{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56504/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56504","id":"gutenberg_56504","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56504","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Language & Communication","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Proverbs"],"text":"Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Mhairi Hindle and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Books project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note\n\n\nIn the printed book, alternate pages have unique headers,\nrepresented here as sidenotes.\n\nFor list of the corrections made, please view the\ntranscriber\u2019s note at the end of the text.\n\n\n\n\n  PROVERBS AND THEIR LESSONS.\n\n\n\n\n  PROVERBS AND THEIR LESSONS:\n  BEING\n  THE SUBSTANCE OF LECTURES\n  DELIVERED TO YOUNG MEN\u2019S SOCIETIES\n  AT PORTSMOUTH AND ELSEWHERE.\n\n  BY\n  RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.,\n  DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.\n\n  _FIFTH EDITION._\n\n  LONDON:\n  JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.\n  MDCCCLXI.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIt may be as well to state, that the lectures which are here published\nwere never delivered as a complete course, but only one here and two\nthere, as matter gradually grew under my hands; yet so that very much\nthe greater part of what is contained in this volume has been at one\ntime or another actually delivered. Although I have always taken a\nlively interest in national proverbs, I had no intention at the first\nof making a book about them; but only selected the subject as one\nwhich I thought, though I was not confident of this, might afford\nme sufficient material for a single lecture, which I had undertaken\nsome time ago to deliver. I confess that I was at the time almost\nentirely ignorant of the immense number and variety of books bearing\non the subject. Many of these I still know only by name. With some of\nthe best, however, I have made myself acquainted, and by their aid,\nwith the addition of such further material as I could myself furnish,\nthese lectures have assumed their present shape; and I publish them,\nbecause none of the works on proverbs which I know are exactly that\nbook for all readers which I could have wished to see. Either they\ninclude matter which cannot be fitly placed before all\u2014or they\naddress themselves to the scholar alone, or if not so, are at any rate\ninaccessible to the mere English reader\u2014or they contain bare lists\nof proverbs, with no endeavour to compare, illustrate, and explain\nthem\u2014or if they seek to explain, yet they do it without attempting to\nsound the depths, or measure the real significance, of that which they\nundertake to unfold. From these or other causes it has come to pass,\nthat with a multitude of books, many of them admirable, on a subject\nso popular, there is no single one which is frequent in the hands of\nmen. I will not deny that, with all the slightness and shortcomings of\nmy own, I have still hoped to supply, at least for the present, this\ndeficiency.\n\nITCHENSTOKE, _December 13, 1852_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n                                                PAGE\n THE FORM AND DEFINITION OF A PROVERB              1\n\n LECTURE II.\n THE GENERATION OF PROVERBS                       26\n\n LECTURE III.\n THE PROVERBS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED       46\n\n LECTURE IV.\n THE POETRY, WIT, AND WISDOM OF PROVERBS          70\n\n LECTURE V.\n THE MORALITY OF PROVERBS                         96\n\n LECTURE VI.\n THE THEOLOGY OF PROVERBS                        121\n\n\n APPENDIX                                        149\n\n\n\n\nPROVERBS AND THEIR LESSONS.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\nTHE FORM AND DEFINITION OF A PROVERB.\n\n\nIt is very likely that from some of us proverbs have never attracted\nthe notice which I am persuaded they deserve; and from this it may\nfollow that, when invited to bestow even a brief attention on them, we\nare in some doubt whether they will repay our pains. We think of them\nbut as sayings on the lips of the multitude; not a few of them have\nbeen familiar to us as far back as we can remember; often employed by\nourselves, or in our hearing, on slight and trivial occasions: and\nthus, from these and other causes, it may very well be, that, however\nsometimes one may have taken our fancy, we yet have remained blind in\nthe main to the wit, wisdom, and imagination, of which they are full;\nand very little conscious of the amusement, instruction, insight, which\nthey are capable of yielding. Unless too we have devoted a certain\nattention to the subject, we shall not be at all aware how little those\nmore familiar ones, which are frequent on the lips of men, exhaust\nthe treasure of our native proverbs; how many and what excellent ones\nremain behind, having now for the most part fallen out of sight; or\nwhat riches in like kind other nations possess. We may little guess how\nmany aspects of interest there are in which our own by themselves, and\nour own compared with those of other people, may be regarded.\n\nAnd yet there is much to induce us to reconsider our judgment, should\nwe be thus tempted to slight them, and to count them not merely trite,\nbut trivial and unworthy of a serious attention. The fact that they\nplease the people, and have pleased them for ages,\u2014that they possess\nso vigorous a principle of life, as to have maintained their ground,\never new and ever young, through all the centuries of a nation\u2019s\nexistence,\u2014nay, that many of them have pleased not one nation only,\nbut many, so that they have made themselves an home in the most\ndifferent lands,\u2014and further, that they have, not a few of them, come\ndown to us from remotest antiquity, borne safely upon the waters of\nthat great stream of time, which has swallowed so much beneath its\nwaves,\u2014all this, I think, may well make us pause, should we be tempted\nto turn away from them with anything of indifference or disdain.\n\nAnd then further, there is this to be considered, that some of the\ngreatest poets, the profoundest philosophers, the most learned\nscholars, the most genial writers in every kind, have delighted in\nthem, have made large and frequent use of them, have bestowed infinite\nlabour on the gathering and elucidating of them. In a fastidious age,\nindeed, and one of false refinement, they may go nearly or quite\nout of use among the so-called upper classes. No gentleman, says\nLord Chesterfield, or \u201cno man of fashion,\u201d as I think is his exact\nphrase, \u201cever uses a proverb.\u201d[1] And with how fine a touch of nature\nShakespeare makes Coriolanus, the man who, with all his greatness, is\nentirely devoid of all sympathy for the people, to utter his scorn _of\nthem_ in scorn of their proverbs, and of their frequent employment of\nthese:\n\n                               \u201cHang \u2019em!\n    They said they were an hungry, sighed forth proverbs;\u2014\n    That, _hunger broke stone walls_; that, _dogs must eat_;\n    That, _meat was made for mouths_; that, _the gods sent not\n    Corn for the rich men only_;\u2014with these shreds\n    They vented their complainings.\u201d\n\n                              _Coriolanus_, Act I. Sc. 1.\n\n[Sidenote: Aristotle collected proverbs.]\n\nBut that they have been always dear to the true intellectual\naristocracy of a nation, there is abundant evidence to prove. Take but\nthese three names in evidence, which though few, are in themselves an\nhost. Aristotle made a collection of proverbs; nor did he count that he\nwas herein doing aught unworthy of his great reputation, however some\nof his adversaries may afterwards have made of the fact that he did so\nan imputation against him. He is said to have been the first collector\nof them, though many afterwards followed in the same path. Shakespeare\nloves them so well, that besides often citing them, and scattering\ninnumerable covert allusions, rapid side glances at them, which we\nare in danger of missing unless at home in the proverbs of England,\nseveral of his plays, as _Measure for Measure_, _All\u2019s well that ends\nwell_, have popular proverbs for their titles. And Cervantes, a name\nonly inferior to Shakespeare, has made very plain the affection with\nwhich he regarded them. Every reader of _Don Quixote_ will remember\nhis squire, who sometimes cannot open his mouth but there drop from it\nalmost as many proverbs as phrases. I might name others who have held\nthe proverb in honour\u2014men who though they may not attain to these\nfirst three, are yet deservedly accounted great; as Plautus, the most\ngenial of Latin poets, Rabelais and Montaigne, the two most original\nof French authors; and how often Fuller, whom Coleridge has styled the\nwittiest of writers, justifies this praise in his witty employment of\nsome old proverb: and no reader can thoroughly understand and enjoy\n_Hudibras_, none but will miss a multitude of its keenest allusions,\nwho is not thoroughly familiar with the proverbial literature of\nEngland.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs in Scripture.]\n\nNor is this all; we may with reverence adduce quite another name\nthan any of these, the Lord himself, as condescending to employ such\nproverbs as he found current among his people. Thus, on the occasion of\nhis first open appearance in the synagogue of Nazareth, he refers to\nthe proverb, _Physician, heal thyself_, (Luke iv. 23,) as one which\nhis hearers will perhaps bring forward against Himself; and again\npresently to another, _A prophet is not without honour but in his own\ncountry_, as attested in his own history; and at the well of Sychar He\ndeclares, \u201cHerein is that saying,\u201d or that proverb, \u201ctrue, _One soweth\nand another reapeth_.\u201d (John iv. 37.) But He is much more than a quoter\nof other men\u2019s proverbs; He is a maker of his own. As all forms of\nhuman composition find their archetypes and their highest realization\nin Scripture, as there is no tragedy like Job, no pastoral like Ruth,\nno lyric melodies like the Psalms, so we should affirm no proverbs\nlike those of Solomon, were it not that \u201ca greater than Solomon\u201d has\ndrawn out of the rich treasure house of the Eternal Wisdom a series of\nproverbs more costly still. For indeed how much of our Lord\u2019s teaching,\nespecially as recorded in the three first Evangelists, is thrown into\nthis form; and how many of his words have in this shape passed over as\n\u201cfaithful sayings\u201d upon the lips of men; and so doing, have fulfilled a\nnecessary condition of the proverb, whereof we shall have presently to\nspeak.\n\nBut not urging this testimony any further,\u2014a testimony too august\nto be lightly used, or employed merely to swell the testimonies of\nmen\u2014least of all, men of such \u201cuncircumcised lips\u201d as, with all their\ngenius, were more than one of those whom I have named,\u2014and appealing\nonly to the latter, I shall be justified, I feel, in affirming that\nwhether we listen to those single voices which make a silence for\nthemselves, and are heard through the centuries and their ages, or to\nthat great universal voice of humanity, which is wiser even than these\n(for it is these, with all else which is worthy to be heard added to\nthem), there is here a subject, which those whose judgments should go\nvery far with us have not accounted unworthy of their serious regard.\n\nAnd I am sure if we bestow on them ourselves even a moderate share\nof attention, we shall be ready to set our own seal to the judgment\nof wiser men that have preceded us here. For, indeed, what a body of\npopular good sense and good feeling, as we shall then perceive, is\ncontained in the better, which is also the more numerous, portion\nof them; what a sense of natural equity, what a spirit of kindness\nbreathes out from many of them; what prudent rules for the management\nof life, what shrewd wisdom, which though not _of_ this world, is most\ntruly _for_ it, what frugality, what patience, what perseverance, what\nmanly independence, are continually inculcated by them. What a fine\nknowledge of the human heart do many of them display; what useful, and\nnot always obvious, hints do they offer on many most important points,\nas on the choice of companions, the bringing up of children, the\nbearing of prosperity and adversity, the restraint of all immoderate\nexpectations. And they take a yet higher range than this; they have\ntheir ethics, their theology, their views of man in his highest\nrelations of all, as man with his fellow man, and man with his Maker.\nBe these always correct or not, and I should be very far from affirming\nthat they always are so, the student of humanity, he who because he\nis a man counts nothing human to be alien to him, can never without\nwilfully foregoing an important document, and one which would have\nhelped him often in his studies, altogether neglect or pass them by.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Shortness, sense, salt.]\n\nBut what, it may be asked, before we proceed further, is a proverb?\nNothing is harder than a definition. While on the one hand there is\nfor the most part no easier task than to detect a fault or flaw in the\ndefinitions of those who have gone before us, nothing on the other\nis more difficult than to propose one of our own, which shall not\nalso present a vulnerable side. Some one has said that these three\nthings go to the constituting of a proverb, _shortness_, _sense_,\nand _salt_. In brief pointed sayings of this kind, the second of the\nqualities enumerated here, namely _sense_, is sometimes sacrificed to\nalliteration. I would not affirm that it is so here: for the words are\nnot ill spoken, though they are very far from satisfying the rigorous\nrequirements of a definition, as will be seen when we consider what\nthe writer intended by his three _esses_, which it is not hard to\nunderstand. The proverb, he would say, must have _shortness_; it must\nbe succinct, utterable in a breath. It must have _sense_, not being,\nthat is, the mere small talk of conversation, slight and trivial, else\nit would perish as soon as born, no one taking the trouble to keep\nit alive. It must have _salt_, that is, besides its good sense, it\nmust in its manner and outward form be pointed and pungent, having a\nsting in it, a barb which shall not suffer it to drop lightly from the\nmemory.[2] Yet, regarded as a definition, this of the triple _s_ fails,\nas I have said; it indeed errs both in defect and excess.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs will be concise.]\n\nThus in demanding _shortness_, it errs in excess. It is indeed quite\ncertain that a good proverb will be short, as short, that is, as is\ncompatible with the full and forcible conveying of that which it\nintends. Brevity, \u201cthe soul of wit,\u201d will be eminently the soul of a\nproverb\u2019s wit; it will contain, according to Fuller\u2019s definition, \u201cmuch\nmatter decocted into few words.\u201d Oftentimes it will consist of two,\nthree, or four, and these sometimes monosyllabic, words. Thus _Extremes\nmeet_;\u2014_Right wrongs no man_;\u2014_Forewarned, forearmed_;\u2014with a\nthousand more.[3] But still shortness is only a relative term, and\nit would perhaps be more accurate to say that a proverb must be\n_concise_, cut down, that is, to the fewest possible words; condensed,\nquintessential wisdom.[4] But that, if only it fulfil this condition\nof being as short as possible, it need not be absolutely very short,\nthere are sufficient examples to prove. Thus Freytag has admitted the\nfollowing, which indeed hovers on the confines of the fable, into his\ngreat collection of Arabic proverbs: _They said to the camel-bird_,\n[i. e., the ostrich,] _\u201cCarry:\u201d it answered, \u2018I cannot, for I am a\nbird.\u2019 They said, \u201cFly;\u201d it answered, \u2018I cannot, for I am a camel.\u2019_\nThis could not be shorter, yet, as compared with the greater number\nof proverbs, is not short.[5] Even so the _sense_ and _salt_, which\nare ascribed to the proverb as other of its necessary conditions, can\nhardly be said to be such; seeing that flat, saltless proverbs, though\ncomparatively rare, there certainly are; while yet, be it remembered,\nwe are not considering now what are the ornaments of a _good_ proverb,\nbut the essential marks of all.\n\nAnd then moreover it errs in defect; for it has plainly omitted one\nquality of the proverb, and that the most essential of all\u2014I mean\n_popularity_, acceptance and adoption on the part of the people.\nWithout this popularity, without these suffrages and this consent of\nthe many, no saying, however brief, however wise, however seasoned with\nsalt, however worthy on all these accounts to have become a proverb,\nhowever fulfilling all other its conditions, can yet be esteemed as\nsuch. This popularity, omitted in that enumeration of the essential\nnotes of the proverb, is yet the only one whose presence is absolutely\nnecessary, whose absence is fatal to the claims of any saying to be\nregarded as such.\n\n[Sidenote: Aphorisms not proverbs.]\n\nThose, however, who have occupied themselves with the making of\ncollections of proverbs have sometimes failed to realize this to\nthemselves with sufficient clearness, or at any rate have not kept it\nalways before them; and thus it has come to pass, that many collections\ninclude whatever brief sayings their gatherers have anywhere met with,\nwhich to them have appeared keenly, or wisely, or wittily spoken;[6]\nwhile yet a multitude of these have never received their adoption into\nthe great family of proverbs, or their rights of citizenship therein:\ninasmuch as they have never passed into general recognition and\ncurrency, have no claim to this title, however just a claim they may\nhave on other grounds to our admiration and honour. For instance, this\nword of Goethe\u2019s, \u201cA man need not be an architect to live in an house,\u201d\nseems to me to have every essential of a proverb, saving only that it\nhas not passed over upon the lips of men. It is a saying of manifold\napplication; an universal law is knit up in a particular example; I\nmean that gracious law in the distribution of blessing, which does not\nlimit our use and enjoyment of things by our understanding of them,\nbut continually makes the enjoyment much wider than the knowledge; so\nthat it is not required that one be a botanist to have pleasure in a\nrose, nor a critic to delight in _Paradise Lost_, nor a theologian to\ntaste all the blessings of Christian faith, nor, as he expresses it,\nan architect to live in an house. And here is an inimitable saying of\nSchiller\u2019s: \u201cHeaven and earth fight in vain against a dunce;\u201d yet it is\nnot a proverb, because his alone; although abundantly worthy to have\nbecome such;[7] moving as it does in the same line with, though far\nsuperior to, the Chinese proverb, which itself also is good: _One has\nnever so much need of his wit, as when he has to do with a fool_.\n\nOr to take another example still more to the point. James Howell, a\nprolific English writer of the earlier half of the seventeenth century,\none certainly meriting better than that almost entire oblivion into\nwhich his writings have fallen, occupied himself much with proverbs;\nand besides collecting those of others, he has himself set down \u201cfive\nhundred new sayings, which in tract of time may serve for proverbs\nto posterity.\u201d As was to be expected, they have not so done; for it\nis not after this artificial method that such are born; yet many of\nthese proverbs in expectation are expressed with sense and felicity;\nfor example: \u201cPride is a flower that grows in the devil\u2019s garden;\u201d as\nagain, the selfishness which characterizes too many proverbs is not ill\nreproduced in the following: \u201cBurn not thy fingers to snuff another\nman\u2019s candle;\u201d and there is at any rate good theology in the following:\n\u201cFaith is a great lady, and good works are her attendants;\u201d and in\nthis: \u201cThe poor are God\u2019s receivers, and the angels are his auditors.\u201d\nYet for all this, it would be inaccurate to quote these as proverbs,\n(and their author himself, as we have seen, did not do more than set\nthem out as proverbs upon trial,) inasmuch as they have remained the\nprivate property of him who first devised them, never having passed\ninto general circulation; which until men\u2019s sayings have done, maxims,\nsentences, apothegms, aphorisms they may be, and these of excellent\ntemper and proof, but proverbs as yet they are not.\n\n[Sidenote: Not all proverbs true.]\n\nIt is because of this, the popularity inherent in a genuine proverb,\nthat from such an one in a certain sense there is no appeal. You will\nnot suppose me to intend that there is no appeal from its wisdom,\ntruth, or justice; from any word of man\u2019s there may be such; but no\nappeal from it, as most truly representing a popular conviction.