the old "saws," whether wise or not, and all the "modern instances" that came in his way, and to have strung at random the precious gems in company with the worthless beads.

His "convenient method" was the alphabetical one, based on the leading word of the saying. Thus, under A, for example, we get "Adversity makes a man wise, not rich," "There is no Alchemy like saving," "He that is Angry is seldom at ease," "For that thou canst do thyself rely not on Another," "Make a slow Answer to a hasty question," "The best Armour is to keep out of gun-shot."

Robert Codrington added yet another to the pile of proverb lore in his "Collection of many Select and Excellent Proverbs out of Several Languages." These he declared to be "most useful in all Discourses and for the Government of Life." He gives no preface or any kind of introductory matter, but begins at once with number one, and goes straight on till he gets to fourteen hundred and sixty-five. His adage, "You may not lose your friend to keep your jest," is a curious variant on the familiar present-day assertion that some men would rather lose a friend than a joke. His selection is on the whole a very good one. Such sayings as, "A young man old maketh an old man young," "A drunkard is not master either of his soul or his body," and "Curses prove choke-pears to those that plant them," are thought-compelling, and many such may be encountered.

A book of somewhat different character is the "Parœmiologia Anglo-Latina" of William Walker, B.D. The sub-title was "English and Latin proverbs and proverbial sentences and sayings matched together in a collection of them made out of Plautus, Petronius, Terentius, Horatius, and other authors." The particular copy that came under our notice bore the date of 1676. He concludes his short preface by the following deprecatory passage: "What will be the advantage and benefit hereof to the Commonwealth of learning I leave to others to judge and try, as not willing to show the Sun by the light of a Candle. And so, that I may not set up a great Gate before a little House I commit the Work to You, and You to God, and rest your humble Drudge, W. W."

As the author has himself raised the question as to the benefit of his book to others, one can only reply that the advantage to the Commonwealth would probably not be very great, since the translation of the old classic authors is so exceedingly free that it is practically no translation at all. It gives those who do not know the original writings no adequate idea of them, while the English is of so very colloquial a character that all the dignity of the original is lost, the result being that both the Latin and the English languages suffer in the process.

If we take, for example, "Versutior es quam rota figularis," we find that he cites three so-called equivalents, and none of them at all giving the beautiful image of the original; the first of these being, "You are as inconstant as the wind," the next, "As wavering as the weathercock," and, thirdly, "One knows not where to have you." The "Non habet plus sapientiæ quam lapis" of Plautus he renders fairly enough as "He hath no more wit than a stone," but he adds to this, "No more brains than a burbout. He is a very cod's head"; while "As wise as Solomon" cannot at all be accepted as a rendering of "Plus sapit quam Thales." The striking "Verba fiunt mortuo" has lost all its dignity when we are invited to accept as a translation, "It is of no purpose to talk to him: he'll not hear you speak: you may as well talk to the wall."

The well-known "Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus" is thus Anglicised by Walker, "Great boast, little roast; Great cry and little wool, as the fellow said when he shore his hogs"; and the equally familiar "Ad Græcas calendas" is given as, "At Nevermass, when two Sundays come together." The striking "Leporis vitam vivit" loses much when we are invited to accept as an equivalent, "He is afraid of the wagging of a straw." The absurdity of teaching a fish to swim, "Piscem natare doces," is scarcely adequately rendered by, "Tell me it snows." How pleasant a glimpse of ancient customs we get in the "Stylum invertere." The waxen tablet—the stile at one end sharpened for writing, at the other flattened for erasing—rise before us. But all this is entirely lost when we are invited to accept, in place of the classic allusion, "To turn the cat in the pan," "To sing another tune"; and certainly the pith and rhythm of "A minimo ad maximum" suffers woful deterioration in such renderings of it as "Every mother's son of them, tag and rag, all that can lick a dish."

The refining influences that are associated with a study of good classic writers seem to have rather failed when this ancient schoolmaster came beneath their sway. Such expressions as, "Your brains are addle," "As subtle as a dead pig," "Chip of the old block," "Lean as a rake," "A cankered fellow," "A scurvy crack," scarcely rise to the dignity of his subject. We cannot help wondering how the school prospered in his hands, and what sort of boys he turned out after a year or two under his tuition.

The "Moral Essays on some of the most Curious and Significant English, Scotch, and Foreign Proverbs," of Samuel Palmer,[57:A] "Presbyter of the Church of England," deserves some little notice. The edition before us, we note, is dated 1710. His definition of a proverb strikes one as being an entirely satisfactory one. He tells us that it is "an Instructive Sentence, in which more is generally Design'd than is Express'd, and which has pass'd into Common Use and Esteem either among the Learned or Vulgar. I take this to be its Genuine Definition, for though the Incomparable Erasmus takes Elegance and Novelty into the Character of a Proverb it seems to be an Error: for a Proverb has not only more Honour and Authority from Antiquity, but a Sentence never comes up to that Title till it has pass'd for Sterling some Competent time, and receiv'd its Dignity from the Consent of an Age at least. 'Tisn't in a Single Author's Power to convey this Reputation to any Saying, but the Dignity grows up in the Use of it." This appears excellent common-sense, and the distinction that he draws between the use of a saying by the learned or the vulgar is a very happy one, and one that no other writer appears to regard. A proverb need not, to establish its position, be in use by all classes. There are certain sayings from the classics or elsewhere that find general acceptance amongst the educated, such as the "Ad calendas Græcas," "A la Tartuffe," "Aut Cæsar aut nullus," "Facilis est descensus Averni." These, either in the original tongue or Anglicised, are current, and have a full claim to recognition as proverbial sayings, though four-fifths of the population never heard them; while many homely sayings that come freely to the lips of the carter or the village blacksmith find no welcome or recognition from the professor, the bishop, or the banker, and yet are as truly of proverbial rank.

Our old author goes on to say: "'Tis the Use, not the Critical History or Notion of Proverbs I am concern'd in. To see People throw 'em at each other by way of Jest or Repartee, without feeling their Weight, tasting their Wit, or being better'd by the Reflection, wou'd vex a man of any Spirit, and the Indignation forces him to write somewhat that might Redeem these Fragments of Wisdom from the Contempt and Ill Treatment of the Ignorant. For as they are now us'd they make up more of the Ridiculous Conversation than the Solid and Instructive. To this Abuse some of our Authors of the first Rank have very much contributed: for the Modern Poets and Novelists have put 'em in the Mouths of their lowest Characters. They make Fools and Clowns, little and mean People speak Sentences in Abundance, string 'em like Necklaces and make Sport with 'em, and Ridicule the Remains of our Ancestors. By this Means 'tis esteem'd Pedantry if we find one in the Mouth of a Gentleman, and an Author of Honour and very fine Parts has made the Reciting an Adage or Two the Sign of a Coxcomb. Thus they are condemn'd to the Use of the Mob, thrown out of the Minds of our People of Birth, and the Influence of 'em lost in the Manage of Education."

While Palmer was engaged upon his book, a work called "English Proverbs, with Moral Reflections" was published by a writer named Dykes, a poor production enough. "This," said Palmer, "put me on the Thought of Suppressing the whole, not doubting but an Ingenious Gentleman whose Imployment isn't only to teach Hic Hæc Hoc, but to Instruct Youth in Learning and Vertue, and convey the Notions of Religion and Good Manners while he is managing the Ferula, wou'd have managed the Proverbs to the best Purpose and without Exception. But upon a View I find my self extreamly disappointed: His Collection is so very short, being but Fifty Two, and most of 'em so Lean, Trite, and Insignificant that the Greatest Excellence of the Work is that he has been so happy as to fill up Four or Five pages upon Nothing. 'Tis not my Design to Note all his Indecencies, but I have scarce seen anything under the Name of Moral more out of Order. Execrable Rant, Curses, and little dirty Language are one Part of the Entertainment, and tho' it might perhaps be tolerable enough to cite Billingsgate when he was speaking of Scolds, yet to introduce the Dialogue of Two Fish Women, with their Curses, Lewd Epithets, and Brutish Reflections is Insufferable: 'tis opening a Sink and spreading the Infection." Palmer therefore saw no cause to discontinue his labours, the work of Dykes not at all trenching on his own ideal of what such a book should be.

Palmer is struck with "the Likeness of many which are in Modern Use to the most Sacred Apophthegms," a similarity which "forces us to show 'em very great Respect, and engages us to think 'em either of the same Original, or else deriv'd from Divine Proverbs by Wise and Pious Men, who have only given 'em a different Turn according to the Language and Genius of the Nation wherein they liv'd."