\nAristotle, who in his ethical and political writings often finds very\nmuch more than this in it, always finds this. It may not be, it very\noften will not be, an universal conviction which it expresses, but\never one popular and widespread. So far indeed from an universal, very\noften over against the one proverb there will be another, its direct\nantagonist; and the one shall belong to the kingdom of light, the other\nto the kingdom of darkness. _Common fame is seldom to blame_; here is\nthe baser proverb, for as many as drink in with greedy ears all reports\nto the injury of their neighbours; being determined from the first that\nthey _shall_ be true. But it is not left without its compensation:\n_\u201cThey say so,\u201d is half a liar_; here is the better word with which\n_they_ may arm themselves, who count it a primal duty to close their\nears against all such unauthenticated rumours to the discredit of\ntheir brethren. _The noblest vengeance is to forgive_; here is the\ngodlike proverb on the manner in which wrongs should be recompensed:\n_He who cannot revenge himself is weak, he who will not is vile_,[8]\nhere is the devilish. These lines occur in a sonnet which Howell has\nprefixed to his collection of proverbs:\n\n    \u201cThe people\u2019s voice the voice of God we call;\n       And what are proverbs but the people\u2019s voice?\n       Coined first, and current made by common choice?\n     Then sure they must have weight and truth withal;\u201d\n\nIt will follow from what has just been said, that, true in the\nmain, they yet cannot be taken without certain qualifications and\nexceptions.[9]\n\n[Sidenote: Popularity essential.]\n\nHerein in great part the force of a proverb lies, namely, that it has\nalready received the stamp of popular allowance. A man might produce,\n(for what another has done, he might do again,) something as witty, as\nforcible, as much to the point, of his own; which should be hammered at\nthe instant on his own anvil. Yet still it is not \u201cthe wisdom of many;\u201d\nit has not stood the test of experience; it wants that which the other\nalready has, but which it only after a long period can acquire\u2014the\nconsenting voice of many and at different times to its wisdom and\ntruth. A man employing a \u201cproverb of the ancients,\u201d (1 Sam. xxiv.\n13,) is not speaking of his own, but uttering a faith and conviction\nvery far wider than that of himself or of any single man; and it is\nbecause he is so doing that they, in Lord Bacon\u2019s words, \u201cserve not\nonly for ornament and delight, but also for active and civil use; as\nbeing the edge tools of speech which cut and penetrate the knots of\nbusiness and affairs.\u201d The proverb has in fact the same advantage over\nthe word now produced for the first time, which for present currency\nand value has the recognised coin of the realm over the rude unstamped\nore newly washed from the stream, or dug up from the mine. This last\n_may_ possess an equal amount of fineness; but the other has been\nstamped long ago, has already passed often from man to man, and found\nfree acceptance with all:[10] it inspires therefore a confidence which\nthe ruder metal cannot at present challenge. And the same satisfaction\nwhich the educated man finds in referring the particular matter before\nhim to the universal law which rules it, a plainer man finds in the\nappeal to a proverb. He is doing the same thing; taking refuge, that\nis, as each man so gladly does, from his mere self and single fallible\njudgment, in a larger experience and in a wider conviction.\n\nAnd in all this which has been urged lies, as it seems to me, the\nexplanation of a sentence of an ancient grammarian, which at first\nsight appears to contain a bald absurdity, namely, that a proverb is\n\u201ca saying without an author.\u201d For, however without a _known_ author\nit may, and in the majority of cases it must be, still, as we no more\nbelieve in the spontaneous generation of proverbs than of anything\nelse, an author every one of them must have had. It might, however,\nand it often will have been, that in its utterance the author did but\n_precipitate_ the floating convictions of the society round him; he\ndid but clothe in happier form what others had already felt, or even\nalready uttered; for often a proverb has been in this aspect, \u201cthe wit\nof one, and the wisdom of many.\u201d And further, its constitutive element,\nas we must all now perceive, is not the utterance on the part of the\none, but the acceptance on the part of the many. It is _their_ sanction\nwhich first makes it to be such; so that every one who took or gave it\nduring the period when it was struggling into recognition may claim\nto have had a share in its production; and in this sense without any\nsingle author it may have been. From the very first the people will\nhave vindicated it for their own. And thus though they do not always\nanalyse the compliment paid to them in the use of their proverbs, they\nalways feel it; they feel that a writer or speaker using these is\nputting himself on their ground, is entering on their region, and they\nwelcome him the more cordially for this.[11]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Not all proverbs figurative.]\n\nLet us now consider if some other have not sometimes been proposed as\nessential notes of the proverb, which yet are in fact accidents, such\nas may be present or absent without affecting it vitally. Into an error\nof this kind they have fallen, who have claimed for the proverb, and\nmade it one of its necessary conditions, that it should be a figurative\nexpression. A moment\u2019s consideration will be sufficient to disprove\nthis. How many proverbs, such as _Haste makes waste_;\u2014_Honesty is the\nbest policy_, with ten thousand more, have nothing figurative about\nthem. Here again the error has arisen from taking that which belongs\ncertainly to very many proverbs, and those oftentimes the best and\nchoicest, and transferring it, as a necessary condition, to all. This\nmuch of truth they who made the assertion certainly had; namely, that\nthe employment of the concrete instead of the abstract is one of the\nmost frequent means by which it obtains and keeps its popularity;\nfor so the proverb makes its appeal to the whole man\u2014not to the\nintellectual faculties alone, but to the feelings, to the fancy, or\neven to the imagination, as well, stirring the whole man to pleasurable\nactivity.\n\nBy the help of an instance or two we can best realize to ourselves how\ngreat an advantage it thus obtains for itself. Suppose, for example,\none were to content himself with saying, \u201cHe may wait till he is a\nbeggar, who waits to be rich by other men\u2019s deaths,\u201d would this trite\nmorality be likely to go half so far, or to be remembered half so\nlong, as the vigorous comparison of this proverb: _He who waits for\ndead men\u2019s shoes may go barefoot_?[12] Or again, what were \u201cAll men\nare mortal,\u201d as compared with the proverb: _Every door may be shut but\ndeath\u2019s door_? Or let one observe: \u201cMore perish by intemperance than\nare drowned in the sea,\u201d is this anything better than a painful, yet at\nthe same time a flat, truism? But let it be put in this shape: _More\nare drowned in the beaker than in the ocean_;[13] or again in this:\n_More are drowned in wine and in beer than in water_;[14] (and these\nboth are German proverbs,) and the assertion assumes quite a different\ncharacter. There is something that lays hold on us now. We are struck\nwith the smallness of the cup as set against the vastness of the\nocean, while yet so many more deaths are ascribed to that than to this;\nand further with the fact that literally none are, and none could be,\ndrowned in the former, while multitudes perish in the latter. In the\njustifying of the paradox, in the extricating of the real truth from\nthe apparent falsehood of the statement, in the answer to the appeal\nmade here to the imagination,\u2014an appeal and challenge which, unless\nit be responded to, the proverb must remain unintelligible to us,\u2014in\nall this there is a process of mental activity, oftentimes so rapidly\nexercised as scarcely to be perceptible, yet not the less carried on\nwith a pleasurable excitement.[15]\n\n[Sidenote: Rhyme in proverbs.]\n\nLet me mention now a few other of the more frequent helps which the\nproverb employs for obtaining currency among men, for being listened\nto with pleasure by them, for not slipping again from their memories\nwho have once heard it;\u2014yet helps which are evidently so separable\nfrom it, that none can be in danger of affirming them essential parts\nor conditions of it. Of these rhyme is the most prominent. It would\nlead me altogether from my immediate argument, were I to enter into a\ndisquisition on the causes of the charm which rhyme has for us all; but\nthat it does possess a wondrous charm, that we _like_ what is _like_,\nis attested by a thousand facts, and not least by the circumstance\nthat into this rhyming form a very great multitude of proverbs, and\nthose among the most widely current, have been thrown. Though such\nwill probably at once be present to the minds of all, yet let me\nmention a few: _Good mind, good find_;\u2014_Wide will wear, but tight\nwill tear_;\u2014_Truth may be blamed, but cannot be shamed_;\u2014_Little\nstrokes fell great oaks_;\u2014_Women\u2019s jars breed men\u2019s wars_;\u2014_A\nking\u2019s face should give grace_;\u2014_East, west, home is best_;\u2014_Store\nis no sore_;\u2014_Slow help is no help_;\u2014_Who goes a-borrowing, goes\na-sorrowing_;\u2014with many more, uniting, as you will observe several of\nthem do, this of rhyme with that which I have spoken of before, namely,\nextreme brevity and conciseness.[16]\n\n[Sidenote: Alliteration in proverbs.]\n\nAlliteration, which is nearly allied to rhyme, is another of the\nhelps whereof the proverb largely avails itself. Alliteration was at\none time an important element in our early English versification; it\nalmost promised to contend with rhyme itself, which should be the most\nimportant; and perhaps, if some great master in the art had arisen,\nmight have retained a far greater hold on English poetry than it now\npossesses. At present it is merely secondary and subsidiary. Yet it\ncannot be called altogether unimportant; no master of melody despises\nit; on the contrary, the greatest, as in our days Tennyson, make the\nmost frequent, though not always the most obvious, use of it. In the\nproverb you will find it of continual recurrence, and where it falls,\nas, to be worth anything, it must, on the key-words of the sentence,\nof very high value. Thus: _Frost and fraud both end in foul_;\u2014_Like\nlips, like lettuce_;\u2014_Meal and matins minish no way_;\u2014_Who swims in\nsin, shall sink in sorrow_;\u2014_No cross, no crown_;\u2014_Out of debt, out\nof danger_;\u2014_Do in hill as you would do in hall_;[17] that is, Be in\nsolitude the same that you would be in a crowd. I will not detain you\nwith further examples of this in other languages; but such occur, and\nin such numbers that it seems idle to quote them, in all; I will only\nadduce, in concluding this branch of the subject, a single Italian\nproverb, which in a remarkable manner unites all three qualities of\nwhich we have been last treating, brevity, rhyme, and alliteration:\n_Traduttori, traditori_; one which we might perhaps reconstitute in\nEnglish thus: _Translators, traitors_; so untrue, for the most part,\nare they to the genius of their original, to its spirit, if not to its\nletter, and frequently to both; so do they _surrender_, rather than\n_render_, its meaning; not _turning_, but only _overturning_, it from\none language to another.[18]\n\nA certain pleasant exaggeration, the use of the figure hyperbole, a\nfigure of natural rhetoric which Scripture itself does not disdain\nto employ, is a not unfrequent engine with the proverb to procure\nattention, and to make a way for itself into the minds of men. Thus\nthe Persians have a proverb: _A needle\u2019s eye is wide enough for two\nfriends; the whole world is too narrow for two foes_. Again, of a man\nwhose good luck seems never to forsake him, so that from the very\nthings which would be another man\u2019s ruin he extricates himself not\nmerely without harm, but with credit and with gain, the Arabs say:\n_Fling him into the Nile, and he will come up with a fish in his\nmouth_; while of such a Fortunatus as this the Germans have a proverb:\n_If he flung a penny on the roof, a dollar would come down to him_;[19]\nas, again, of the man in the opposite extreme of fortune, to whom the\nmost unlikely calamities, and such as beforehand might seem to exclude\none another, befall, they say: _He would fall on his back, and break\nhis nose_.\n\n[Sidenote: Transplanting of proverbs.]\n\nIn all this which I have just traced out, in the fact that the proverbs\nof a language are so frequently its highest bloom and flower, while\nyet so much of their beauty consists often in curious felicities of\ndiction pertaining exclusively to some single language, either in a\nrapid conciseness to which nothing tantamount exists elsewhere, or\nin rhymes which it is hard to reproduce, or in alliterations which\ndo not easily find their equivalents, or in other verbal happinesses\nsuch as these, lies the difficulty which is often felt, which I shall\nmyself often feel in the course of these lectures, of transferring them\nwithout serious loss, nay, sometimes the impossibility of transferring\nthem at all from one language to another.[20] Oftentimes, to use an\nimage of Erasmus,[21] they are like those wines, (I believe the Spanish\nValdepe\u00f1as is one,) of which the true excellence can only be known\nby those who drink them in the land which gave them birth. Transport\nthem under other skies, or, which is still more fatal, empty them from\nvessel to vessel, and their strength and flavour will in great part\nhave disappeared in the process.\n\nStill this is rather the case, where we seek deliberately, and only in\na literary interest, to translate some proverb which we admire from\nits native language into our own or another. Where, on the contrary,\n_it has transferred itself_, made for itself a second home, and taken\nroot a second time in the heart and affections of a people, in such a\ncase one is continually surprised at the instinctive skill with which\nit has found compensations for that which it has been compelled to let\ngo; it is impossible not to admire the unconscious skill with which it\nhas replaced one vigorous idiom by another, one happy rhyme or play on\nwords by its equivalent; and all this even in those cases where the\nextremely narrow limits in which it must confine itself allow it the\nvery smallest liberty of selection. And thus, presenting itself equally\nfinished and complete in two or even more languages, the internal\nevidence will be quite insufficient to determine which of its forms we\nshall regard as the original, and which as a copy. For example, the\nproverb at once German and French, which I can present in no comelier\nEnglish dress than this,\n\n    Mother\u2019s truth\n    Keeps constant youth;\n\nbut which in German runs thus,\n\n    _Mutter-treu\n    Wird t\u00e4glich neu_;\n\nand in French,\n\n    _Tendresse maternelle\n    Toujours se renouvelle_;\n\nappears to me as exquisitely graceful and tender in the one language as\nin the other; while yet so much of its beauty depends on the form, that\nbeforehand one could hardly have expected that the charm of it would\nhave survived its transfer to the second language, whichever that may\nbe, wherein it found an home. Having thus opened the subject, I shall\nreserve its further development for the lectures which follow.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[1] A similar contempt of them speaks out in the antithesis of the\nFrench Jesuit, Bouhours: Les proverbes sont les sentences du peuple, et\nles sentences sont les proverbes des honn\u00eates gens.\n\n[2] Compare with this Martial\u2019s so happy epigram upon epigrams, in\nwhich everything runs exactly parallel to that which has been said\nabove:\n\n    \u201cOmne epigramma sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi,\n       Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui;\u201d\n\nwhich may be indifferently rendered thus:\n\n    \u201cThree things must epigrams, like bees, have all\u2014\n     Its sting, its honey, and its body small.\u201d\n\n[3] The very shortest proverb which I know in the world is this German:\nVoll, toll; which sets out very well the connexion between fulness\nand folly, pride and abundance of bread. In that seeking of extreme\nbrevity noted above, they sometimes become exceedingly elliptical,\n(although this is the case more with the ancient than with the modern,)\nso much so as to omit even the vital element of the sentence, the\nverb. Thus: \u03a7\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1;\u2014Sus Minervam;\u2014Fures clamorem;\u2014Meretrix\npudicam;\u2014Amantes amentes.\n\n[4] This is what Aristotle means when he ascribes \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u2014which in\nanother place he opposes to the \u1f44\u03b3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2\u2014to it.\n\n[5] Let serve for further proof this eminently witty old German\nproverb, which, despite its apparent length, has not forfeited its\ncharacter as such. I shall prefer to leave it in the original: Man\nspricht, an viererlei Leuten ist Mangel auf Erden: an Pfaffen, sonst\nd\u00fcrfte einer nit 6 bis 7 Pfruenden; an Adelichen, sonst wollte nit\njeder Bauer ein Junker sein; an Huren, sonst w\u00fcrden die Handwerk\nEheweiber und Nunnen nit treiben; an Juden, sonst w\u00fcrden Christen\nnit wuchern.\n\n[6] When Erasmus, after discussing and rejecting the definitions of\nthose who had gone before him, himself defines the proverb thus,\nCelebre dictum, scit\u00e2 qu\u00e2piam novitate insigne, it appears to me that\nhe has not escaped the fault which he has blamed in others\u2014that,\nnamely, of confounding the accidental adjuncts of a _good_ proverb with\nthe necessary conditions of _every_ proverb. In rigour the whole second\nclause of the definition should be dismissed, and _Celebre dictum_\nalone remain. Better Eifelein (_Sprichw\u00f6rter des Deutschen Volkes_,\nFriburg, 1840, p. x.): Das Sprichwort ist ein mit \u00f6ffentlichem Gepr\u00e4ge\nausgem\u00fcnzter Saz, der seinen Curs und anerkannten Werth unter dem Volke\nhat.\n\n[7] It suggests, however, the admirable Spanish proverb, spoken no\ndoubt out of the same conviction: Dios me d\u00e8 contienda, con quien me\nentienda.\n\n[8] Chi non pu\u00f2 fare sua vendetta \u00e8 debile, chi non vuole \u00e8 vile.\n\n[9] Quintilian\u2019s words (_Inst._ 5. 11. 41), which are to the same\neffect, must be taken with the same exception; Neque enim dur\u00e2ssent\nh\u00e6c in \u00e6ternum, nisi vera omnibus viderentur; and also Don Quixote\u2019s:\nPar\u00e9ceme me, Sancho, que no ay refr\u00e1n que no sea verdad\u00e9ro, porque\ntodas son sentencias sacadas de la misma experiencia, madre de las\nciencias todas.\n\n[10] Thus in a proverb about proverbs, the Italians say, with a true\ninsight into this its prerogative: Il proverbio _s\u2019invecchia_, e chi\nvuol far bene, vi si specchia.\n\n[11] The name which the proverb bears in Spanish points to this fact,\nthat popularity is a necessary condition of it. This name is not\n_proverbio_, for that in Spanish signifies an apothegm, an aphorism, a\nmaxim; but _refr\u00e1n_, which is _a referendo_, from the frequency of its\nrepetition; yet see Diez, _Etymol. W\u00f6rterbuch_, p. 284. The etymology\nof the Greek \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03af\u03b1 is somewhat doubtful, but it too means probably\na _trite, wayside_ saying.\n\n[12] The same, under a different image, in Spanish: Larga soga tira,\nquien por muerte agena suspira.\n\n[13] Im Becher ersaufen mehr als im Meere.\n\n[14] In Wein und Bier ertrinken mehr denn im Wasser.\n\n[15] Here is the explanation of the perplexity of Erasmus. Deinde fit,\n_nescio quo pacto_, ut sententia proverbio quasi vibrata feriat acrius\nauditoris animum, et aculeos quosdam cogitationum relinquat infixos.\n\n[16] So, too, in other languages; Qui prend, se rend;\u2014Qui se loue,\ns\u2019emboue;\u2014Chi v\u00e0 piano, v\u00e0 sano, e v\u00e0 lontano;\u2014Chi compra terra,\ncompra guerra;\u2014Quien se muda, Dios le ayuda;\u2014Wie gewonnen, so\nzerronnen; and the Latin medieval;\u2014Qualis vita, finis ita;\u2014Via\ncrucis, via lucis;\u2014Uniti muniti.\u2014We sometimes regard rhyme as a\nmodern invention, and to the modern world no doubt the discovery of\nall its capabilities, and the consequent large application of it\nbelongs. But proverbs alone would be sufficient to show that in itself\nit is not modern, however restricted in old times the employment of\nit may have been. For instance, there is a Greek proverb to express\nthat men learn by their sufferings more than by any other teaching:\n\u03a0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 (Herod., i. 207;) one which in the Latin,\nNocumenta, documenta, or, Qu\u00e6 nocent, docent, finds both in rhyme and\nsense its equivalent; to both of which evidently the inducement lay in\nthe chiming and rhyming words. Another rhyming Greek proverb which I\nhave met, \u03a0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae, \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u1f74, implying that fulness of blessings is\ntoo often accompanied with forgetfulness of their Author (_Deut._ 8.