These essays of Palmer's are each some three or four pages long, the page being that of a quarto book. In some of these he takes a single adage as his theme, but very often he brackets together two of like sense. Thus, one is based on "A Mouse that has but One Hole is soon Catch'd," or, "Don't venture all your Eggs in one Basket." Another is, "Fly the Pleasure that will Bite to Morrow," or, "After Sweet Meat comes Sour Sauce," while yet another is, "Don't throw away Dirty Water till you have got Clean," or, "He that changes his Trade makes Soop in a Basket." One readily sees in each case what the drift of the essay based on the coupled adages must be.

As an example of Palmer's exposition, we will give that based on two adages of like import. "A baited Cat may grow as Fierce as a Lyon," or, "Tread on a Worm and it will Turn." "No Enemy," he tells us, "is so Mean and Impotent but at One Time or Other he becomes sensible of his own Force, knows how to Exert It, feels an Injury, and has a proportionable Resentment: for Nature can't easily be Conquer'd: is very Rarely Forc'd, but will Struggle after all the Discipline either of Power or Principles. This made Solomon say that Oppression makes a Wise Man Mad. Now this shou'd be consider'd, and a Wise Man ought to foresee how far 'tis fit to press the most contemptible Enemy: for though his Opposition be Wicked or Ridiculous yet it may hit the Pursuer and do him a Mischief. To drive a Coward to the Wall recovers his Spirits, and fear of being shot thro' the Back makes him turn his Face. The certainty of being quite lost by Flight gives a new Turn to the Spirits, and Naturally prompts to a Sudden and Desperate Defence: and tho' this be not true Courage, nor don't act up to the Regularity that Valour is distinguished by: yet it may exceed in Face, and give a Home Thrust. He that is eager in the Pursuit may be struck through by that Hand which trembled till it was reinforced by Necessity. In Armies this is a known Rule. He that Beats a Brave Enemy ought to be glad to be Rid of him. Let him Retreat as quick as He can, provided the Main Victory be secure. In Private Quarrels, Just and Vnjust, this must be heeded: in the One Case to be Implacable is Infamous, and in the other Wicked and Dangerous. In Both, Rashness: and if Pity don't move us to forbear and abate in our Revenge, Caution and Regard to our own Safety Shou'd." A rat, if driven into a corner, will fly at a man.[61:A] And it appears that even in baiting a cat there is a right and a wrong way of going to work. It is said by old sportsmen that the fox enjoys the sport as much as anybody, but there comes a time with baited rats and cats and most other creatures when they tire of that sort of thing, and have a very definite way of indicating the fact to all whom it may concern.

The proverbial utterances of "poor Richard" were once in great vogue. They were written by Benjamin Franklin under the nom de plume of Richard Saunders. "Poor Richard's Almanack" was issued for twenty-six years, from 1733 to 1758, and with constantly increased acceptance. These calendars excellently combined entertainment with useful knowledge and terse concentrated wisdom. All available spaces that occurred between notable days in the months were filled in with wisdom-chips, some of them of true proverbial rank, and others the offspring of the brains of Dr Franklin.

Franklin was born on January 6th, 1706, at Boston, and there is no doubt that his sterling common-sense and quaint philosophy must have had a considerable influence in moulding the character of the early inhabitants of the United States. These almanacks were largely reprinted in Great Britain and France, and very freely quoted from, so that the area of their influence was very extensive. In the preface to the first of this long series he quaintly gives the reasons that influenced him, poor Richard, to issue it. "I might, in this place," he writes, "attempt to gain thy favour by declaring that I write Almanacks with no other view than that of the publick good, but in this I should not be sincere; and men are now-a-days too wise to be deceived by pretences. The plain truth of the matter is, I am extremely poor, and my wife, good woman is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow while I do nothing but gaze at the stars, and has threatened more than once to burn all my books if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family."

Next year he writes, "Your kind and charitable assistance last year in purchasing so large an impression of my almanack has made my circumstances much more easy in the world, and requires my most grateful acknowledgment. My wife has been enabled to get a pot of her own, and is no longer obliged to borrow one from a neighbour; nor have we ever since been without something to put in it. She has also got a pair of shoes and a nice new petticoat, and for my part I have bought a second-hand coat, that I am not now ashamed to go to town or be seen there. These things have rendered her temper so much more pacifick than it used to be, that I may say I have slept more and more quietly within this last year than in the three foregoing years put together."

There is much excellent wisdom in the sayings that he got together. How full of wise warning the utterance, "There is no little enemy," or this, "There's small revenge in words, but words may be greatly avenged." Or these warnings against covetousness, "If you desire many things many things will seem but a few." "Avarice and happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted?" How quaintly sarcastic are these, "Lawyers, preachers, and tomtits' eggs, there are more of them hatched than come to perfection." "None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing." How true again that "Poverty wants some things and luxury many things," and that "No man was glorious who was not first laborious." How valuable the counsel, "Deny self for self's sake," and that "It is less discredit to abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings"; and as a hint as to the value of concentration, "Don't think to hunt two hares with one dog." Others that we marked for quotation are, "Ever since follies have pleased, fools have been able to divert"; "He that can have patience can have what he will"; "Strange that he who lives by shifts can seldom shift himself," and to these many more of equal shrewdness could be added.

We make no claim that this list of ours is complete as a bibliography of proverb-writers. All references to the works of more recent men, Trench and others, are entirely omitted, as they are so easily accessible, that all who care to do so will have no difficulty in consulting them. Amongst the earlier men's works some are good, and some are good for nothing, but we trust that our readers will feel that this excursus is not without interest, while somewhat may be added to the dignity of our subject when it is seen to how many minds it has been a fascinating study.

FOOTNOTES:

[28:A] "A wise sentence shall be rejected when it cometh out of a fool's mouth; for he will not speak it in due season."—Ecclesiasticus xx. 20.

[28:B] The following illustrate the nature of these precepts: "Gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity." "Change not a friend for any good." "Of a spark of fire a heap of coals is kindled." "How agree the kettle and the earthen pot together?" "He that can rule his tongue shall live without strife." "As the climbing up a sandy way is to the aged so is a wife full of words." "The furnace trieth the potter's vessels." "Better is the life of a poor man in a mean cottage than delicate fare in another man's house." "He that taketh away his neighbour's living slayeth him." "Every counsellor extolleth counsel." "Bountifulness is as a most fruitful garden."

[29:A] Amongst the various commentators on this book the works of Ewald, Berthean, Hitzig, Elster, Rosenmuller, Hirzel, Stuart, Umbreit, and Noyes may be commended to the reader who would desire detail and analysis.

[35:A] Quick is here used in its original sense of having life. These therefore were lively sayings. In the Apostle's creed the quick and the dead are referred to, and a quick set hedge is one of growing plants as contrasted with a mere fencing or line of palings.

[39:A] "It is a comon sayinge, ware there is no ryceyver there shoulde be no thefe." "A Christian exhortation unto customable swearers," 1575.

[39:B] A more modern utterance shrewdly says, "There is a scarcity of friendship, but none of friends."

[47:A] Somewhat similar proverbs to this are, "If you play with boys you must take boy's play," and if you "play with a fool at home he will play with you abroad."

[49:A] "The messenger (one of those dogs who are not too scornful to eat dirty puddings) caught in his hand the guinea which Hector chucked at his face."—"The Antiquary."

[57:A] Our author must not be confused with a namesake, Charles Palmer, who was Deputy Serjeant of the House of Commons, and who published "A Collection of Select Aphorisms and Maxims extracted from the most Eminent Authors." He gives eighteen hundred and thirteen of these: the copy that came into our hands was dated 1748.

[61:A]

"For a flying foe
Discreet and provident conquerors build up
A bridge of gold."—Massinger, The Guardian.

"Ouuerez tousiours a voz ennemys toutes les portes et chemins et plustost leur faictes ung pont d'argent, affin des les renvoyer."—Rabelais, Gargantua.

See also the Italian proverb—"A nemico che fugge un ponte d'oro." "Le Comte de Pitillan en parlant de la guerre soulouit dire quand ton ennemy voudra fuir, fais luy un port d'or."—Extract from Les divers propos memorables des Nobles et Illustres Hommes."—Gilles Corrizot. Paris, 1571.

"Press not a falling man too far."—Shakespeare, King Henry VIII.