\n11-14,) is, I fancy, not ancient\u2014at least does not date further back\nthan Greek Christianity. The sentiment would imply this, and the fact\nthat the word \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae does not occur in classical Greek would seem\nto be decisive upon it.\n\n[17] So in Latin: Nil sole et sale utilius; and in Greek: \u03a3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1, \u03c3\u1fc6\u03bc\u03b1.\n\n[18] This is St. Jerome\u2019s pun, who complains that the Latin versions of\nthe Greek Testament current in the Church in his day were too many of\nthem not _versiones_, but _eversiones_.\n\n[19] W\u00fcrf er einen Groschen aufs Dach, fiel ihm Ein Thaler\nherunter;\u2014compare another: Wer Gl\u00fcck hat, dem kalbet ein Ochs.\n\n[20] Thus in respect of this German proverb:\n\n    _Stultus_ und _Stolz_\n    Wachset aus Einem Holz;\n\nits transfer into any other languages is manifestly impossible. The\nsame may be affirmed of another, commending stay-at-home habits to the\nwife: Die _Hausfrau_ soll nit sein eine _Ausfrau_; or again of this\nbeautiful Spanish one: La _verdad_ es siempre _verde_.\n\n[21] Habent enim hoc peculiare pleraque proverbia, ut in e\u00e2 lingu\u00e2\nsonare postulant in qu\u00e2 nata sunt; quod si in alienum sermonem\ndemigr\u00e2rint, multum grati\u00e6 decedat. Quemadmodum sunt et vina qu\u00e6dam qu\u00e6\nrecusant exportari, nec germanam saporis gratiam obtineant, nisi in his\nlocis in quibus proveniunt.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nTHE GENERATION OF PROVERBS.\n\n\nIn my preceding lecture I occupied your attention with the form and\ndefinition of a proverb; let us proceed in the present to realize to\nourselves, so far as this may be possible, the processes by which a\nnation gets together the great body of its proverbs, the sources from\nwhich it mainly derives them, and the circumstances under which such as\nit makes for itself of new, had their birth and generation.\n\nAnd first, I would call to your attention the fact that a vast number\nof its proverbs a people does not make for itself, but finds ready\nmade to its hands: it enters upon them as a part of its intellectual\nand moral inheritance. The world has now endured so long, and the\nsuccessive generations of men have thought, felt, enjoyed, suffered,\nand altogether learned so much, that there is an immense stock of\nwisdom which may be said to belong to humanity in common, being the\ngathered fruits of all this its experience in the past. Even Aristotle,\nmore than two thousand years ago, could speak of proverbs as \u201cthe\nfragments of an elder wisdom, which, on account of their brevity and\naptness, had amid a general wreck and ruin been preserved.\u201d These, the\ncommon property of the civilized world, are the original stock with\nwhich each nation starts; these, either orally handed down to it, or\nmade its own by those of its earlier writers who brought it into living\ncommunication with the past. Thus, and through these channels, a vast\nnumber of Greek, Latin, and medieval proverbs live on with us, and with\nall the modern nations of the world.\n\n[Sidenote: Antiquity of proverbs.]\n\nIt is, indeed, oftentimes a veritable surprise to discover the\nvenerable age and antiquity of a proverb, which we have hitherto\nassumed to be quite a later birth of modern society. Thus we may\nperhaps suppose that well-known word which forbids the too accurate\nscanning of a present, _One must not look a gift horse in the mouth_,\nto be of English extraction, the genuine growth of our own soil. I\nwill not pretend to say how old it may be, but it is certainly as old\nas Jerome, a Latin father of the fourth century; who, when some found\nfault with certain writings of his, replied with a tartness which he\ncould occasionally exhibit, that they were voluntary on his part,\nfree-will offerings, and with this quoted the proverb, _that it did not\nbehove to look a gift horse in the mouth_; and before it comes to us,\nwe meet it once more in one of the rhymed Latin verses, which were such\ngreat favourites in the middle ages:\n\n    Si quis dat mannos, ne qu\u00e6re in dentibus annos.\n\nAgain, _Liars should have good memories_ is a saying which probably\nwe assume to be modern; yet it is very far from so being. The same\nJerome, who, I may observe by the way, is a very great quoter of\nproverbs, and who has preserved some that would not otherwise have\ndescended to us,[22] speaks of one as \u201cunmindful of the _old_ proverb,\n_Liars should have good memories_,\u201d[23] and we find it ourselves in a\nLatin writer a good deal older than him.[24] So too I was certainly\nsurprised to discover the other day that our own proverb: _Good company\non a journey is worth a coach_, has come down to us from the ancient\nworld.[25]\n\n[Sidenote: Rhymed Latin proverbs.]\n\nHaving lighted just now on one of those Latin rhymed verses, let me by\nthe way guard against an error about them, into which it would be very\neasy to fall. I have seen it suggested that these, if not the source\n_from_ which, are yet the channels _by_ which, a great many proverbs\nhave reached us. I should greatly doubt it. This much we may conclude\nfrom the existence of proverbs in this shape, namely, that since these\nrhymed or leonine verses went altogether out of fashion at the revival\nof a classical taste in the fifteenth century, such proverbs as are\nfound in this form may be affirmed with a tolerable certainty to date\nat least as far back as that period; but not that in all or even in a\nmajority of cases, this shape was their earliest. Oftentime the proverb\nin its more popular form is so greatly superior to the same in this\nits Latin monkish dress, that the latter by its tameness and flatness\nbetrays itself at once as the inadequate translation, and we cannot\nfail to regard the other as the genuine proverb. Many of them are \u201cso\nessentially Teutonic, that they frequently appear to great disadvantage\nin the Latin garb which has been huddled upon them.\u201d[26] Thus, when we\nhave on one side the English, _Hungry bellies have no ears_, and on the\nother the Latin,\n\n    Jejunus venter non audit verba libenter,\n\nwho can doubt that the first is the proverb, and the second only its\nversification? Or who would hesitate to affirm that the old Greek\nproverb, _A rolling stone gathers no moss_, may very well have come to\nus without the intervention of the medieval Latin,\n\n    Non fit hirsutus lapis hinc atque inde volutus?\n\nAnd the true state of the case comes out still more clearly, where\nthere are _two_ of these rhymed Latin equivalents for the one popular\nproverb, and these quite independent of each other. So it is in respect\nof our English proverb: _A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush_;\nwhich appears in this form:\n\n    Una avis in dextr\u00e2 melior quam quatuor extra;\n\nand also in this:\n\n    Capta avis est pluris quam mille in gramine ruris.\n\nWho can fail to see here two independent attempts to render the same\nsaying? Sometimes the Latin line confesses itself to be only the\nrendering of a popular word; thus is it with the following:\n\n    _Ut dicunt multi, cito transit lancea stulti_;\n\nin other words: _A fool\u2019s bolt is soon shot_.\n\nThen, besides this derivation from elder sources, from the literature\nof nations which as such now no longer exist, besides this process in\nwhich a people are merely receivers and borrowers, there is also at\nsomewhat later periods in its life a mutual interchange between it and\nother nations growing up beside, and cotemporaneously with it, of\ntheir own several inventions in this kind; a free giving and taking,\nin which it is often hard, and oftener impossible, to say which is the\nlender and which the borrower. Thus the quantity of proverbs not drawn\nfrom antiquity, but common to all, or nearly all of the modern European\nlanguages, is very great. The \u2018solidarity\u2019 (to use a word which it is\nin vain to strive against) of all the nations of Christendom comes out\nvery noticeably here.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs claimed by many.]\n\nThere is indeed nothing in the study of proverbs, in the attribution of\nthem to their right owners, in the arrangement and citation of them,\nwhich creates a greater perplexity than the circumstances of finding\nthe same proverb in so many different quarters, current among so many\ndifferent nations. In quoting it as of one, it often seems as if we\nwere doing wrong to many, while yet it is almost, or oftener still\naltogether, impossible to determine to what nation it first belonged,\nso that others drew it at second hand from that one;\u2014even granting\nthat any form in which we now possess it is really its oldest of all.\nMore than once this fact has occasioned a serious disappointment to\nthe zealous collector of the proverbs of his native country. Proud\nof the rich treasures which in this kind it possessed, he has very\nreluctantly discovered on a fuller investigation of the whole subject,\nhow many of these which he counted native, the peculiar heirloom and\nglory of his own land, must at once and without hesitation be resigned\nto others, who can be shown beyond all doubt to have been in earlier\npossession of them: while in respect of many more, if his own nation\ncan put in a claim to them as well as others, yet he is compelled to\nfeel that it can put in no better than, oftentimes not so good as, many\ncompetitors.[27]\n\n[Sidenote: Unregistered proverbs.]\n\nThis single fact, which it is impossible to question, that nations are\nthus continually borrowing proverbs from one another, is sufficient to\nshow that, however the great body of those which are the portion of a\nnation may be, some almost as old as itself, and some far older, it\nwould for all this be a serious mistake to regard the sum of them as a\nclosed account, neither capable of, nor actually receiving, addition\u2014a\nmistake of the same character as that sometimes made in regard to\nthe _words_ of a language. So long as a language is living, it will\nbe appropriating foreign words, putting forth new words of its own.\nExactly in the same way, so long as a people have any vigorous energies\nat work in them, are acquiring any new experiences of life, are forming\nany new moral convictions, for the new experiences and convictions\nnew utterances will be found; and some of the happiest of these will\nreceive that stamp of general allowance which shall constitute them\nproverbs. And this fact makes it little likely that the collections\nwhich exist in print, and certainly not the earlier ones, will embrace\nall the proverbs in actual circulation. They preserve, indeed, many\nothers; all those which have now become obsolete, and which would, but\nfor them, have been forgotten; but there are not a few, as I imagine,\nwhich, living on the lips of men, have yet never found their way into\nbooks, however worthy to have done so; and this, either because the\nsphere in which they circulate has continued always a narrow one,\nor that the occasions which call them out are very rare, or that\nthey, having only lately risen up, have not hitherto attracted the\nattention of any who cared to record them. It would be well, if such\nas take an interest in the subject, and are sufficiently well versed\nin the proverbial literature of their own country to recognise such\nunregistered proverbs when they meet them, would secure them from that\nperishing, which, so long as they remain merely oral, might easily\novertake them; and would make them at the same time, what all _good_\nproverbs ought certainly to be, the common heritage of all.[28]\n\nAnd as new proverbs will be born from life and from life\u2019s experience,\nso too there will be another fruitful source of their further increase,\nnamely, the books which the people have made heartily their own.\nPortions of these they will continually detach, most often word for\nword; at other times wrought up into new shapes with that freedom which\nthey claim to exercise in regard of whatever they thus appropriate to\ntheir own use. These, having detached, they will give and take as part\nof their current intellectual money. Thus \u201c_Evil communications corrupt\ngood manners_,\u201d[29] (1 Cor. xv. 33,) is word for word a metrical line\nfrom a Greek comedy. It is not probable that St. Paul had ever read\nthis comedy, but the words for their truth\u2019s sake had been taken up\ninto the common speech of men; and not as a citation, but as a proverb,\nhe uses them. And if you will, from this point of view, glance over a\nfew pages of one of Shakespeare\u2019s more popular dramas,\u2014Hamlet, for\nexample,\u2014you will be surprised, in case your attention has never\nbeen called to this before, to note how much has in this manner been\nseparated from it, that it might pass into the every day use and\nservice of man; and you will be prepared to estimate higher than ever\nwhat he has done for his fellow countrymen, the \u201cpossession for ever\u201d\nwhich his writings have become for them. And much no doubt is passing\neven now from favourite authors into the flesh and blood of a nation\u2019s\nmoral and intellectual life; and as \u201chousehold words,\u201d as parts of its\nproverbial philosophy, for ever incorporating itself therewith. We have\na fair measure of an author\u2019s true popularity, I mean of the real and\nlasting hold which he has taken on his nation\u2019s heart, in the extent to\nwhich it has been thus done with his writings.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is another way in which additions are from time to time made\nto the proverbial wealth of a people. Some event has laid strong\nhold of their imagination, has stirred up the depths of their moral\nconsciousness; and this they have gathered up for themselves, perhaps\nin some striking phrase which was uttered at the moment, or in some\nallusive words, understood by everybody, and which at once summon up\nthe whole incident before their eyes.\n\n[Sidenote: Scriptural proverbs.]\n\nSacred history furnishes us with one example at the least of the\ngeneration in this wise of a proverb. That word, \u201c_Is Saul also among\nthe prophets?_\u201d is one of which we know the exact manner in which\nit grew to be a \u201cproverb in Israel.\u201d When the son of Kish revealed\nof a sudden that nobler life which had hitherto been slumbering in\nhim, alike undreamt of by himself and by others, took his part and\nplace among the sons of the prophets, and, borne along in their\nenthusiasm, praised and prophesied as they did, showing that he was\nindeed turned into another man, then all that knew him beforehand said\none to another, some probably in sincere astonishment, some in irony\nand unbelief, \u201cIs Saul also among the prophets?\u201d And the question they\nasked found and finds its application so often as any reveals of a\nsudden, at some crisis of his life, qualities for which those who knew\nhim the longest had hitherto given him no credit, a nobleness which\nhad been latent in him until now, a power of taking his place among\nthe worthiest and the best, which none until now had at all deemed him\nto possess. It will, of course, find equally its application, when one\ndoes not step truly, but only affects suddenly to step, into an higher\nschool, to take his place in a nobler circle of life, than that in\nwhich hitherto he has moved.\n\n[Sidenote: The cranes of Ibycus.]\n\nAnother proverb, and one well known to the Greek scholar, _The cranes\nof Ibycus_,[30] had its rise in one of those remarkable incidents,\nwhich, witnessing for God\u2019s inscrutable judgments, are eagerly grasped\nby men. The story of its birth is indeed one to which so deep a moral\ninterest is attached, that I shall not hesitate to repeat it, even at\nthe risk that Schiller\u2019s immortal poem on the subject, or it may be\nthe classical studies of some here present, may have made it already\nfamiliar to a portion of my hearers. Ibycus, a famous lyrical poet\nof Greece, journeying to Corinth, was assailed by robbers: as he fell\nbeneath their murderous strokes he looked round, if any witnesses or\navengers were nigh. No living thing was in sight, save only a flight\nof cranes soaring high over head. He called on them, and to them\ncommitted the avenging of his blood. A vain commission, as it might\nhave appeared, and as no doubt it did to the murderers appear. Yet it\nwas not so. For these, sitting a little time after in the open theatre\nat Corinth, beheld this flight of cranes hovering above them, and\none said scoffingly to another, \u201cLo, there, the avengers of Ibycus!\u201d\nThe words were caught up by some near them; for already the poet\u2019s\ndisappearance had awakened anxiety and alarm. Being questioned, they\nbetrayed themselves, and were led to their doom; and _The cranes of\nIbycus_ passed into a proverb, very much as our _Murder will out_, to\nexpress the wondrous leadings of God whereby continually the secretest\nthing of blood is brought to the open light of day.\n\n_Gold of Toulouse_[31] is another of these proverbs in which men\u2019s\nsense of a God verily ruling and judging the earth has found its\nembodiment. The Consul Q. S. C\u00e6pio had taken the city of Toulouse\nby an act of more than common perfidy and treachery; and possessed\nhimself of the immense hoards of wealth stored in the temples of the\nGaulish deities. From this day forth he was so hunted by calamity, all\nextremest evils and disasters, all shame and dishonour, fell so thick\non himself and all who were his, and were so traced up by the moral\ninstinct of mankind to this accursed thing which he had made his own,\nthat any wicked gains, fatal to their possessor, acquired this name;\nand of such a one it would be said \u201cHe has gold of Toulouse.\u201d\n\nAnother proverb, which in English has run into the following posy,\n_There\u2019s many a slip \u2019twixt the cup and the lip_, descends to us from\nthe Greeks, having a very striking story connected with it: A master\ntreated with extreme cruelty his slaves who were occupied in planting\nand otherwise laying out a vineyard for him; until at length one of\nthem, the most misused, prophesied that for this his cruelty he should\nnever drink of its wine. When the first vintage was completed, he bade\nthis slave to fill a goblet for him, which taking in his hand he at\nthe same time taunted him with the non-fulfilment of his prophecy.\nThe other replied with words which have since become proverbial: as\nhe spake, tidings were hastily brought of a huge wild boar that was\nwasting the vineyard. Setting down the untasted cup, the master went\nout to meet the wild boar, and was slain in the encounter, and thus the\nproverb, _Many things find place between the cup and lip_, arose.[32]\n\nA Scotch proverb, _He that invented the Maiden, first hanselled it_,\nis not altogether unworthy to rank with these. It alludes to the\nwell-known historic fact that the Regent Morton, the inventor of a new\ninstrument of death called \u201cThe Maiden,\u201d was himself the first upon\nwhom the proof of it was made. Men felt, to use the language of the\nLatin poet, that \u201cno law was juster than that the artificers of death\nshould perish by their own art,\u201d and embodied their sense of this in\nthe proverb.\n\n[Sidenote: Gnomes become proverbs.]\n\nMemorable words of illustrious men will frequently not die in the\nutterance, but pass from mouth to mouth, being still repeated with\ncomplacency, till at length they have received their adoption into the\ngreat family of national proverbs. Such were the gnomes or sayings\nof the Seven Wise Men of Greece, supposing them to have been indeed\ntheirs, and not ascribed to them only after they had obtained universal\ncurrency and acceptance. So too a saying, attributed to Alexander\nthe Great, may very well have arisen on the occasion, and under the\ncircumstances, to which its birth is commonly ascribed. When some of\nhis officers reported to him with something of dismay the innumerable\nmultitudes of the Persian hosts which were advancing to assail him, the\nyouthful Macedonian hero silenced them and their apprehensions with the\nreply: _One butcher does not fear many sheep_; not in this applying\nan old proverb, but framing a new, and one admirably expressive of\nthe confidence which he felt in the immeasurable superiority of the\nHellenic over the barbarian man;\u2014and this word, having been once set\non foot by him, has since lived on, and that, because the occasions\nwere so numerous on which a word like this would find its application.\n\nAnd taking occasion from this royal proverb, let me just observe by the\nway, that it would be a great mistake to assume, though the error is by\nno means an uncommon one, that because proverbs are popular, they have\ntherefore originally sprung from the bosom of the populace. What was\nurged in my first lecture of their popularity was not at all intended\nin this sense; and the sound common sense, the wit, the wisdom, the\nright feeling, which are their _predominant_ characteristics, alike\ncontradict any such supposition. They spring rather from the sound\nhealthy kernel of the nation, whether in high place or in low; and it\nis surely worthy of note, how large a proportion of those with the\ngeneration of which we are acquainted, owe their existence to the\nforemost men of their time, to its philosophers, its princes, and its\nkings; as it would not be difficult to show. And indeed the evil in\nproverbs testifies to this quite as much as the good. Thus the many\nproverbs in almost all modern tongues expressing scorn of the \u201cvillain\u201d\nare alone sufficient to show that for the most part they are very far\nfrom having their birth quite in the lower regions of society, but\nreflect much oftener the prejudices and passions of those higher in the\nsocial scale.\n\n[Sidenote: A Spanish proverb.]\n\nLet me adduce another example of the proverbs which have thus grown\nout of an incident, which contain an allusion to it, and are only\nperfectly intelligible when the incident itself is known. It is this\nSpanish: _Let that which is lost be for God_; one the story of whose\nbirth is thus given by the leading Spanish commentator on the proverbs\nof his nation:\u2014The father of a family, making his will and disposing\nof his goods upon his death-bed, ordained concerning a certain cow\nwhich had strayed, and had been now for a long time missing, that, if\nit were found, it should be for his children, if otherwise for God:\nand hence the proverb, _Let that which is lost be for God_, arose. The\nsaying was not one to let die; it laid bare with too fine a skill some\nof the subtlest treacheries of the human heart; for, indeed, whenever\nmen would give to God only their lame and their blind, that which costs\nthem nothing, that from which they hope no good, no profit, no pleasure\nfor themselves, what are they saying in their hearts but that which\nthis man said openly, _Let that which is lost be for God_.\n\nThis subject of the generation of proverbs, upon which I have thus\ntouched so slightly, is yet one upon which whole volumes have been\nwritten. Those who have occupied themselves herein have sought to trace\nhistorically the circumstances out of which various proverbs have\nsprung, and to which they owe their existence; that so by the analogy\nof these we might realize to ourselves the rise of others whose origins\nlie out of our vision, obscure and unknown. No one will deny the\ninterest of the subject: it cannot but be most interesting to preside\nthus at the birth of a saying which has lived on and held its ground in\nthe world, and has not ceased, from the day it was first uttered, to\nbe more or less of a spiritual or intellectual force among men. Still\nthe cases where this is possible are exceedingly rare, as compared with\nthe far greater number where the first birth is veiled, as is almost\nall birth, in mystery and obscurity. And indeed it could scarcely be\notherwise. The great majority of proverbs are foundlings, the happier\nfoundlings of a nation\u2019s wit, which the collective nation has refused\nto let perish, has taken up and adopted for its own. But still, as must\nbe expected to be the case with foundlings, they can for the most part\ngive no distinct account of themselves. They make their way, relying\non their own merits, not on those of their parents and authors; whom\nthey have forgotten; and who seem equally to have forgotten them, or,\nat any rate, fail to claim them. Not seldom, too, when a story has been\ngiven to account for a proverb\u2019s rise, it must remain a question open\nto much doubt, whether the story has not been subsequently imagined\nfor the proverb, rather than that the proverb has indeed sprung out of\nhistory.[33]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Employment of proverbs.]\n\nThe proverb having thus had its rise from life, however it may be often\nimpossible to trace that rise, will continually turn back to life\nagain; it will attest its own practical character by the frequency with\nwhich it will present itself for use, and will have been actually used\nupon earnest and important occasions; throwing its weight into one\nscale or the other at some critical moment, and sometimes with decisive\neffect. I have little doubt that with knowledge sufficient one might\nbring together a large collection of instances wherein, at significant\nmoments, the proverb has played its part, and, it may be, very often\nhelped to bring about issues, of which all would acknowledge the\nimportance.\n\nIn this aspect, as having been used at a great critical moment, and\nas part of the moral influence brought to bear on that occasion for\neffecting a great result, no proverb of man\u2019s can be compared with that\none which the Lord used when He met his future Apostle, but at this\ntime his persecutor, in the way, and warned him, of the fruitlessness\nand folly of a longer resistance to a might which must overcome him,\nand with still greater harm to himself, at the last: _It is hard for\nthee to kick against the pricks_.[34] (Acts xxvi. 14.) It is not always\nobserved, but yet it adds much to the fitness of this proverb\u2019s use on\nthis great occasion, that it was already, even in that heathen world to\nwhich originally it belonged, predominantly used to note the madness of\na striving on man\u2019s part against the superior power of the gods; for\nso we find it in the chief passages of heathen antiquity in which it\noccurs.[35]\n\nI must take the second illustration of my assertion from a very\ndifferent quarter, passing at a single stride from the kingdom of\nheaven to the kingdom of hell, and finding my example there. We are\ntold then, that when Catherine de Medicis desired to overcome the\nhesitation of her son Charles the Ninth, and draw from him his consent\nto the massacre, afterwards known as that of St. Bartholomew, she urged\non him with effect a proverb which she had brought with her from her\nown land, and assuredly one of the most convenient maxims for tyrants\nthat was ever framed: _Sometimes clemency is cruelty, and cruelty\nclemency_.\n\nLater French history supplies another and more agreeable illustration.\nAt the siege of Douay, Louis the Fourteenth found himself with his\nsuite unexpectedly under a heavy cannonade from the besieged city.\nI do not believe that Louis was deficient in personal courage, yet,\nin compliance with the entreaties of most of those around him, who\nurged that he should not expose so important a life, he was about, in\nsomewhat unsoldierly and unkingly fashion, immediately to retire; when\nM. de Charost, drawing close to him, whispered the well-known French\nproverb in his ear: _The wine is drawn; it must be drunk_.[36] The king\nremained exposed to the fire of the enemy a suitable period, and it is\nsaid ever after held in higher honour than before the counsellor who\nhad with this word saved him from an unseemly retreat. Let this on the\ngeneration of proverbs, with the actual employment which has been made\nof them, for the present suffice.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[22] Thus is it, I believe, with, Bos lassus fortius figit pedem;\na proverb with which he warns the younger Augustine not to provoke\na contest with him, the weary, but therefore the more formidable,\nantagonist.\n\n[23] Oblitus _veteris_ proverbii: mendaces memores esse oportere. Let\nme quote here Fuller\u2019s excellent unfolding of this proverb: \u201cMemory\nin a liar is no more than needs. For first lies are hard to be\nremembered, because many, whereas truth is but one: secondly, because\na lie cursorily told takes little footing and settled fastness in the\nteller\u2019s memory, but prints itself deeper in the hearers, who take the\ngreater notice because of the improbability and deformity thereof; and\none will remember the sight of a monster longer than the sight of an\nhandsome body. Hence comes it to pass that when the liar hath forgotten\nhimself, his auditors put him in mind of the lie and take him therein.\u201d\n\n[24] Quintilian, _Inst._ l. 4.\n\n[25] Comes facundus in vi\u00e2 pro vehiculo est.\n\n[26] Kemble, _Salomon and Saturn_, p. 56.\n\n[27] Kelly, in the preface to his very useful collection of Scotch\nproverbs, describes his own disappointment at making exactly such a\ndiscovery as this.\n\n[28] The pages of the excellent _Notes and Queries_ would no doubt be\nopen to receive such, and in them they might be safely garnered up.\nThat there are such proverbs to reward him who should carefully watch\nfor them, is abundantly proved by the immense addition, which, as I\nshall have occasion hereafter to mention, a Spanish scholar was able\nto make to the collected proverbs, so numerous before, of Spain. Nor\ndo there want other indications of the like kind. Thus, the editor of\nvery far the best modern collection of German proverbs, records this\none, found, as he affirms, in no preceding collection, and by himself\nnever heard but once, and then from the lips of an aged lay servitor\nof a monastery in the Black Forest: _Offend one monk, and the lappets\nof all cowls will flutter as far as Rome_; (Beleidigestu einen M\u00fcnch,\nso knappen alle Kuttenzipfel bis nach Rom;) and yet who can doubt\nthat we have a genuine proverb here, and one excellently expressive\nof the common cause which the whole of the monastic orders, despite\ntheir inner dissensions, made ever, when assailed from without, with\none another? It is very easy to be deceived in such a matter, and one\nmust be content often to be so; but the following, which is current\nin Ireland, I have never seen in print: \u201c_The man on the dyke always\nhurls well_;\u201d the looker-on at a game of hurling, seated indolently on\nthe wall, always imagines that he could improve on the strokes of the\nactual players, and, if you will listen to him, would have played the\ngame much better than they; a proverb of sufficiently wide application.\n\n[29] \u03a6\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f24\u03b8\u03b7 \u03c7\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03b8\u2019 \u1f41\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03af.\n\n[30] \u0391\u1f31 \u1f38\u03b2\u03cd\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9.\n\n[31] Aurum Tolosanum; see C. Merivale, _Fall of the Roman Republic_, p.\n63.\n\n[32] \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03cd \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5. The Latin form of\nthe proverb, Inter os et offam, will not adapt itself to this story.\n\n[33] Livy\u2019s account of \u201cCantherium in foss\u00e2,\u201d and of the manner in\nwhich it became a rustic proverb in Italy, (23, 47,) is a case in\npoint, where it is very hard to give credit to the parentage which has\nbeen assigned to the saying. See D\u00f6derlein\u2019s _Lat. Synonyme_, v. 4. p.\n289.\n\n[34] \u03a3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c3\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\n\n[35] \u00c6schylus, _Prom. Vinct._ 322; Euripides, _Bacch._ 795; Pindar,\n_Pyth._ 2. 94-96. The image is of course that of the stubborn ox, which\nwhen urged to go forward, recalcitrates against the sharp-pointed iron\ngoad, and, already wounded, thus only wounds itself the more.\n\n[36] Le vin est vers\u00e9; il faut le boire.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nTHE PROVERBS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS COMPARED.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs characteristic.]\n\n\u201cThe genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered in its\nproverbs,\u201d\u2014this is Lord Bacon\u2019s well-worn remark; although, indeed,\nonly well-worn because of its truth. \u201cIn them,\u201d it has been further\nsaid, \u201cis to be found an inexhaustible source of precious documents\nin regard of the interior history, the manners, the opinions, the\nbeliefs,[37] the customs of the people among whom they have had their\ncourse.\u201d[38] Let us put these assertions to the proof, and see how\nfar in this people\u2019s or in that people\u2019s proverbs, their innermost\nheart speaks out to us; how far the comparison of the proverbs of one\nnation with those of others may be made instructive to us; what this\ncomparison will tell us severally about each. This only I will ask, ere\nwe enter upon the subject, that if I should fail here in drawing out\nanything strongly characteristic, if the proverbs regarded from this\npoint of view should not seem to reveal to you any of the true secrets\nof national life, you will not therefore misdoubt those assertions with\nwhich my lecture opened; or assume that these documents would not yield\nup their secret, if questioned aright; but only believe that the test\nhas been unskilfully applied; or, if you will, that my brief limits\nhave not allowed me to make that clear, which with larger space I might\nnot have wholly failed in doing.\n\nI am very well aware that in following upon this track, one is ever\nliable to deceive oneself, to impose upon others, picking out and\nadducing such proverbs as conform to a preconceived theory, passing\nover those which would militate against it. Quite allowing that\nthere is such a danger which needs to be guarded against, and also\nthat there are a multitude of these sayings which cannot be made to\nillustrate difference, for they rest on the broad foundation of the\nuniversal humanity, underlying and deeper than that which is peculiar\nand national, I am yet persuaded that enough remain, and such as may\nwith perfect good faith be adduced, to confirm these assertions; I am\nconvinced that we _may_ learn from the proverbs current among a people,\nwhat is nearest and dearest to their hearts, the aspects under which\nthey contemplate life, how honour and dishonour are distributed among\nthem, what is of good, what of evil report in their eyes, with very\nmuch more which it can never be unprofitable to know.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo begin, then, with the proverbs of Greece. That which strikes one\nmost in the study of these, and which the more they are studied,\nthe more fills the thoughtful student with wonder, is the evidence\nthey yield of a leavening through and through of the entire nation\nwith the most intimate knowledge of its own mythology, history, and\npoetry. The infinite multitude of slight and fine allusions to the\nlegends of their gods and heroes, to the earlier incidents of their\nown history, to the Homeric narrative, the delicate side glances at\nall these which the Greek proverbs constantly embody,[39] assume an\nacquaintance, indeed a familiarity, with all this on their parts among\nwhom they passed current, which almost exceeds belief. In many and\nmost important respects, the Greek proverbs considered as a whole are\ninferior to those of many nations of modern Christendom. This is\nnothing wonderful; Christianity would have done little for the world,\nwould have proved very ineffectual for the elevating, purifying, and\ndeepening of man\u2019s life, if it had been otherwise. But, with all this,\nas bearing testimony to the high intellectual training of the people\nwho employed them, to a culture not restricted to certain classes,\nbut which must have been diffused through the whole nation, no other\ncollection can bear the remotest comparison with this.\n\n[Sidenote: Roman proverbs.]\n\nIt is altogether different with the Roman proverbs. These, the genuine\nRoman, the growth of their own soil, are very far fewer in number than\nthe Greek, as was indeed to be expected from the far less subtle and\nless fertile genius of the people. Hardly any of them are legendary\nor mythological; which again agrees with the fact that the Italian\npantheon was very scantily peopled as compared with the Greek. Very few\nhave much poetry about them, or any very rare delicacy or refinement\nof feeling. In respect of love indeed, not the Roman only, but Greek\nand Roman alike, are immeasurably inferior to those which many modern\nnations could supply. Thus a proverb of such religious depth and\nbeauty as our own, _Marriages are made in heaven_, it would have been\nquite impossible for all heathen antiquity to have produced, or even\nremotely to have approached.[40] In the setting out not of love, but\nof friendship, and of the claims which it makes, the blessings which it\nbrings, is exhibited whatever depth and tenderness they may have.[41]\nThis indeed, as has been truly observed,[42] was only to be expected,\nseeing how much higher an ideal of that existed than of this, the full\nrealization of which was reserved for the modern Christian world. Yet\nthe Roman proverbs are not without other substantial merits of their\nown. A vigorous moral sense speaks out in many;[43] and even when this\nis not so prominent, they wear often a thoroughly old Roman aspect;\nbeing business-like and practical, frugal and severe, wise saws such\nas the elder Cato must have loved, such as must have been often upon\nhis lips;[44] while in the number that relate to farming, they bear\nsingular witness to that strong and lively interest in agricultural\npursuits, which was so remarkable a feature in the old Italian\nlife.[45]\n\n[Sidenote: Number of Spanish proverbs.]\n\nIt will not be possible to pass under even this hastiest review more\nthan two or three of the modern families of proverbs. Let us turn\nfirst to the proverbs of Spain. I put these in the foremost rank,\nbecause the Spanish literature, poor in many provinces wherein other\nliteratures are rich, is probably richer in this province than any\nother in the world, certainly than any other in the western world; and\nthis I should be inclined to believe, both as respects the quantity and\nthe quality.[46] In respect of quantity, the mere number of Spanish\nproverbs is astonishing. A collection I have been using while preparing\nthese lectures, contains between seven and eight thousand, and yet\ndoes not contain all; for I have searched it in vain for several with\nwhich from other sources I had become acquainted. Nay, it must be very\nfar indeed from exhausting the entire stock, seeing that there exists\na manuscript collection brought together by a distinguished Spanish\nscholar, in which the proverbs have attained to the almost incredible\namount of from five and twenty to thirty thousand.[47]\n\n[Sidenote: Spanish characteristics.]\n\nAnd in respect of their quality, it needs only to call to mind some\nof those, so rich in humour, so double-shotted with homely sense,\nwherewith the Squire in _Don Quixote_ adorns his discourse; being\noftentimes indeed not the fringe and border, but the main woof and\ntexture of it: and then, if we assume that the remainder are not\naltogether unlike these, we shall, I think, feel that it would be\ndifficult to rate them more highly than they deserve. And some are in a\nloftier vein; for taking, as we have a right to do, Cervantes himself\nas the truest exponent of the Spanish character, we should be prepared\nto trace in the proverbs of Spain a grave thoughtfulness, a stately\nhumour, to find them breathing the very spirit of chivalry and honour,\nand indeed of freedom too;\u2014for in Spain, as throughout so much of\nEurope, it is despotism, and not freedom, which is new. Nor are we\ndisappointed in these our expectations. How eminently chivalresque,\nfor instance, the following: _White hands cannot hurt_.[48] What a\ngrave humour lurks in this: _The ass knows well in whose face he\nbrays_.[49] What a stately apathy, how proud a looking of calamity in\nthe face, speaks out in the admonition which this one contains: _When\nthou seest thine house in flames, approach and warm thyself by it_;[50]\nwhat a spirit of freedom, which refuses to be encroached on even by\nthe highest, is embodied in another: _The king goes as far as he may,\nnot as far as he would_;[51] what Castilian pride in the following:\n_Every layman in Castile might make a king, every clerk a pope_. The\nSpaniard\u2019s contempt for his peninsular neighbours finds its emphatic\nutterance in another: _Take from a Spaniard all his good qualities, and\nthere remains a Portuguese_.\n\nWe may too, I think, remark how a nation will occasionally in its\nproverbs indulge in a fine irony upon itself, and show that it is\nperfectly aware of its own weaknesses, follies, and faults. This the\nSpaniards must be allowed to do in their proverb, _Succours of Spain,\neither late, or never_.[52] However largely and confidently promised,\nthese _succours of Spain_ either do not arrive at all, or only arrive\nafter the opportunity in which they could have served have passed\naway. Certainly any one who reads the despatches of England\u2019s Great\nCaptain during the Peninsular War will find in almost every page of\nthem that which abundantly justifies this proverb, will own that those\nwho made it read themselves aright, and could not have designated\nbroken pledges, unfulfilled promises of aid, tardy and thus ineffectual\nassistance, by an happier title than _Succours of Spain_. And then\nagain what a fearful glimpse of those blood feuds which, having once\nbegun, seem as if they could never end, blood touching blood, and\nviolence evermore provoking its like, have we in the following: _Kill,\nand thou shalt be killed, and they shall kill him who kills thee_.