CHAPTER III

"The Book of Merry Riddles"—Introduction of Proverbs in our Literature—A Surfeit of Proverbs—"The two Angrie Women of Abington"—Fuller on the Misuse of Proverbs—The Sayings of Hendyng—Proverbs in Works of Chaucer, Lydgate, Spenser, Dryden, Shakespeare, and other Writers—The "Imitation of Christ"—Glitter is not necessarily Gold—The Cup and the Lip—Comparisons odious—The Rolling-Stone—The "Vision of Piers Plowman"—Guelph and Ghibelline—Dwellers in Glass Houses—A Spade is a Spade—Chalk and Cheese—Silence gives Consent—A Nine Days' Wonder—The little Pot soon Hot—Weakest to the Wall—Proverb-Hunting through our old Literature.

Throughout the Middle Ages a great use was made, as we have seen, of these popular adages on tapestries, rings, and in fact wherever they could be employed. Shakespeare, it will be recalled, writes of a but moderately good poetaster as one "whose poetry was

For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a knive, 'Love me, and leave me not,'"[65:A]

and we shall therefore naturally expect to find numerous allusions to this wealth of proverb-lore in the writings of the day. The works of the Elizabethan dramatists are brimming over with them. Such a fund of material as the "Book of Merry Riddles" must have been often drawn upon. The first edition was printed in 1600, and contained, amongst other entertaining material, a collection of "choice and witty proverbs." It was often re-issued, and our last chapter has revealed to us how many other collections of like nature were issued and immediately became available.

We propose to devote now some little space to exploring in search of proverbial allusions a little of the literary wealth of our country, and we may say at once that proverbs, like everything else, require discreet use, and it is not difficult to overdo the thing. A person who would be always dragging in these adages would be a terrible nuisance in conversation, and no less so in literature. In such a case "Enough is as good as a feast." One would quickly weary of a page or two of this sort of thing—a brochure during the days of a suggested invasion of England by "Boney"—

"Our foes on the ocean sent plenty of ships,
But 'It's not the best carpenter makes the most chips';
They promise to give Britain's sailors a beating,
Though 'the proof of the pudding is found in the eating.'
The French have big armies, but their threats are but froth,
For 'too many cooks do but spoil good broth';
They are welcome Britannia to catch when they get her,
But though 'Brag is a good dog yet Holdfast's a better.'
For their threats of invasion we ne'er care a rush—
'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush';
They may think, open-mouthed, to devour us like sharks,
But 'Till the sky falls we must wait to catch larks.'"

"The pleasant historie of the two angrie women of Abington"[66:A] is, despite its self-assertion of its pleasantness, rendered very tedious by this abuse and superabundance of proverbs—one of the characters in the play, one Nicholas Prouerbes, introducing them ad nauseam. To give any notion of the drift of the play is beside our present need. We will content ourselves, therefore, with some few extracts that will suffice to indicate the point before us, the excessive use of these popular adages:

"Nicholas. O maister Philip forbeare. You must not leape ower the stile before you come to it; haste makes waste; softe fire makes sweet malte; not too fast for falling; there's no hast to hang true men.

"Philip. Now will I see if my memorie will serue for some prouerbes too. O, a painted cloath were as well worth a shilling as a theefe worth a halter; wel, after my heartie commendations, as I was at the making therof. He that trots easilie will indure. You have most learnedly proverbde it, commending the virtue of patience and forbearance, but yet you know forbearance is no quittance.

"Nich. I promise ye, maister Philip, you have spoken as true as steele.

"Phil. Father, there's a prouerbe well applied.

"Nich. And it seemeth vnto me that you mocke me; do you not kno mocke age and see how it will prosper?

"Phil. Why ye prouerbe booke bound up in follio, have ye no other sense to answere me but euery word a prouerbe, no other English?"

Presently a dispute arises outside, and Nicholas is asked, "Wilt thou not go see the fraye?" to which this inveterate proverb-monger replies:

"No indeed, even as they brew so let them bake—I will not thrust my hand into a flame and neede not—'Tis not good to have an oare in another man's boat—Little said is soone amended, and in a little medling commeth great rest. 'Tis good sleeping in a whole skin—so a man might come home by weeping-crosse. No, by Lady, a friend is not so soone gotten as lost—blessed are the peace-makers—they that strike with the sword shall be beaten with the zcabberd."

To this flow of wisdom Philip replies:

"Well said, Prouerbes, is ne're another to that purpose?"