[53]\n\nThe Italians also are eminently rich in proverbs; and yet if ever I\nhave been tempted to retract or seriously to modify what I shall have\noccasion by-and-bye to affirm in regard of a nobler life and spirit as\npredominating in proverbs, it has been after the study of some Italian\ncollection. \u201cThe Italian proverbs,\u201d it has been said not without too\nmuch reason, though perhaps also with overmuch severity, \u201chave taken a\ntinge from their deep and politic genius, and their wisdom seems wholly\nconcentrated in their personal interests. I think every tenth proverb\nin an Italian collection is some cynical or some selfish maxim, a book\nof the world for worldlings.\u201d[54] Certainly many of them are shrewd\nenough, and only too shrewd; \u201cungracious,\u201d inculcating an universal\nsuspicion, teaching to look everywhere for a foe, to expect, as the\nGreeks said, a scorpion under every stone, glorifying artifice and\ncunning as the true guides and only safe leaders through the perplexed\nlabyrinth of life,[55] and altogether seeming dictated as by the very\nspirit of Machiavel himself.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs on revenge.]\n\nAnd worse than this is the glorification of revenge which speaks out\nin too many of them. I know nothing of its kind calculated to give one\na more shuddering sense of horror than the series which might be drawn\ntogether of Italian proverbs on this matter; especially when we take\nthem with the commentary which Italian history supplies, and which\nshows them no empty words, but the deepest utterances of the nation\u2019s\nheart. There is no misgiving in these about the right of entertaining\nso deadly a guest in the bosom; on the contrary, one of them, exalting\nthe sweetness of revenge, declares, _Revenge is a morsel for God_.[56]\nThere is nothing in them, (it would be far better if there were,)\nof blind and headlong passion, but rather a spirit of deliberate\ncalculation, which makes the blood run cold. Thus one gives this\nadvice: _Wait time and place to act thy revenge, for it is never well\ndone in a hurry_;[57] while another proclaims an immortality of hatred,\nwhich no spaces of intervening time shall have availed to weaken:\n_Revenge of an hundred years old hath still its sucking teeth_.[58]\nWe may well be thankful that we have in England, at least as far as I\nam aware, no sentiments parallel to these, embodied as the permanent\nconvictions of the national mind.\n\nHow curious again is the confession which speaks out in another Italian\nproverb, that the maintenance of the Romish system and the study of\nHoly Scripture cannot go together. It is this: _With the Gospel one\nbecomes an heretic_.[59] No doubt with the study of the Word of God one\ndoes become an heretic, in the Italian sense of the word; and therefore\nit is only prudently done to put all obstacles in the way of that\nstudy, to assign three years\u2019 and four years\u2019 imprisonment with hard\nlabour to as many as shall dare to peruse it; yet certainly it is not a\nlittle remarkable that such a confession should have embodied itself in\nthe popular utterances of the nation.\n\n[Sidenote: Italian proverbs.]\n\nBut while it must be freely owned that the charges brought just now\nagainst the Italian proverbs are sufficiently borne out by too many,\nthey are not all to be included in the common shame. Very many there\nare not merely of a delicate refinement of beauty, as this, expressive\nof the freedom in regard of _thine_ and _mine_ which will exist between\ntrue friends: _Friends tie their purses with a spider\u2019s thread_;[60]\nof a subtle wisdom which has not degenerated into cunning and deceit;\nbut also of a nobler stamp; honour and honesty, plain dealing and\nuprightness, have here their praises too, and are not seldom pronounced\nto be in the end more than a match for all cunning and deceit. How\nexcellent in this sense is the following: _For an honest man half his\nwits is enough, the whole are too little for a knave_;[61] the ways,\nthat is, of truth and uprightness are so simple and plain, that a\nlittle wit is abundantly sufficient for those that walk in them; the\nways of falsehood and fraud are so perplexed and tangled, that sooner\nor later all the wit of the cleverest rogue will not preserve him from\nbeing entangled therein. How often and how wonderfully has this found\nits confirmation in the lives of evil men; so true it is, to employ\nanother proverb and a very deep one from the same quarter, that _The\ndevil is subtle, yet weaves a coarse web_.[62]\n\nAgain, what description of Egypt as it now is, or indeed generally\nof the East, could set us at the heart of its moral condition, could\nmake us to understand all which long centuries of oppression and\nmisrule have made of it and of its people, what could do this so\neffectually as the collection of Arabic proverbs now current in Egypt,\nwhich the traveller Burckhardt gathered, and which, after his death,\nwere published with his name?[63] In other books, others describe the\nmodern Egyptians, but here they unconsciously describe themselves. The\nselfishness, the utter extinction of all public spirit, the servility,\nwhich no longer as with an inward shame creeps into men\u2019s acts, but\nutters itself boldly as the avowed law of their lives, the sense of\nthe oppression of the strong, of the insecurity of the weak, and,\ngenerally, the whole character of life, alike outward and inward, as\npoor, mean, sordid, and ignoble, with only a few faintest glimpses\nof that romance which one usually attaches to the East; all this, as\nwe study these documents, rises up before us in truest, though in\npainfullest, outline.\n\nThus only in a land where rulers, being evil themselves, feel all\ngoodness to be their instinctive foe, and themselves therefore\nentertain an instinctive hostility to it, where they punish but never\nreward, where not to be noticed by them is the highest ambition of\nthose under their yoke, in no other land could a proverb like the\nfollowing, _Do no good, and thou shalt find no evil_, have ever come\nto the birth. How settled a conviction that wrong, and not right, was\nthe lord paramount of the world must have grown up in men\u2019s spirits,\nbefore such a word as this, (I know of no sadder one,) could have found\nutterance from their lips.[64]\n\n[Sidenote: Irish proverb.]\n\nI have taken a wide circuit of nations; with the proverb of a people\nnearer home I must bring this branch of the subject to an end. It is\none, and a very characteristic one, which the poet Spenser, who long\ndwelt in Ireland, records as current in his time among the Irish; in\nwhich were contained their offer of service to their native chiefs,\nwith a statement of what they expected in return: _Spend me, and defend\nme_. Their leaders in all times have taken them only too well at their\nword in respect of the first half of the proverb, and have not failed\nprodigally to _spend_ them; although their undertakings to _defend_\nhave issued exactly as must ever issue all promises on the part of\nothers to defend men from those evils, from which none can really\nprotect them but themselves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: German proverbs.]\n\nOther families of proverbs would each of them tell its own tale, give\nup its own secret; but I must not seek from this point of view to\nquestion them further. I would rather bring now to your notice that\neven where they do not spring, as they cannot all, from the centre of\na people\u2019s heart, nor declare to us the secretest things which are\nthere, but dwell more on the surface of things, in this case also they\nhave often local or national features, which to study and trace out\nmay prove both curious and instructive. Of how many, for example, we\nmay note the manner in which they clothe themselves in an outward form\nand shape, borrowed from, or suggested by, the peculiar scenery or\ncircumstances or history of their own land; so that they could scarcely\nhave come into existence, not certainly in the shape which they now\nwear, anywhere besides. Thus our own, _Make hay while the sun shines_,\nis truly English, and could have had its birth only under such variable\nskies as ours,\u2014not, at any rate, in those southern lands where, during\nthe summer time at least, the sun always shines. In the same way there\nis a fine Cornish proverb in regard of obstinate wrongheads, who will\ntake no counsel except from calamities, who dash themselves to pieces\nagainst obstacles, which with a little prudence and foresight they\nmight easily have avoided. It is this: _He who will not be ruled by\nthe rudder, must be ruled by the rock_. It sets us at once upon some\nrocky and wreck-strewn coast; we feel that it could never have been\nthe proverb of an inland people. And this, _Do not talk Arabic in the\nhouse of a Moor_,[65]\u2014that is, because there thy imperfect knowledge\nwill be detected at once,\u2014this we should confidently affirm to be\nSpanish, wherever we met it. So also a traveller with any experience\nin the composition of Spanish sermons and Spanish ollas could make no\nmistake in respect of the following: _A sermon without Augustine is as\na stew without bacon_.[66] Thus _Big and empty, like the Heidelberg\ntun_,[67] could have its home only in Germany; that enormous vessel,\nknown as the Heidelberg tun, constructed to contain nearly 300,000\nflasks, having now stood empty for hundreds of years. As regards,\ntoo, the following, _Not every parish-priest can wear Dr. Luther\u2019s\nshoes_,[68] we could be in no doubt to what people it appertains.\nAnd this, _The world is a carcase, and they who gather round it are\ndogs_, plainly proclaims itself as belonging to those Eastern lands,\nwhere the unowned dogs prowling about the streets of a city are the\nnatural scavengers, that would assemble round a carcase thrown in the\nway. So too the form which our own proverb, _Man\u2019s extremity, God\u2019s\nopportunity_, or as we sometimes have it, _When need is highest, help\nis nighest_ assumes among the Jews, namely this, _When the tale of\nbricks is doubled, Moses comes_,[69] plainly roots itself in the early\nhistory of that nation, being an allusion to Exod. v. 9-19, and without\na knowledge of that history would be unintelligible altogether. The\nsame may be said of this: _We must creep into Ebal, and leap into\nGerizim_; in other words, we must be slow to curse, and swift to bless.\n(Deut. xxvii. 12, 13.)\n\nBut while it is thus with some, which are bound by the very conditions\nof their existence to a narrow and peculiar sphere, or at all events\nmove more naturally and freely in it than elsewhere, there are others\non the contrary which we meet all the world over. True cosmopolites,\nthey seem to have travelled from land to land, and to have made\nthemselves an home equally in all. The Greeks obtained them probably\nfrom the older East, and again imparted them to the Romans; and from\nthese they have found their way into all the languages of the western\nworld.\n\nMuch, I think, might be learned from knowing what those truths are,\nwhich are so felt to be true by all nations, that all have loved to\npossess them in these compendious forms, wherein they may pass readily\nfrom mouth to mouth: which, thus cast into some happy form, have\ncommended themselves to almost all people, and have become a portion\nof the common stock of the world\u2019s wisdom, in every land making for\nthemselves a recognition and an home. Such a proverb, for instance, is\n_Man proposes, God disposes_;[70] one which I am inclined to believe\nthat every nation in Europe possesses, so deeply upon all men is\nimpressed the sense of Hamlet\u2019s words, if not the words themselves:\n\n    \u201cThere\u2019s a divinity that _shapes_ our ends,\n    _Rough-hew_ them how we will.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs compared.]\n\nSometimes the proverb does not actually in so many words repeat itself\nin various tongues. We have indeed exactly the same _thought_; but\nit takes an outward shape and embodiment, varying according to the\nvarious countries and periods in which it has been current: we have\nproverbs totally diverse from one another in their form and appearance,\nbut which yet, when we look a little deeper into them, prove to be at\nheart one and the same, all these their differences being thus only,\nso to speak, variations of the same air. These are almost always an\namusing, often an instructive, study; and to trace this likeness in\ndifference has an interest lively enough. Thus the _forms_ of the\nproverb, which brings out the absurdity of those reproving others\nfor a defect or a sin, to whom the same cleaves in an equal or in a\ngreater degree, have sometimes no visible connexion at all, or the very\nslightest, with one another; yet for all this the proverb is at heart\nand essentially but one. We say in English: _The kiln calls the oven,\n\u201cBurnt house;\u201d_\u2014the Italians: _The pan says to the pot \u201cKeep off, or\nyou\u2019ll smutch me;\u201d_[71]\u2014the Spaniards: _The raven cried to the crow,\n\u201cAvaunt, blackamoor;\u201d_[72]\u2014the Germans: _One ass nicknames another,\nLong-ears_;[73]\u2014while it must be owned there is a certain originality\nin the Catalan version of the proverb: _Death said to the man with his\nthroat cut, \u201cHow ugly you look.\u201d_ Under how rich a variety of forms\ndoes one and the same thought array itself here.\n\n[Sidenote: Various proverbs.]\n\nLet me quote another illustration of the same fact. We probably\ntake for granted that _Coals to Newcastle_ is a thoroughly English\nexpression of the absurdity of sending to a place that which already\nabounds there, water to the sea, faggots to the wood:\u2014and English\nof course it is in the outward garment which it wears; but in its\ninnermost being it belongs to the whole world and to all times. Thus\nthe Greeks said: _Owls to Athens_,[74] Attica abounding with these\nbirds; the Rabbis: _Enchantments to Egypt_, Egypt being of old esteemed\nthe head quarters of all magic; the Orientals: _Pepper to Hindostan_;\nand in the middle ages they had this proverb: _Indulgences to Rome_,\nRome being the centre and source of this spiritual traffic; and these\nby no means exhaust the list.\n\nLet me adduce some other variations of the same descriptions, though\nnot running through quite so many languages. Thus compare the German,\n_Who lets one sit on his shoulders, shall have him presently sit on\nhis head_,[75] with the Italian, _If thou suffer a calf to be laid on\nthee, within a little they\u2019ll clap on the cow_,[76] and, again, with\nthe Spanish, _Give me where I may sit down; I will make where I may\nlie down_.[77] They all three plainly contain one and the same hint\nthat undue liberties are best resisted at the outset, being otherwise\nliable to be followed up by other and greater ones; but this under how\nrich and humorous a variety of forms. Not very different are these\nthat follow. We say: _Daub yourself with honey, and you\u2019ll be covered\nwith flies_; the Danes: _Make yourself an ass, and you\u2019ll have every\nman\u2019s sack on your shoulders_; while the French: _Who makes himself a\nsheep, the wolf devours him_;[78] and the Persians: _Be not all sugar,\nor the world will gulp thee down_;[79] to which they add, however, as\nits necessary complement, _nor yet all wormwood, or the world will\nspit thee out_. Or again, we are content to say without a figure: _The\nreceiver\u2019s as bad as the thief_; but the French: _He sins as much\nwho holds the sack, as he who puts into it_;[80] and the Germans:\n_He who holds the ladder is as guilty as he who mounts the wall_.[81]\nWe say: _A stitch in time saves nine_; the Spaniards: _Who repairs\nnot his gutter, repairs his whole house_.[82] We say: _Misfortunes\nnever come single_; the Italians have no less than three proverbs to\nexpress the same popular conviction: _Blessed is that misfortune which\ncomes single_; and again: _One misfortune is the vigil of another_;\nand again: _A misfortune and a friar are seldom alone_.[83] Or once\nmore, the Russians say: _Call a peasant, \u201cBrother,\u201d he\u2019ll demand to be\ncalled, \u201cFather;\u201d_ the Italians: _Reach a peasant your finger, he\u2019ll\ngrasp your fist_.[84] Many languages have this proverb: _God gives the\ncold according to the cloth_;[85] it is very beautiful, but attains not\nto the tender beauty of our own: _God tempers the wind to the shorn\nlamb_.\n\nAnd, as in that last example, so not seldom will there be an evident\nsuperiority of a proverb in one language over one, which however\nresembles it closely in another. Moving in the same sphere, it will\nyet be richer, fuller, deeper. Thus our own, _A burnt child fears\nthe fire_, is good; but that of many tongues, _A scalded dog fears\ncold water_, is better still. Ours does but express that those who\nhave suffered once will henceforward be timid in respect of that same\nthing from which they have suffered; but that other the tendency to\nexaggerate such fears, so that now they shall fear even where no fear\nis. And the fact that so it will be, clothes itself in an almost\ninfinite variety of forms. Thus one Italian proverb says: _A dog which\nhas been beaten with a stick, is afraid of its shadow_; and another,\nwhich could only have had its birth in the sunny South, where the\nglancing but harmless lizard so often darts across your path: _Whom\na serpent has bitten a lizard alarms_.[86] With a little variation\nfrom this, the Jewish Rabbis had said long before: _One bitten by a\nserpent, is afraid of a rope\u2019s end_; even that which bears so remote\na resemblance to a serpent as this does, shall now inspire him with\nterror; and the Cingalese, still expressing the same thought, but with\nimagery borrowed from their own tropic clime: _The man who has received\na beating from a firebrand, runs away at sight of a firefly_.\n\n[Sidenote: Rabbinical proverb.]\n\nSome of our Lord\u2019s sayings contain the same lessons which the proverbs\nof the Jewish Rabbis contained already; for He was willing to bring\nforth even from his treasury things old as well as new; but it is very\ninstructive to observe how they acquire in his mouth a dignity and\ndecorum which, it may be, they wanted before. We are all familiar with\nthat word in the Sermon on the Mount, \u201cWhosoever shall compel thee\nto go a mile, go with him twain.\u201d The Rabbis had a proverb to match,\nlively and piquant enough, but certainly lacking the gravity of this,\nand which never could have fallen from the same lips: _If thy neighbour\ncall thee ass, put a packsaddle on thy back_; do not, that is, withdraw\nthyself from the wrong, but rather go forward to meet it. But thus, in\nleast as in greatest, it was His to make all things new.\n\n[Sidenote: Progress of ingratitude.]\n\nSometimes a proverb, without changing its shape altogether, will\nyet on the lips of different nations be slightly modified; and\nthese modifications, slight as often they are, may not the less be\neminently characteristic. Thus in English we say, _The river past,\nand God forgotten_, to express with how mournful a frequency He whose\nassistance was invoked, it may have been earnestly, in the moment\nof peril, is remembered no more, so soon as by his help the danger\nhas been surmounted. The Spaniards have the proverb too; but it is\nwith them: _The river past, the saint forgotten_,[87] the saints\nbeing in Spain more prominent objects of invocation than God. And\nthe Italian form of it sounds a still sadder depth of ingratitude:\n_The peril past, the saint mocked_;[88] the vows made to him in\nperil remaining unperformed in safety; and he treated something as,\nin Greek story, Juno was treated by Mandrabulus the Samian; who,\nhaving under her auspices and through her direction discovered a gold\nmine, in his instant gratitude vowed to her a golden ram; which he\npresently exchanged in intention for a silver one; and again this\nfor a very small brass one; and this for nothing at all; the rapidly\ndescending scale of whose gratitude, with the entire disappearance of\nhis thank-offering, might very profitably live in our memories, as so\nperhaps it would be less likely to repeat itself in our lives.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[37] The writer might have added, the superstitions; for proverbs not\na few involve and rest on popular superstitions, and a collection\nof these would be curious and in many ways instructive. Such, for\ninstance, is the Latin, (it is, indeed, also Greek): _A serpent,\nunless it devour a serpent, grows not to a dragon_; (Serpens, nisi\nserpentem comederit, non fit draco); which Lord Bacon moralizes so\nshrewdly: \u201cThe folly of one man is the fortune of another; for no man\nprospers so suddenly as by other men\u2019s errors.\u201d Such again is the\nold German proverb: _The night is no man\u2019s friend_; (Die Nacht ist\nkeines Menschen Freund;) which rests, as Grimm has so truly observed\n(_Deutsche Mythol._, p. 713) on the wide-spread feeling in the northern\nmythologies, of the night as an unfriendly and, indeed, hostile power\nto man. And such, too, the French: _A Sunday\u2019s child dies never of the\nplague_; (Qui nait le dimanche, jamais ne meurt de peste.)\n\n[38] We may adduce further the words of Salmasius: Argut\u00e6 h\u00e6 brevesque\nloquendi formul\u00e6 suas habent veneres, et genium cujusque gentis penes\nquam celebrantur, atque acumen ostendunt.\n\n[39] Thus \u1f0c\u03ca\u03b4o\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c5\u03bd\u1fc6\u2014\u1f0c\u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03af\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2.\u2014\u1f38\u03bb\u03b9\u1f70\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd.\n\n[40] This Greek proverb on love is the noblest of the kind which I\nremember: \u039c\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u1f74\u03bd \u1f14\u03c1\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9, \u03ba\u1f04\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f96 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03c1\u03af\u03bd.\n\n[41] In this respect the Latin proverb, Mores amici noveris, non\noderis, on which Horace has furnished so exquisite a comment (_Sat._ i.\n3, 24-93), and which finds its graceful equivalent in the Italian, Ama\nl\u2019amico tuo con il difetto suo (Love your friend with his fault), is\nworthy of all admiration.\n\n[42] By Zell, in his slight but graceful treatise, _On the proverbs of\nthe ancient Romans_ (_Ferienschriften_, v. 2, p. 1-96).\n\n[43] Thus, Noxa caput sequitur;\u2014Conscientia, mille testes.\n\n[44] He has preserved for us that very sensible and at the same time\ntruly characteristic one, Quod non opus est, asse carum est.\n\n[45] These are two or three of the most notable\u2014the first against\n\u201chigh farming,\u201d which it is strange if it has not been appealed to\nin the modern controversy on the subject: Nihil minus expedit quam\nagrum optime colere. (Pliny, _H. N._, 6. 18.) Over against this,\nhowever, we must set another, warning against the attempt to farm with\ninsufficient capital: Oportet agrum imbecilliorem esse quam agricolam;\nand yet another, on the liberal answer which the land will make to the\npains and cost bestowed on it; Qui arat olivetum, rogat fructum; qui\nstercorat, exorat; qui c\u00e6dit, cogit.\n\n[46] This was the judgment of Salmasius, who says: Inter Europ\u00e6os\nHispani in his excellunt, Itali vix cedunt, Galli proximo sequuntur\nintervallo.\n\n[47] What may have become of this collection I know not; but it was\nformerly in Richard Heber\u2019s library, (see the _Catalogue_, v. 9. no.\n1697.) Juan Yriarte was the collector, and in a note to the _Catalogue_\nit is stated that he devoted himself with such eagerness to the\nbringing of it to the highest possible state of completeness, that he\nwould give his servants a fee for any new proverb they brought him;\nwhile to each, as it was inserted in his list, he was careful to attach\na memorandum of the quarter from which it came; and if this was not\nfrom books but from life, an indication of the name, the rank, and\ncondition in life of the person from whom it was derived.\n\n[48] Las manos blancas no ofenden.\n\n[49] Bien sabe el asno en cuya cara rebozna.\n\n[50] Quando vier\u00e1s tu casa quemar, llega te \u00e1 escalentar.\n\n[51] El Rey va hasta do puede, y no hasta do quiere.\n\n[52] Socorros de Espa\u00f1a, \u00f3 tarde, \u00f3 nunca.\n\n[53] Matar\u00e1s, y matarte han, y matar\u00e1n a quien te matare.\n\n[54] _Curiosities of Literature_, p. 391. London: 1838.\n\n[55] These may serve as examples: Chi ha sospetto, di rado \u00e8 in\ndifetto.\u2014Fidarsi \u00e8 bene, ma non fidarsi \u00e8 meglio.\u2014Da chi mi fido,\nmi guardi Iddio; da chi non mi fido, mi guarder\u00f2 io.\u2014Con arte e con\ninganno si vive mezzo l\u2019anno; con inganno e con arte si vive l\u2019altra\nparte.\n\n[56] Vendetta, boccon di Dio.\n\n[57] Aspetta tempo e loco \u00e0 far tua vendetta, che la non si fa mai ben\nin fretta. Compare another: Vuoi far Vendetta del tuo nemico, governati\nbene ed \u00e8 bell\u2019e fatta.\n\n[58] Vendetta di cent\u2019anni ha ancor i lattaiuoli.\n\n[59] Con l\u2019Evangelo si diventa eretico.\n\n[60] Gli amici legono la borsa con un filo di ragnatelo.\n\n[61] Ad un uomo dabbene avanza la met\u00e0 del cervello; ad un tristo non\nbasta ne anche tutto.\n\n[62] Jeremy Taylor appears to have found much delight in the proverbs\nof Italy. In the brief foot notes which he has appended to the _Holy\nLiving_ alone I counted five and twenty such, to which he makes more\nor less remote allusion in the text. There is an excellent article on\n\u201cTuscan Proverbs\u201d in _Fraser\u2019s Magazine_, Jan. 1857.\n\n[63] _Arabic Proverbs of the Modern Egyptians._ London: 1830.\n\n[64] Yet this very mournful collection of Burckhardt\u2019s possesses at\nleast one very beautiful proverb on the all conquering power of love:\n_Man is the slave of beneficence_.\n\n[65] En casa del Moro no hables algarabia.\n\n[66] Sermon sin Agostino, olla sin tocino.\n\n[67] Gross und leer, wie das Heidelberger Fass.\n\n[68] Doctor Luther\u2019s Schuhe sind nicht allen Dorfpriestern gerecht.\n\n[69] Cum duplicantur lateres, Moses venit.\n\n[70] La gente pone, y Dios dispone.\u2014Der Mensch denkt\u2019s; Gott lenkt\u2019s.\n\n[71] La padella dice al pajuolo, Fatti in l\u00e0, che tu mi tigni.\n\n[72] Dij\u00f3 la corneja al cuervo, Qu\u00edtate all\u00e1, negro.\n\n[73] Ein Esel schimpft den andern, Langohr.\n\n[74] \u0393\u03bb\u03b1\u1fe6\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f08\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2.\n\n[75] Wer sich auf der Achsel sitzen l\u00e4sst, dem sitzt man nachher auf\ndem Kopfe.\n\n[76] Se ti lasci metter in spalla il vitello, quindi a poco ti metteran\nla vacca.\n\n[77] Dame donde me asiente, que yo har\u00e9 donde me acueste.\n\n[78] Qui se fait brebis, le loup le mange.\n\n[79] There is a Catalan proverb to the same effect: Qui de tot es moll,\nde tot es foll.\n\n[80] Autant p\u00e8che celui qui tient le sac, que celui qui met dedans.\n\n[81] Wer die Leiter h\u00e4lt, ist so schuldig wie der Dieb.\n\n[82] Quien no adoba gotera, adoba casa entera.\n\n[83] Benedetto \u00e8 quel male, che vien solo.\u2014Un mal \u00e8 la vigilia\ndell\u2019altro.\u2014Un male ed un Frate di rado soli.\n\n[84] Al villano, se gli porgi il dito, ei prende la mano.\n\n[85] Dieu donne le froid selon le drap.\u2014Cada cual siente el frio como\nanda vestido.\n\n[86] Cui serpe mozzica, lucerta teme.\n\n[87] El rio passado, el santo olvidado.\n\n[88] Passato il punto, gabbato il santo.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nTHE POETRY, WIT, AND WISDOM OF PROVERBS.\n\n\nIt will be my endeavour in the three lectures which I have still\nto deliver to justify the attention which I have claimed on behalf\nof proverbs from you, not merely by appealing to the authority of\nothers, who at different times have prized and made much of them,\nbut by bringing out and setting before you, so far as I have the\nskill to do it, some of the merits and excellencies by which they\nare mainly distinguished. Their wit, their wisdom, their poetry, the\ndelicacy, the fairness, the manliness which characterize so many of\nthem, their morality, their theology, will all by turns come under\nour consideration. Yet shall I beware of presenting them to you as\nthough they embodied these nobler qualities only. I shall not keep out\nof sight that there are proverbs, coarse, selfish, unjust, cowardly,\nprofane; \u201cmaxims\u201d wholly undeserving of the honour implied by that\nname.[89] Still as my pleasure, and I doubt not yours, is rather in the\nwheat than in the tares, I shall, while I do not conceal this, prefer\nto dwell in the main on the nobler features which they present.\n\n[Sidenote: Poetic imagery.]\n\nAnd first, in regard of the poetry of proverbs\u2014whatever is _from_ the\npeople, or truly _for_ the people, whatever either springs from their\nbosom, or has been cordially accepted by them, still more whatever\nunites both these conditions, will have poetry, imagination, in it.\nFor little as the people\u2019s craving after wholesome nutriment of the\nimaginative faculty, and after an entrance into a fairer and more\nharmonious world than that sordid and confused one with which often\nthey are surrounded, is duly met and satisfied, still they yearn after\nall this with an honest hearty yearning, which must put to shame\nthe palled indifference, the only affected enthusiasm of too many,\nwhose opportunities of cultivating this glorious faculty have been so\nimmeasurably greater than theirs. This being so, and proverbs being, as\nwe have seen, the sayings that have found favour with the people, their\npeculiar inheritance, we may be quite sure that there will be poetry,\nimagination, passion, in them. So much we might affirm beforehand; our\ncloser examination of them will confirm the confidence which we have\nbeen bold to entertain.\n\nThus we may expect to find that they will contain often bold imagery,\nstriking comparisons; and such they do. Let serve as an example our\nown: _Gray hairs are death\u2019s blossoms_;[90] or the Italian: _Time\nis an inaudible file_;[91] or the Greek: _Man a bubble_;[92] which\nJeremy Taylor has expanded into such glorious poetry in the opening\nof the _Holy Dying_; or that Turkish: _Death is a black camel which\nkneels at every man\u2019s gate_; to take up, that is, the burden of a\ncoffin there; or this Arabic one, on the never satisfied eye of desire:\n_Nothing but a handful of dust will fill the eye of man_; or another\nfrom the same quarter, worthy of Mecca\u2019s prophet himself, and of the\nearnestness with which he realized Gehenna, whatever else he may have\ncome short in: _There are no fans in hell_; or this other, also from\nthe East: _Hold all skirts of thy mantle extended, when heaven is\nraining gold_; improve, that is, to the uttermost the happier crises of\nthy spiritual life; or this Indian, to the effect that good should be\nreturned for evil: _The sandal tree perfumes the axe that fells it_;\nor this one, current in the Middle Ages: _Whose life lightens, his\nwords thunder_;[93] or once more, this Chinese: _Towers are measured by\ntheir shadows, and great men by their calumniators_; however this last\nmay have somewhat of an artificial air as tried by our standard of the\nproverb.\n\nThere may be poetry in a play upon words; and such we shall hardly\nfail to acknowledge in that beautiful Spanish proverb: _La verdad es\nsiempre verde_, which I must leave in its original form; for were I to\ntranslate it, _The truth is always green_, its charm and chief beauty\nwould be looked for in vain. It finds its pendant and complement in\nanother, which I must also despair of adequately rendering: _Gloria\nvana florece, y no grana_; which would express this truth, namely, that\nvain glory can shoot up into stalk and ear, but can never attain to the\nfull grain in the ear. Nor can we, I think, refuse the title of poetry\nto this Eastern proverb, in which the wish that a woman may triumph\nover her enemies, clothes itself thus: _May her enemies stumble over\nher hair_;\u2014may she flourish so, may her hair, the outward sign of this\nprosperity, grow so rich and long, may it so sweep the ground, that her\ndetractors and persecutors may be entangled by it and fall.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Witty proverbs.]\n\nAnd then, how exquisitely witty many proverbs are. Thus, not to speak\nof one familiar to us all, which is perhaps the queen of all proverbs:\n_The road to hell is paved with good intentions_;[94] take this Scotch\none: _A man may love his house well, without riding on the ridge_; it\nis enough for a wise man to know what is precious to himself, without\nmaking himself ridiculous by evermore proclaiming it to the world;\nor this of our own: _When the devil is dead, he never wants a chief\nmourner_; in other words, there is no abuse so enormous, no evil so\nflagrant, but that the interests or passions of some will be so bound\nup in its continuance that they will lament its extinction; or this\nItalian: _When rogues go in procession, the devil holds the cross_;[95]\nwhen evil men have it thus far their own way, then worst is best,\nand in the inverted hierarchy which is then set up, the foremost in\nbadness is foremost also in such honour as is going. Or consider how\nhappily the selfishness and bye-ends which too often preside at men\u2019s\nvery prayers are noted in this Portuguese: _Cobblers go to mass, and\npray that cows may die_;[96] that is, that so leather may be cheap.\nOr, take another, a German one, noting with slightest exaggeration a\nmeasure of charity which is only too common: _He will swallow an egg,\nand give away the shells in alms_; or this from the Talmud, of which I\nwill leave the interpretation to yourselves: _All kinds of wood burn\nsilently, except thorns, which crackle and call out, We too are wood_.\n\nThe wit of proverbs spares few or none. They are, as may be supposed,\nespecially intolerant of fools. _We_ say: _Fools grow without\nwatering_; no need therefore of adulation or flattery, to quicken them\nto a ranker growth; for indeed _The more you stroke the cat\u2019s tail, the\nmore he raises his back_;[97] and the Russians: _Fools are not planted\nor sowed; they grow of themselves_; while the Spaniards: _If folly were\na pain, there would be crying in every house_;[98] having further an\nexquisitely witty one on learned folly as the most intolerable of all\nfollies: _A fool, unless he know Latin, is never a great fool_.[99] And\nhere is excellently unfolded to us the secret of the fool\u2019s confidence:\n_Who knows nothing, doubts nothing_.[100]\n\n[Sidenote: Bohemian proverb.]\n\nThe shafts of their pointed satire are directed with an admirable\nimpartiality against men of every degree, so that none of us will\nbe found to have wholly escaped. To pass over those, and they are\nexceedingly numerous, which are aimed at members of the monastic\norders,[101] I must fain hope that this Bohemian one, pointing at\nthe clergy, is not true; for it certainly argues no very forgiving\ntemper on our parts in cases where we have been, or fancy ourselves to\nhave been, wronged. It is as follows: _If you have offended a clerk,\nkill him; else you never will have peace with him_.[102] And another\nproverb, worthy to take its place among the best even of the Spanish,\ncharges the clergy with being the authors of the chiefest spiritual\nmischiefs which have risen up in the Church: _By the vicar\u2019s skirts the\ndevil climbs up into the belfry_.[103] Nor do physicians appear in the\nmiddle ages to have been in very high reputation for piety; for a Latin\nmedieval proverb boldly proclaims: _Where there are three physicians,\nthere are two atheists_.[104] And as for lawyers, this of the same\nperiod, _Legista, nequista_,[105] expresses itself not with such\nbrevity only, but with such downright plainness of speech, that I shall\nexcuse myself from attempting to render it into English. Nor do other\nsorts and conditions of men escape. \u201cThe miller tolling with his golden\nthumb,\u201d has been often the object of malicious insinuations; and of him\nthe Germans have a proverb: _What is bolder than a miller\u2019s neckcloth,\nwhich takes a thief by the throat every morning?_[106] Evenhanded\njustice might perhaps require that I should find caps for other heads;\nand it is not that such are wanting, nor yet out of fear lest any\nshould be offended, but only because I must needs hasten onward, that\nI leave this part of my subject without further development.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs about pride.]\n\nWhat a fine knowledge of the human heart will they often display. I\nknow not whether this Persian saying on the subtleties of pride is a\nproverb in the very strictest sense of the word, but it is forcibly\nuttered: _Thou shalt sooner detect an ant moving in the dark night on\nthe black earth, than all the motions of pride in thine heart_. And on\nthe wide reach of this sin the Italians say: _If pride were as art, how\nmany graduates we should have_;[107] and how excellent and searching\nis this word of theirs on the infinitely various shapes which this\nprotean sin will assume: _There are who despise pride with a greater\npride_,[108] one which might almost seem to have been founded on the\nstory of Diogenes, who, treading under his feet a rich carpet of\nPlato\u2019s, exclaimed, \u201cThus I trample on the ostentation of Plato;\u201d \u2018With\nan ostentation of thine own,\u2019 was the other\u2019s excellent retort;\u2014even\nas on another occasion he observed, with admirable wit, that he saw the\npride of the Cynic peeping through the rents of his mantle: for indeed\npride can array itself quite as easily in rags as in purple; can affect\nsqualors as earnestly as splendours; the lowest place and the last is\nof itself no security at all for humility; and out of a sense of this\n_we_ very well have said: _As proud go behind as before_.\n\nSometimes in their subtle observation of life, they arrive at\nconclusions which we would very willingly question or reject, but to\nwhich it is impossible to refuse a certain amount of assent. Thus it\nis with the very striking German proverb: _One foe is too many; and an\nhundred friends too few_.[109] There speaks out in this a sense of how\nmuch more _active_ a principle in this world will hate be sometimes\nthan love. The hundred friends will _wish_ you well; but the one foe\nwill _do_ you ill. Their benevolence will be ordinarily passive; his\nmalevolence will be constantly active; it will be _animosity_, or\nspiritedness in evil. The proverb will have its use, if we are stirred\nup by it to prove its assertion false, to show that, in very many cases\nat least, there is no such blot as it would set on the scutcheon of\ntrue friendship. In the same rank of unwelcome proverbs I must range\nthis Persian one: _Of four things every man has more than he knows: of\nsins, of debts, of years, and of foes_; and this Spanish: _One father\ncan support ten children; ten children cannot support one father_;\nwhich, in so far as it rests upon a certain ground of truth, suggests a\npainful reflection in regard of the less strength which there must be\nin the filial than in the paternal affection, since to the one those\nacts of self-sacrificing love are easy, which to the other are hard,\nand often impossible. But yet, seeing that it is the order of God\u2019s\nprovidence in the world that fathers should in all cases support\nchildren, while it is the exception when children are called to support\nparents, one can only admire that wisdom which has made the instincts\nof natural affection to run rather in the descending than in the\nascending line; a wisdom to which this proverb, though with a certain\nexaggeration of the facts, bears witness.\n\n[Sidenote: French proverb.]\n\nHow exquisitely delicate is the touch of this French proverb: _It is\neasy to go afoot, when one leads one\u2019s horse by the bridle_.[110] How\nfine and subtle an insight into the inner workings of the human heart\nis here; how many cheap humilities are here set at their true worth. It\n_is_ easy to stoop from state, when that state may be resumed at will;\neasy for one to part with luxuries and indulgences, which he only parts\nwith exactly so long as it may please himself. No reason indeed is to\nbe found in this comparative easiness for the not \u2018going afoot;\u2019 on the\ncontrary, it may be to him a most profitable exercise; but every reason\nfor not esteeming the doing so too highly, nor setting it on a level\nwith the trudging upon foot of him, who has no horse to fall back on at\nwhatever moment he may please.\n\nThere is, and always must be, some rough work to be done in the world;\nwork which, though rough, is not therefore in the least ignoble; and\nthe schemes, so daintily conceived, of a luxurious society, which\nrepose on a tacit assumption that nobody shall have to do this work,\nare touched with a fine irony in this Arabic proverb: _If I am master,\nand thou art master, who shall drive the asses?_[111]\n\nAgain, how clever is the satire of the following Haytian proverb,\nwhich, however, I must introduce with a little preliminary explanation.\nIt was one current among the slave population of St. Domingo, and with\nit they ridiculed the ambition and pretension of the mulatto race\nimmediately above them. These, in imitation of the French planters,\nmust have their duels too\u2014duels, however, which had nothing earnest or\nserious about them, invariably ending in a reconciliation and a feast,\nthe kids which furnished the latter being in fact the only sufferers,\ntheir blood that which alone was shed. All this the proverb uttered:\n_Mulattoes fight, kids die_.[112]\n\n[Sidenote: Fuller\u2019s use of proverbs.]