The too ready Nicholas makes reply:

"Yes, I could have said to you, Syr, take heede is a good reede."

His fellow serving-man at one portion of the play sees well to call Nicholas "tripe-cheeke, fat asse," and other epithets of like nature; upon which he replies:

"Good words cost nought, ill words corrupt good manners, Richard, for a hasty man never wants woe, and I had thought you had been my friende, but I see alle is not golde that glisters, time and truth tryeth all, and 'tis an old prouerbe and not so olde as true, bought wit is the best. I can see day at a little hole. I knowe your minde as well as though I were within you: goe to, you seeke to quarrell, but beware of lead I wist; so long goes the potte to the water at length it comes home broken. I knowe you are as goode a man as ever drew sword, as ere lookt man in the face, as ere broke bred or drunke drinke; but he is propper that hath propper conditions, be not you like the Cowe that gives a good sope of milke and casts it downe with his heeles. I speak, plainely, for plaine dealing is a Iewell, yet Ile take no wrong, if hee had a head as big as Brasse and lookt as high as Poules steple."

Coomes, not quite liking the tone of these remarks, replies:

"Sirra, thou grashoper, thou shal skip from my sword as from a sithe. Ile cut thee out in collops and steakes and frye thee with the fier I shall strike from the pike of thy Bucklet."

To this appalling threat, not best adapted to soothe matters over, or pour oil on the troubled waters, Nicholas replies:

"Brag's a good dog: threatened folkes liue long."

Further quotation is quite needless; enough, amply enough, has been brought forward to convince us how terrible a bore the inveterate quoter of proverbs can readily become. We are prepared after this to sympathise entirely with the sentiments of old Fuller: "Adages and prouerbs are to be accounted only as Sauce to relish Meat with, but not as substantial Dishes to make a Meal on; and therefore were never good but upon proper Subjects and Occasions, where they may serve to give a lively Force and pleasant Turn to what is said: but to apply them wrong and crack them off too thick, like Sancho in 'Don Quixote,' is abominably foppish, ridiculous and nauseous." We had our eye on Sancho Panza, but any comments that we might have made on his conduct in cracking off proverbs so thick become needless, since Fuller has already said all that need be hurled against so hardened an offender.

A very curious early manuscript has come under our notice, in which the common proverbs of the time are quoted by one of the villains. It is arranged in stanzas of six lines, each being then followed by a proverb. This latter is sometimes in two lines and sometimes in one, but is in every case attributed to the villains, "Ce dit li vilains." It deals with the proverbs current in Bretaigne, and commences:

"Qui les proverbes fist
Premierement bien dist
Au tans qu'alors estoit
Or est tout en respit.
En ne chante ne lit
D'annor en nul endroit
'Que a la bone denrée
A mauvaise oubliée'
Ce dit li vilains."

This quaint old French may be thus Anglicised: "He who first made proverbs spoke well to the people of his time; now all is forgotten, people neither sing nor read of honour in any place. He who has the good ware has forgotten the bad—so says the villain." The moral does not seem somehow to quite fit, unless indeed we read it to mean that when people had abundant supply of this proverb-law they had the good, and were so enamoured of it that it had supplanted in their hearts all desire for what they once preferred—the evil that was now quite driven from their hearts and forgotten.

Another verse terminates thus:

"Qui n'aime son mestier
Ne son mestier lui
Ce dit li vilains"—

"Who likes not his business his business likes not him." Another proverb that remains a very familiar one, as to the folly of not taking full precautions, and only shutting the stable door when the horse has already been taken, appears as

"Quant le cheval est emble
Dounke ferme fols l'estable
Ce dit li vilains."

The date of this poem is about the year 1300. How long the proverbs given therein date before its appearance—centuries possibly—we cannot say; but even if we took this poem as a point to start from, it is very interesting to reflect that this stolen horse and his unlocked stable have been for hundreds of years a warning to the heedless, and as well known to the men of Cressy and Agincourt as to those of this present day. However men, as Cavaliers or Roundheads, Lancastrians or Yorkists, priests or presbyters, differed from each other in much else, all agreed in this recognition of the folly of not taking better care of the steed they all knew so well.

We have an imitation of this old French poem in an English one that was almost contemporaneous, and, as in the preceding poem, each stanza is an amplification of the idea in the proverb that immediately follows, though in either case this gloss or development is not always very much to the point.