\n\nAnd proverbs, witty in themselves, often become wittier still in their\napplication, like gems that acquire new brilliancy from their setting,\nor from some novel light in which they are held. No writer that I know\nof has an happier skill in thus adding wit to the witty than Fuller,\nthe Church historian. Let me confirm this assertion by one or two\nexamples drawn from his writings. He is describing the indignation,\nthe outcries, the remonstrances, which the thousandfold extortions, the\nintolerable exactions of the Papal See gave birth to in England during\nthe reigns of such subservient kings as our Third Henry; yet he will\nnot have his readers to suppose that the Popes fared a whit the worse\nfor all this outcry which was raised against them; not so, for _The\nfox thrives best when he is most cursed_;[113] the very loudness of\nthe clamour was itself rather an evidence how well they were faring.\nOr again, he is telling of that Duke of Buckingham, well known to us\nthrough Shakespeare\u2019s _Richard the Third_, who, having helped the\ntyrant to a throne, afterwards took mortal displeasure against him;\nthis displeasure he sought to hide, till a season arrived for showing\nit with effect, in the deep of his heart, but in vain; for, as Fuller\nobserves, _It is hard to halt before a cripple_; the arch-hypocrite\nRichard, he to whom dissembling was as a second nature, saw through\nand detected at once the shallow Buckingham\u2019s clumsier deceit. And\nthe _Church History_ abounds with similar happy applications. Fuller,\nindeed, possesses so much of the wit out of which proverbs spring,\nthat it is not seldom difficult to tell whether he is adducing a\nproverb, or uttering some proverb-like saying of his own. Thus, I\ncannot remember ever to have met any of the following, which yet sound\nlike proverbs\u2014the first on solitude as preferable to ill fellowship:\n_Better ride alone than have a thief\u2019s company_;[114] the second\nagainst certain who disparaged one whose excellencies they would have\nfound it very difficult to imitate: _They who complain that Grantham\nsteeple stands awry, will not set a straighter by it_,[115] and in this\nhe warns against despising in any the tokens of honourable toil: _Mock\nnot a cobbler for his black thumbs_.[116]\n\nBut the glory of proverbs, that, perhaps, which strikes us most often\nand most forcibly in regard of them, is their shrewd common sense,\nthe sound wisdom for the management of our own lives, and of our\nintercourse with our fellows, which so many of them contain. In truth,\nthere is no region of practical life which they do not occupy, for\nwhich they do not supply some wise hints and counsels and warnings.\nThere is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have\ncommitted, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson,\nmight have saved us from it. \u201cAdages,\u201d indeed, according to the more\nprobable etymology of that word, they are, _apt for action_ and\nuse.[117]\n\n[Sidenote: Wisdom of silence.]\n\nThus, how many of these popular sayings and what good ones there are on\nthe wisdom of governing the tongue,\u2014I speak not now of those urging\nthe _duty_, though such are by no means wanting,\u2014but the wisdom,\nprudence, and profit of knowing how to keep silence as well as how to\nspeak. The Persian, perhaps, is familiar to many: _Speech is silvern,\nsilence is golden_; with which we may compare the Italian: _Who speaks,\nsows; who keeps silence, reaps_;[118] and on the _safety_ that is in\nsilence, I know none happier than another from the same quarter, and\none most truly characteristic of Italian caution: _Silence was never\nwritten down_;[119] while, on the other hand, we are excellently warned\nof the irrevocableness of the word which has once gone from us in this\nEastern proverb: _Of thine unspoken word thou art master; thy spoken\nword is master of thee_; even as the same is set out elsewhere by many\nstriking comparisons; it is the arrow from the bow, the stone from the\nsling; and, once launched, can as little be recalled as these.[120]\nOur own, _He who says what he likes, shall hear what he does not\nlike_, gives a further motive for self-government in speech; while\nthis Spanish is in an higher strain: _The evil which issues from thy\nmouth falls into thy bosom_.[121] Nor is it enough to abstain ourselves\nfrom all such words; we must not make ourselves partakers in those of\nothers; which it is only too easy to do; for, as the Chinese have\nsaid very well: _He who laughs at an impertinence, makes himself its\naccomplice_.\n\nAnd then, in proverbs not a few what profitable warnings have we\nagainst the fruits of evil companionship, as in that homely one of our\nown: _He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas_;[122] or,\nagain, in the old Hebrew one: _Two dry sticks will set on fire one\ngreen_; or, in another from the East, which has to do with the same\ntheme, and plainly shows whither such companionship will lead: _He that\ntakes the raven for a guide, shall light upon carrion_.\n\n[Sidenote: Good sense in proverbs.]\n\nWhat warnings do many contain against unreasonable expectations,\nagainst a looking for perfection in a world of imperfection, and\ngenerally a demanding of more from life than life can yield. _We_ note\nvery well the folly of one addicted to this, saying: _He expects better\nbread than can be made of wheat_; and the Portuguese: _He that will\nhave an horse without fault, let him go afoot_; and the French: _Where\nthe goat is tied, there she must browse_.[123] Again, what a good word\nof caution in respect of the wisdom of considering oftentimes a step\nwhich, being once taken, is taken for ever, lies in the following\nRussian proverb: _Measure thy cloth ten times; thou canst cut it but\nonce_. And in this Spanish the final issues of procrastination are\nwell set forth: _By the street of \u201cBy-and-bye\u201d one arrives at the\nhouse of \u201cNever.\u201d_[124] In how pleasant a way discretion in avoiding\nall appearance of evil is urged in the following Chinese: _In a field\nof melons tie not thy shoe; under a plum-tree adjust not thy cap_.\nAnd this Danish warns us well against relying too much on other men\u2019s\nsilence, since there is no rarer gift than the capacity of keeping a\nsecret: _Tell nothing to thy friend which thine enemy may not know_.\nHere is a word which we owe to Italy, and which, laid to heart, might\nkeep men out of law-suits, or, being in them, from refusing to accept\ntolerable terms of accommodation: _The robes of lawyers are lined with\nthe obstinacy of suitors_.[125] Other words of wisdom and warning, for\nso I must esteem them, are these; this, on the danger of being overset\nby prosperity: _Everything may be borne, except good fortune_;[126]\nwith which may be compared our own: _Bear wealth, poverty will bear\nitself_; and another Italian which says: _In prosperity no altars\nsmoke_.[127] This is on the disgrace which will sooner or later follow\nupon dressing ourselves out in intellectual finery that does not belong\nto us: _Who arrays himself in other men\u2019s garments, is stripped in the\nmiddle of the street_;[128] he is detected and laid bare when and where\ndetection is most shameful.\n\nOf the same miscellaneous character, and derived from quarters the\nmost diverse, but all of them of an excellent sense or shrewdness, are\nthe following. This is from Italy: _Who sees not the bottom, let him\nnot pass the water_.[129] This is current among the free blacks of\nHayti: _Before fording the river, do not curse Mrs. Alligator_;[130]\nprovoke not wantonly those in whose power you presently may be. This is\nSpanish: _Call me not \u201colive,\u201d till you see me gathered_;[131] being\nnearly parallel to our own: _Praise a fair day at night_; and this\nFrench: _Take the first advice of a woman, and not the second_;[132]\na proverb of much wisdom; for in processes of reasoning, out of which\nthe second counsels would spring, women may and will be, inferior to\nus; but in intuitions, in moral intuitions above all, they surpass us\nfar; they have what Montaigne ascribes to them in a remarkable word,\n\u201cl\u2019esprit _primesautier_,\u201d the leopard\u2019s spring, which takes its prey,\nif it be to take it at all, at the first bound.\n\nAnd I cannot but think that for as many as are seeking diligently to\nimprove their time and opportunities of knowledge, with at the same\ntime little of either which they can call their own, a very useful\nhint and warning against an error which lies very near, is contained\nin the little Latin proverb: _Compendia, dispendia_. Nor indeed for\nthem only, but for all, and in numberless respects it often proves true\nthat a short cut may be a very long way home; yet the proverb can never\nbe applied better than to those little catechisms of science, those\nskeleton outlines of history, those epitomes of all useful information,\nthose thousand delusive short cuts to the attainment of that knowledge,\nwhich can indeed only be acquired by them that are content to travel on\nthe king\u2019s highway, on the old, and as I must still call it, the royal\nroad of patience, perseverance, and toil. Surely these _compendia_, so\nmeagre and so hungry, with little food for the intellect, with less for\nthe affections, we may style with fullest right _dispendia_, wasteful\nas they generally prove of whatever time and labour and money is\nbestowed upon them; and every wise man will set his seal to this word,\nas wisely as it is grandly spoken: \u201cAll spacious minds, attended with\nthe felicities of means and leisure, will fly abridgements as bane.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs about books.]\n\nAnd being on the subject of books and the choice of books, let me put\nbefore you a proverb, and in this reading age a very serious one; it\ncomes to us from Italy, and it says: _There is no worse robber than a\nbad book_.[133] Indeed, none worse, nor so bad; other robbers may spoil\nus of our money; but this robber of our \u201cgoods\u201d\u2014of our time at any\nrate, even assuming the book to be only negatively bad; but of how\nmuch more, of our principles, our faith, our purity of heart, supposing\nits badness to be positive, and not negative only. And one more on\nbooks may fitly find place here: _Dead men open living men\u2019s eyes_; at\nleast I take it to be such; and to contain implicitly the praise of\nhistory, and an announcement of the instruction which it will yield\nus.[134]\n\nHere are one or two prudent words on education. _A child may have\ntoo much of its mother\u2019s blessing_; yes, for that blessing may be no\nblessing, but rather a curse, if it take the shape of foolish and fond\nindulgence; and in the same strain is this German: _Better the child\nweep than the father_.[135] And this, like many others, is found in so\nmany tongues, that it cannot be ascribed to one rather than another:\n_More springs in the garden than the gardener ever sowed_.[136] It is a\nproverb for many, but most of all for parents and teachers, that they\nlap not themselves in a false dream of security, as though nothing was\nat work or growing in the minds of the young in their guardianship, but\nwhat they themselves had sown there, as though there was not another\nwho might very well have sown his tares beside and among any good seed\nof their sowing. At the same time the proverb has also its happier\nside. There may be, there often are, better things also in this garden\nthan ever the earthly gardener set there, seeds of the more immediate\nsowing of God. In either of its aspects this proverb is one deserving\nto be laid to heart.\n\n[Sidenote: Gold\u2019s worth is gold.]\n\nProverbs will sometimes outrun and implicitly anticipate conclusions,\nwhich are only after long struggles and efforts arrived at as the\nformal and undoubted conviction of all thoughtful men. After how long\na conflict has that been established as a maxim in political economy,\nwhich the brief Italian proverb long ago announced: _Gold\u2019s worth is\ngold_.[137] What millions upon millions of national wealth have been as\nmuch lost as if they had been thrown into the sea, from the inability\nof those who have had the destinies of nations in their hands to grasp\nthis simple proposition, that everything which could purchase money,\nor which money would fain purchase, was as really wealth as the money\nitself. What forcing of national industries into unnatural channels\nhas resulted from this, what mischievous restrictions in the buying\nand selling of one people with another. Nay, can the truth which this\nproverb affirms be said even now to be accepted without gainsaying\u2014so\nlong as the talk about the balance of trade being in favour of or\nagainst a nation, as the fear of draining a country of its gold, still\nsurvive?\n\nHere is a proverb of many tongues: _One sword keeps another in its\nscabbard_;[138]\u2014surely a far wiser and far manlier word than the\npuling yet mischievous babble of our shallow Peace Societies, which,\nwhile they fancy that they embody, and they only embody, the true\nspirit of Christianity, proclaim themselves in fact ignorant of all\nwhich it teaches; for they dream of having peace the fruit, while at\nthe same time the root of bitterness out of which have grown all the\nwars and fightings that have ever been in the world, namely the lusts\nwhich stir in men\u2019s members, remain strong and vigorous as ever. But\nno; it is not they that are the peacemakers: in the face of an evil\nworld, and of a world determined to continue in its evil, _He who bears\nthe sword_, and though he fain would not, yet knows how, if need be, to\nwield it, _he bears peace_.[139]\n\nOne of the most remarkable features of a good proverb is the singular\nvariety of applications which it will admit, which indeed it challenges\nand invites. Not lying on the surface of things, but going deep down to\ntheir heart, it will be found capable of being applied again and again,\nunder circumstances the most different; like the gift of which Solomon\nspake, \u201cwhithersoever it turneth, it prospereth;\u201d or like a diamond cut\nand polished upon many sides, which reflects and refracts the light\nupon every one. There can be no greater mistake than the attempt to\ntie it down and restrict it to a single application, when indeed the\nvery character of it is that it is ever finding or making new ones for\nitself.\n\n[Sidenote: Scriptural proverb.]\n\nIt is nothing strange that with words of Eternal Wisdom this should be\nso, and in respect of them my assertion cannot need a proof. I will,\nnotwithstanding, adduce as a first confirmation of it a scriptural\nproverb, one which fell from the Lord\u2019s lips in his last prophecies\nabout Jerusalem: _Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles\nbe gathered together_; (Matt. xxiv. 28;) and which probably He had\ntaken up from Job. (xxxix. 30.) Who would venture to say that he had\nexhausted the meaning of this wonderful saying? For is it not properly\ninexhaustible? All history is a comment on these words. Wherever\nthere is a Church or a people abandoned by the spirit of life, and\nso a carcase, tainting the atmosphere of God\u2019s moral world, around\nit assemble the ministers and messengers of Divine justice, \u201cthe\neagles,\u201d (or vultures more strictly, for the true eagle does not feed\non aught but what itself has slain,) the scavengers of God\u2019s moral\nworld; scenting out as by a mysterious instinct the prey from afar,\nand charged to remove presently the offence out of the way. This\nproverb, for the saying has passed upon the lips of men, and thus has\nbecome such, is being fulfilled evermore. The wicked Canaanites were\nthe carcase, when the children of Israel entered into their land, the\ncommissioned eagles that should remove them out of sight. At a later\nday the Jews were themselves the carcase, and the Romans the eagles;\nand when in the progress of decay, the Roman empire had quite lost\nthe spirit of life, and those virtues of the family and the nation\nwhich had deservedly made it great, the northern tribes, the eagles\nnow, came down upon it, to tear it limb from limb, and make room for\na new creation that should grow up in its stead. Again, the Persian\nempire was the carcase; Alexander and his Macedonian hosts, the eagles\nthat by unerring instinct gathered round it to complete its doom. The\nGreek Church in the seventh century was too nearly a carcase to escape\nthe destiny of such, and the armies of Islam scented their prey, and\ndivided it among them. In modern times Poland was, I fear, such a\ncarcase; and this one may affirm without in the least extenuating their\nguilt who partitioned it; for it might have been just for it to suffer,\nwhat yet it was most unrighteous for others to inflict. Nay, where do\nyou not find an illustration of this proverb, from such instances on\nthe largest scale as these, down to that of the silly and profligate\nheir, surrounded by sharpers and black-legs, and preyed on by these?\nEverywhere it is true that _Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the\neagles be gathered together_.\n\n[Sidenote: Extremes meet.]\n\n[Sidenote: Too far East is West.]\n\nOr, again, consider such a proverb as the short but well-known one:\n_Extremes meet_. Short as it is, it is yet a motto on which whole\nvolumes might be written, which is finding its illustration every\nday,\u2014in small and in great,\u2014in things trivial and in things most\nimportant,\u2014in the histories of single men, and in those of nations\nand of Churches. Consider some of its every-day fulfilments,\u2014old age\nending in second childhood,\u2014cold performing the effects of heat, and\nscorching as heat would have done,\u2014the extremities alike of joy and\nof grief finding utterance in tears,\u2014that which is above all value\ndeclared to have no value at all, to be \u201cinvaluable,\u201d\u2014the second\nsingular \u201cthou\u201d instead of the plural \u201cyou,\u201d employed in so many\nlanguages to inferiors and to God, never to equals; just as servants\nand children are alike called by the Christian name, but not those who\nstand in the midway of intimacy between them. Or to take some further\nillustrations from the moral world, of extremes meeting; observe how\noften those who begin their lives as spendthrifts end them as misers;\nhow often the flatterer and the calumniator meet in the same person:\nout of a sense of which the Italians say well: _Who paints me before,\nblackens me behind_;[140] observe how those who yesterday would have\nsacrificed to Paul as a god, will to-day stone him as a malefactor;\n(Acts xiv. 18, 19; cf. xxviii. 4-6;) even as Roman emperors would one\nday have blasphemous honours paid to them by the populace, and the next\ntheir bodies would be dragged by a hook through the streets of the\ncity, to be flung into the common sewer. Or note again in what close\nalliance hardness and softness, cruelty and self-indulgence (\u201clust hard\nby hate\u201d), are continually found; or in law, how the _summum jus_,\nwhere unredressed by equity, becomes the _summa injuria_, as in the\ncase of Shylock\u2019s pound of flesh, which was indeed no more than was in\nthe bond. Or observe on a greater scale, as lately in France, how a\nwild and lawless democracy may be transformed by the base trick of a\nconjuror into an atrocious military tyranny.[141] Or read thoughtfully\nthe history of the Church and of the sects, and you will not fail\nto note what things apparently the most remote are yet in the most\nfearful proximity with one another: how often, for example, a false\nasceticism has issued in frantic outbreaks of fleshly lusts, and those\nwho avowed themselves at one time ambitious to live lives above men,\nhave ended in living lives below beasts. Again, take note of England at\nthe Restoration exchanging all in a moment the sour strictness of the\nPuritans for a licence and debauchery unknown to it before. Or, once\nmore, consider the exactly similar position in respect of Scripture,\ntaken up by the Romanists on the one side, the Quakers and Familists\non the other. Seeming, and in much being, so remote from one another,\nthey yet have this fundamental in common, that Scripture, insufficient\nin itself, needs a supplement from without, those finding it in a Pope,\nand these in the \u201cinward light.\u201d[142] With these examples before you,\nnot to speak of the many others which might be adduced,[143] you will\nown, I think, that this proverb, _Extremes meet_, or its parallel, _Too\nfar East is West_, reaches very far into the heart of things; and with\nthis for the present I must conclude.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[89] Regul\u00e6 qu\u00e6 inter _maximas_ numerari merentur.\n\n[90] In German: Grau\u2019 Hare sind Kirchhofsblumen.\n\n[91] Il tempo \u00e8 una lima sorda.\n\n[92] \u03a0\u03bf\u03bc\u03c6\u03cc\u03bb\u03c5\u03be \u1f41 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n[93] Cujus vita fulgor, ejus verba tonitrua. Cf. Mark iii. 17: \u03c5\u1f31\u03bf\u1f76\n\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2.\n\n[94] Admirably glossed in the _Guesses at Truth_: \u201cPluck up the stones,\nye sluggards, and break the devil\u2019s head with them.\u201d\n\n[95] Quando i furbi vanno in processione, il diavolo porta la croce.\n\n[96] Va\u00f4 \u00e1 missa \u00e7apateiros, roga\u00f4 a Deos que morra\u00f4 os carneiros.