The first verse is dedicatory, invoking the Divine blessing:

"Mon that wol of wysdom heren
At wyse Hendyng he may lernen
That wes Marcolmes sone:
Gode thonkes out monie thewes
For te teche fele shrewes
For that wes ever is wone
Jhesu Crist al folke red
That for us all tholede ded
Upon the rode tre
Lene us all to ben wys
Ant to ende in his servys.
Amen, par charite.
God biginning maketh god endyng
Quoth Hendyng."

"Of fleysh lust cometh shame," and "if thou will fleysh overcome" the wisest course is flight from the temptation:

"Wel fytht that wel flyth
Quoth Hendyng."

If you would avoid the evils that follow hasty speech keep the tongue with all diligence in subjection, for though one's tongue has no bone in it itself it has been the cause of many a broken bone in the quarrels that it has fostered:

"Tonge breketh bon
Ant nad hire selve non
Quoth Hendyng."

"Al too dere," he warns us, "is botht that ware that we may wythoute care," gather at a terrible risk to ourselves. It is the grossest folly to find a momentary pleasure in any act that will bring misery in its train, for

"Dere is boht the hony that is licked of the thorne
Quoth Hendyng."

Where counsel fails, experience may step in and exact a higher price for the lesson taught:

"So that child withdraweth is hond
From the fur ant the brond
That hath byfore ben brend
Brend child fur dredeth
Quoth Hendyng."[72:A]

The Italians still more powerfully say that "A scalded dog dreads cold water," the meaning of this clearly being that those who have suffered in any direction have an exaggerated fear in consequence, and are afraid, even when there is no cause, really, for terror. This idea is even more strongly brought out in the old Rabbinical adage, "He who has been bitten by a serpent fears a piece of rope," a quite imaginable state of mind to arrive at.[72:B]

Up till now we have shown how one writer may use many proverbs; we will turn to the other alternative and seek to show how one proverb is used by many writers. In doing so we are at once struck by the variety of garb in which it may appear. The inner spirit and meaning, the core, remains inviolate naturally, but its presentation to us is by no means in one set formula. We are warned not to judge alone by outward appearance, nor to assume too hastily precious metal in what may prove to be but dross or a poor counterfeit of the real thing. Hence Chaucer warns us, "All thing which that shineth as the gold He is no gold, as I have heard it told." Lydgate, writing on "the Mutability of human affairs," declares truly enough that "all is not golde that outward showeth bright"; while Spenser, in his "Faerie Queene," hath it that "Gold all is not that doth golden seem"; and Shakespeare, in the "Merchant of Venice," writes, "All that glisters is not gold."[73:A] Dryden's version, in the "Hind and Panther," is very similar, "All, as they say, that glitters is not gold"; and Herbert, in the "Jacula Prudentum," reverses the wording into "All is not gold that glisters." In "Ralph Roister Doister" we find the reading, "All things that shineth is not by and by pure gold"; while the Italians have the equivalent, "Non é oro tutto quel che luce."

In Greene's "Perimedes," published in the year 1588, we find the passage, "Though men do determine the gods doo dispose, and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip." The first portion of this passage is almost invariably cited in French—"l'homme propose et le Dieu dispose"—giving the impression that the saying is of Gallic origin. How far back into the ages this proverb goes we cannot trace. We find it in the "Imitation of Christ" of Thomas à Kempis as, "Nam homo proponit sed Deus disponit." It is possible that the French rendering became current in our midst because the "Imitation," when first translated from the original Latin, was rendered into French. The book at once sprang into notice and esteem, and the passages under our consideration would be noticeable not only from its declaration of a great truth but from its rhythm—a rhythm that was well preserved in its French rendering. The French translation of the "Imitation of Christ" appeared in 1488, while the first English version was not produced till the year 1502. In the "Vision of Piers ploughman," written somewhere about the year 1360, we find the saying given in Latin, while George Herbert, who died in 1633, introduces it as "Man proposeth, God disposeth."

The possibilities that may exist in the short interval of time between raising the cup to the lips and setting it down again are made the subject of a warning proverb that is of immense antiquity. The Samian king, Ancæus, while planting a vineyard was warned by a diviner that he would not live to take its fruits. Time passed on and the vineyard prospered, until at length one day the king, goblet in hand, was to taste for the first time the wine it had yielded. He recalled the prophecy, and derided the power of the seer as he stood before him. At this moment a messenger arrived with the news that a wild boar was ravaging the vineyard, and Ancæus, hastily putting down the cup, seized his spear and rushed out to slay the boar, but himself fell a victim to the onslaught of the furious beast.[74:A] Thus, to quote a considerably more modern authority, Jonson's "Tale of a Tub," "you see the old adage verified—many things fall between the cup and lip."

It is a wise rule of conduct to bear in mind that great offence may be given by comparing one thing with another, as the process is almost sure to end to the more or less detriment of one or the other, or possibly, when the spirit of criticism is rampant, in the depreciation of both. Hence Lydgate writes in 1554, "Comparisons do oftimes great grevance," and in More's "Dial" the idea recurs—"Comparysons be odyouse." Gascoigne, in the year 1575, declares in his "Posies," "I will forbear to recyte examples by any of mine owne doings, since all comparisons are odious." Dr John Donne in an "Elegy" has the line, "she and comparisons are odious," and we find the same idea in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," in Heywood's play, "A Woman Killed with Kindness," in "Don Quixote," and many other works.

Shakespeare, in his "Much Ado about Nothing," puts into the mouth of Dogberry the variation "comparisons are odorous." Swift, in his "Answer to Sheridan's Simile," writes:

"We own your verses are melodious,
But then comparisons are odious."

Lilly, in the "Euphues," seems to think that comparisons may at times be an offence when the objects of such a scrutiny are incomparable in their excellence; that each is so perfect that any suggestion of comparison becomes necessarily a depreciation and a dethronement. Hence he writes—"But least comparisons should seeme odious, chiefly where both the parties be without comparison, I will omitte that," and he returns to this idea in his "Midas," where he distinctly lays down the proposition that "Comparisons cannot be odious where the deities are equall."

The picturesque adage, "a rolling stone gathers no moss," is still popular amongst our people. In Turner's "Five hundred pointes of good husbandrie," a book written between three and four hundred years ago, we find the same precept:

"The stone that is rouling can gather no mosse;
Who often remoueth is sure of losse.
The rich it compelleth to paie for his pride;
The poore it vndooeth on euerie side."

Marston, in "The Fawn," written in the year 1606, has an allusion to this proverb:

"Thy head is alwaies working: it roles and it roles,
Dondolo, but it gathers no mosse."

In the "Vision of Piers Plowman" we appear at first sight to have a quaint and interesting variant—"Selden mosseth the marbelston that men ofte treden." But it will be seen that in thus altering the wording from the type-form we have also varied its significance; it is, in fact, a new saying, and of different application. To point out to a restless and aimless ne'er-do-well, throwing up one position after another, that no moss will be found growing on the doorstep of some busy office would be an entirely pointless proceeding not tending to edification.

Another familiar proverb is "well begun is half done." We find its equivalent in Horace and the severer Juvenal. Many of our proverbs were as familiar to Horace as to ourselves. "Money in purse will always be in fashion," and to "harp on the same string" are expressions, for instance, that were very familiar to the ancient Romans, and which are quite as intelligible to-day.

In the "Confessio Amantis" of Gower we find:

"A prouerbe I haue herde saie,
That who that well his worke beginneth,
The rather a good ende he winneth."

This proverb has historic interest, as its use on one fateful occasion was the final cause of desolating civil war that long ravaged Tuscany. When Boundelmonte broke his engagement with a lady of the family of the Amadei, and married into another, the kinsmen assembled in council to consider how the slight should be avenged, and atonement made for their wounded honour. Some of the more impetuous demanded the death of the young cavalier as the only possible reparation; but others hesitated, not from any particular regard for the traitor, but because of the great issues involved—consequences which in the after-event proved so disastrous to the Florentines. At length Mosca Lamberti, tired of this hesitation, sprang to his feet, and declared that those who talked were not likely to do anything else but talk, that the consideration of the matter from every point of view would lead to no worthy result, and make them objects of contempt, and then quoted the adage familiar to them all—"Capo a cosa fatta"—well begun is half done. This sealed the fatal determination, the die was cast, Boundelmonte was murdered, and thus was Florence at once involved in the strife between Guelph and Ghibelline, and the fair land of Tuscany became the battlefield of those contending factions.