\n\n[97] This is Swedish: Zu mera man stryken Katten p\u00e1 Swanzen, zu mera\npyser pan.\n\n[98] Si la locura fuese dolores, en cada casa darian voces.\n\n[99] Tonto, sin saber latin, nunca es gran tonto.\n\n[100] Qui rien ne s\u00e7ait, de rien ne doute.\n\n[101] An earnest preacher of righteousness just before the Reformation\nquotes this one as current about them: Quod agere veretur obstinatus\ndiabolus, intrepide agit reprobus et contumax monachus.\n\n[102] It is Huss who, denouncing the sins of the clergy of his day,\nhas preserved this proverb for us: Malum proverbium contra nos\nconfinxerunt, dicentes, Si offenderis clericum, interfice eum; alias\nnunquam habebis pacem cum illo.\n\n[103] Por los haldas del vicario sube el diablo al campanario.\n\n[104] Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei. Of course those which imply that\nthey shorten rather than prolong the term of life, are numerous, as\nfor instance, the old French: Qui court apr\u00e8s le mi\u00e8re, court apr\u00e8s la\nbi\u00e8re.\n\n[105] In German: Juristen, b\u00f6sen Christen.\n\n[106] Bebel: Dicitur in proverbio nostro; nihil esse audacius indusio\nmolitoris, cum omni tempore matutino furem collo apprehendat.\n\n[107] Se la superbia fosse arte, quanti Dottori avressimo.\n\n[108] Tal sprezza la superbia con una maggior superbia.\n\n[109] Ein Feind ist zu viel; und hundert Freunde sind zu wenig.\n\n[110] Il est ais\u00e9 d\u2019aller \u00e0 pied, quand on tient son cheval par la\nbride.\n\n[111] The Gallegan proverb, _You a lady, I a lady, who shall drive the\nhogs a-field?_ (Vos dona, yo dona, quen botara a porca fora?) is only a\nvariation of this.\n\n[112] Mulates qua battent, cabrites qua morts.\n\n[113] A proverb of many tongues beside our own: thus in the Italian:\nQuanto pi\u00f9 la volpe \u00e8 maladetta, tanto maggior preda fa.\n\n[114] _Holy State_, b. 3, c. 5.\n\n[115] B. 2, c. 23.\n\n[116] B. 3, c. 2.\n\n[117] Adagia, ad agendum apta; this is the etymology of the word given\nby Festus.\n\n[118] Chi parla semina, chi tace raccoglie; compare the Swedish: B\u00e4ttre\ntyga \u00e4n illa tala (Better silence than ill speech).\n\n[119] Il tacer non f\u00f9 mai scritto.\n\n[120] Palabra de boca, piedra de honda.\u2014Palabra y piedra suelta no\ntiene vuelta.\n\n[121] El mal que de tu boca sale, en tu seno se cae.\n\n[122] Quien con perros se echa, con pulgas se levanta.\n\n[123] La ou la ch\u00e8vre est attach\u00e9e, il faut qu\u2019elle broute.\n\n[124] Por la calle de despues se va \u00e0 la casa de nunca.\n\n[125] Le vesti degl\u2019avvocati sono fodrate dell\u2019ostinazion dei\nlitiganti.\n\n[126] Ogni cosa si sopporta, eccetto il buon tempo.\n\n[127] Nella prosperit\u00e0 non fumano gl\u2019altari.\n\n[128] Quien con ropa agena se viste, en la calle se queda encueros.\n\n[129] Chi non vede il fondo, non passi l\u2019acqua.\n\n[130] Avant travers\u00e9 rivier, pas jur\u00e9 maman caiman. This and one or\ntwo other Haytian proverbs quoted in this volume I have derived from a\ncurious article, _Les m\u0153urs et la litt\u00e9rature n\u00e9gres_, by Gustave\nD\u2019Alaux, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, Mai 15me, 1852.\n\n[131] No me digas oliva, hasta que me veas cogida.\n\n[132] Prends le premier conseil d\u2019une femme, et non le second.\n\n[133] Non v\u2019\u00e8 il peggior ladro d\u2019un cattivo libro.\n\n[134] Los muertos abren los ojos a los vivos.\n\n[135] Es ist besser, das Kind weine denn der Vater.\n\n[136] Nace en la huerta lo que no siembra el hortelano.\n\n[137] Oro \u00e8, che oro vale;\u2014and of the multitudes that are rushing to\nthe Australian gold-fields, some may find this also true: Pi\u00f9 vale\nguadagnar in loto che perder in oro.\n\n[138] Una spada tien l\u2019altra nel fodro.\n\n[139] Qui porte \u00e9p\u00e9e, porte paix.\n\n[140] Chi dinanzi mi pinge, di dietro mi tinge. The history of the\nword \u201csycophant,\u201d and the manner in which it has travelled from its\noriginal to its present meaning, is a very striking confirmation of\nthis proverb\u2019s truth.\n\n[141] How and why it is that extremes here meet, and what are the inner\naffinities between a democracy and a tyranny, Plato has wonderfully\ntraced, _Rep._, ii. p. 217.\n\n[142] See Jeremy Taylor\u2019s _Dissuasive from Popery_, part 2, b. 1. sect.\n11, \u00a7 6.\n\n[143] \u201c_Extremes meet._ Truths, of all others the most awful and\ninteresting, are too often considered as _so_ true, that they lose all\nthe power of truths, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul,\nside by side with the most despised and exploded errors.\u201d\u2014COLERIDGE,\n_Aids to Reflection_.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nTHE MORALITY OF PROVERBS.\n\n\nThe morality of proverbs is a subject which I have not been able to\nleave wholly untouched until now, for of necessity it has offered\nitself to us continually, in one shape or another; yet hitherto I\nhave not regularly dealt with or considered it. To it I propose to\ndevote the present lecture. But how, it may be asked at the outset,\ncan any general verdict be pronounced about them? In a family like\ntheirs, spread so widely over the face of the earth, must there not\nbe found worthy members and unworthy, proverbs noble and base, holy\nand profane, heavenly and earthly;\u2014yea, heavenly, earthly, and\ndevilish? What common judgment of praise or censure can be pronounced\nupon all of these? Evidently none. The only question, therefore, for\nour consideration must be, whether there exists any such large and\nunquestionable preponderance either of the better sort or of the worse,\nas shall give us a right to pronounce a judgment on the whole in their\nfavour or against them, to affirm of them that their preponderating\ninfluence and weight is thrown into the balance of the good or of the\nevil.\n\nAnd here I am persuaded that no one can have devoted any serious\nattention to this aspect of the subject, but will own, (and seeing\nhow greatly popular morals are affected by popular proverbs, will own\nwith thankfulness,) that, if not without serious exceptions, yet still\nin the main they range themselves under the banners of the right and\nof the truth; he will allow that of so many as move in an ethical\nsphere at all, very far more are children of light and the day than\nof darkness and night. Indeed, the comparative paucity of unworthy\nproverbs is a very noticeable fact, and one to the causes of which I\nshall have presently to recur.\n\n[Sidenote: Coarse proverbs.]\n\nAt the same time, when I affirm this, I find it necessary to make\ncertain explanations, to draw certain distinctions. In the first place,\nI would not, by what I have said, in the least deny that an ample\nnumber of coarse proverbs are extant: it needs but to turn over a page\nor two of Ray\u2019s _Collection of English Proverbs_, or of Howell\u2019s, or\nindeed of any collection in any tongue, which has not been weeded\ncarefully, to convince oneself of the fact;\u2014nor yet would I deny, that\nof these many may, more or less, live upon the lips of men. Having\ntheir birth, for the most part, in a period of a nation\u2019s literature\nand life, when men are much more plain-spoken, and have far fewer\nreticences than is afterwards the case, it is nothing strange that some\nof them, employing words forbidden now, but not forbidden then, should\nsound coarse and indelicate enough in our ears: while indeed there are\nothers, whose offence and grossness these considerations, while they\nmay mitigate, are quite insufficient to excuse. But at the same time,\ngross words and images, (I speak not of wanton ones,) bad as they may\nbe, are altogether different from immoral maxims and rules of life. And\nit is these immoral maxims, unrighteous, selfish, or otherwise unworthy\nrules, of which I would affirm the number to be, if not absolutely, yet\nrelatively small.\n\nAnd then further, in estimating the morality of proverbs, this also\nwill claim in justice not to be forgotten. In the same manner as coarse\nproverbs are not necessarily immoral, so the application which is made\nof a proverb by us may very often be hardhearted and selfish, while\nyet the proverb itself is very far from so being. This selfishness and\nhardness lay not in it of primary intention, but only by our abuse; and\nin the cases of several, these two things, the proverb itself, and the\nordinary employment of it, will demand to be kept carefully apart from\none another. For instance: _He has made his bed, and now he must lie on\nit_;\u2014_As he has brewed, so he must drink_;\u2014_As he has sown, so must\nhe reap_;[144]\u2014if these are employed to justify us in refusing to save\nothers, so far as we may, from the consequences of their own folly, or\nimprudence, or even guilt, why then one can only say that they are very\nill employed; and there are few of us with whom it would not have gone\nhardly, had all those about us acted in the spirit of these proverbs\nso misinterpreted; had they refused to mitigate for us, so far as they\ncould, the consequences of our errors. But if the words are taken\nin their true sense, as homely announcements of that law of divine\nretaliations in the world, according to which men shall eat of the\nfruit of their own doings, and be filled with their own ways, who shall\ngainsay them? What affirm they more than every page of Scripture, every\nturn of human life, is affirming too, namely, that the everlasting\norder of God\u2019s universe cannot be violated with impunity, that there\nis a continual returning upon men of what they have done, and that in\ntheir history we may read their judgment?\n\n[Sidenote: Charity begins at home.]\n\n_Charity begins at home_, is the most obvious and familiar of these\nproverbs, selfishly abused. It may be, no doubt it often is, made\nthe plea for a selfish withholding of assistance from all but a few,\nwhom men may include in their \u201cat home,\u201d while sometimes the proverb\nreceives a narrower interpretation still; and self, and self only, is\naccounted to be \u201cat home.\u201d And yet, in truth, what were that charity\nworth, which did _not_ begin at home, which did _not_ preserve the\ndivine order and proportion and degree? It is not for nothing that we\nhave been grouped in families, neighbourhoods, and nations; and he who\nwill not recognise the divinely appointed nearnesses to himself of some\nover others, who thinks to be a cosmopolite without being a patriot,\na philanthropist without owning a distinguishing love for them that\nare peculiarly \u201chis own,\u201d who would thus have a circumference without\na centre, deceives his own heart; and affirming all men, to be equally\ndear to him, is indeed affirming them to be equally indifferent. Home,\nthe family, this is as the hearth at which the affections which are\nafterwards to go forth and warm in a larger circle, are themselves to\nbe kept lively and warm; and the charity which did not exercise itself\nin outcomings of kindness and love in the narrower, would be little\nlikely to seek a wider range for itself. Wherever else it may _end_,\nand the larger the sphere which it makes for itself the better, it must\nyet _begin_ at home.[145]\n\n[Sidenote: Prudential morality.]\n\nThere are, again, proverbs which, from another point of view, might\nseem of an ignoble cast, and as calculated to lower the tone of\nmorality among those who received them; proposing as they do secondary,\nand therefore unworthy, motives to actions, which ought to be performed\nout of the highest. I mean such as this: _Honesty is the best policy_;\nwherein honesty is commended, not because it is right, but because it\nis most prudent and politic, and has the promise of this present world.\nNow doubtless there are proverbs not a few which, like this, move in\nthe region of what has been by Coleridge so well called \u201cprudential\nmorality;\u201d and did we accept them as containing the whole circle of\nmotives to honesty or other right conduct, nothing could be worse, or\nmore fitted to lower the moral standard of our lives. He who resolves\nto be honest because, and only because, it is _the best policy_, will\nbe little likely long to continue honest at all. But the proverb does\nnot pretend to usurp the place of an ethical rule; it does not presume\nto cast down the higher law which should determine to honesty and\nuprightness, that it may put itself in its place; it only declares\nthat honesty, let alone that it is the right thing, is also, even\nfor this present world, the wisest. Nor dare we, let me further add,\ndespise prudential morality, such as is embodied in sayings like this.\nThe motives which it suggests are helps to a weak and tempted virtue,\nmay prove great assistances to it in some passing moment of a violent\ntemptation, however little they can be regarded as able to make men\n_for a continuance_ even outwardly upright and just.\n\nAnd once more, proverbs are not to be accounted selfish, which announce\nselfishness; unless they do it, either avowedly recommending it as a\nrule and maxim of life, or, if not so, yet with an evident complacency\nand satisfaction in the announcement which they make, and in this\nmore covert and perhaps still more mischievous way, taking part with\nthe evil which they proclaim. There are a great many proverbs, which\na lover of his race would be very thankful if there had been nothing\nin the world to justify or to provoke; for the convictions they\nembody, the experiences on which they rest must be regarded as very\nfar from complimentary to human nature: but seeing they express that\nwhich is, however we might desire it were not, it would be idle to\nwish them away, to wish that this evil had not found its utterance.\nNay, it is much better that it should so have done; for thus taking\nform and shape, and being brought directly under notice, it may be\nbetter watched against and avoided. Such proverbs, not selfish, but\nrather detecting selfishness and laying it bare, are the following;\nthis Russian, on the only too slight degree in which we are touched\nwith other men\u2019s troubles: _The burden is light on the shoulders of\nanother_; with which the French may be compared: _One has always enough\nstrength to bear the misfortunes of one\u2019s friends_.[146] Such is this\nItalian: _Every one draws the water to his own mill_;[147] or as it\nappears in its eastern shape, which brings up the desert-bivouack\nbefore one\u2019s eyes: _Every one rakes the embers to his own cake_. Such\nthis Latin, on the comparative wastefulness wherewith that which is\nanother\u2019s is too often used: _Men cut broad thongs from other men\u2019s\nleather_;[148] with many more of the same character, which it would be\nonly too easy to bring together.\n\n[Sidenote: Selfish proverbs.]\n\nWith all this, I would not of course in the least deny that immoral\nproverbs, and only too many of them, exist. For if they are, as we\nhave recognised them to be, the genuine transcript of what is stirring\nin the hearts of men, then, since there is cowardice, untruth,\nselfishness, unholiness, profaneness there, how should these be wanting\nhere? The world is not so consummate an hypocrite as the entire absence\nof all immoral proverbs would imply. There will be merely selfish\nones, as our own: _Every one for himself and God for us all_; or as\nthis Dutch: _Self\u2019s the man_;[149] or more shamelessly cynical still,\nas the French: _Better a grape for me, than two figs for thee_;[150]\nor again, such as proclaim a doubt and disbelief in the existence of\nany high moral integrity anywhere, as _Every man has his price_; or\nassume that poor men can scarcely be honest, as _It is hard for an\nempty sack to stand straight_; or take it for granted that every man\nwould cheat every other if he could, as the French: _Count after your\nfather_;[151] or, if they do not actually \u201cspeak good of the covetous,\u201d\nyet assume it possible that a blessing can wait on that which a wicked\ncovetousness has heaped together, as the Spanish: _Blessed is the son,\nwhose father went to the devil_; or find cloaks and apologies for sin,\nas the German: _Once is never_;[152] or such as would imply that the\nevil of a sin lay not in its sinfulness, but in the outward disgrace\nannexed to it, as the Italian: _A sin concealed is half forgiven_.[153]\nOr again there will be proverbs dastardly and base, as the Spanish\nmaxim of caution, which advises to _Draw the snake from its hole by\nanother man\u2019s hand_; to put, that is, another, and it may be for your\nown profit, to the peril from which you shrink yourself;\u2014or more\ndastardly still, \u201cscoundrel maxims,\u201d an old English poet has called\nthem; as for instance, that one which is acted on only too often: _One\nmust howl with the wolves_;[154] in other words, when a general cry is\nraised against any, it is safest to join it, lest one be supposed to\nsympathise with its object; to howl _with_ the wolves, if one would not\nbe hunted _by_ them. In the whole circle of proverbs I know no baser,\nnor more dastardly than this. And yet who will say that he has never\ntraced in himself the cowardly temptation to obey it? Besides these\nthere will be, of which I shall spare you any examples, proverbs wanton\nand impure, and not merely proverbs thus earthly and sensual, but\ndevilish; such as some of those Italian on revenge which I quoted in my\nthird lecture.\n\n[Sidenote: Immoral proverbs rare.]\n\nBut for all this these immoral proverbs, rank weeds among the wholesome\ncorn, are comparatively rare. In the minority with all people, they are\nimmeasurably in the minority with most. The fact is not a little worthy\nof our note. Surely there lies in it a solemn testimony, that however\nmen may and do in their conduct continually violate the rule of right,\nyet these violations are ever felt to be such, are inwardly confessed\nnot to be the law of man\u2019s life, but the transgressions of the law; and\nthus, stricken as with a secret shame, and paying an unconscious homage\nto the majesty of goodness, they do not presume to raise themselves\ninto maxims, nor, for all the frequency with which they may be\nrepeated, pretend to claim recognition as abiding standards of action.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Alms the salt of riches.]\n\nAs the sphere in which the proverb moves is no imaginary world, but\nthat actual and often very homely world which is round us and about\nus; as it does not float in the clouds, but sets its feet firmly on\nthis common earth of ours from which itself once grew, being occupied\nwith present needs and every-day cares, it is only natural that the\nproverbs having reference to money should be numerous; and in the main\nit would be well if the practice of the world rose to the height of\nits convictions as expressed in these. Frugality is connected with so\nmany virtues\u2014at least, its contrary makes so many impossible\u2014that the\nnumerous proverbial maxims inculcating this, than which none perhaps\nare more frequent on the lips of men, must be regarded as belonging\nto the better order;[155] especially when taken with the check of\nothers, which forbid this frugality from degenerating into a sordid\nand dishonourable parsimony; such, I mean, as our own: _The groat is\nill saved which shames its master_. In how many the conviction speaks\nout that the hastily-gotten will hardly be the honestly-gotten, that\n\u201che who makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent,\u201d as when the\nSpaniards say: _He who will be rich in a year, at the half-year they\nhang him_;[156] in how many others, the confidence that the ill-won\nwill also be the ill-spent,[157] that he who shuts up unlawful gain\nin his storehouses, is shutting up a fire that will one day destroy\nthem. Very solemn and weighty in this sense is the German proverb:\n_The unrighteous penny corrupts the righteous pound_;[158] and the\nSpanish, too, is striking: _That which is another\u2019s always yearns\nfor its lord_;[159] it yearns, that is, to be gone and get to its\ntrue owner. In how many the conviction is expressed that this mammon,\nwhich more than anything else men are tempted to think God does not\nconcern Himself about, is yet given and taken away by Him according\nto the laws of his righteousness; given sometimes to his enemies and\nfor their greater punishment, that under its fatal influence they may\ngrow worse and worse, for _The more the carle riches, he wretches_; but\noftener withdrawn, because no due acknowledgment of Him was made in its\nuse; as when the German proverb declares: _Charity gives itself rich;\ncovetousness hoards itself poor_;[160] and the Danish: _Give alms,\nthat thy children may not ask them_; and the Rabbis, with a yet deeper\nsignificance: _Alms are the salt of riches_; the true antiseptic,\nwhich as such shall prevent them from themselves corrupting, and\nfrom corrupting those that have them; which shall hinder them from\ndeveloping a germ of corruption, such as shall in the end involve in\none destruction them and their owners.[161]\n\nAt the same time, as it is the very character of proverbs to look at\nmatters all round, there are others to remind us that even this very\ngiving itself shall be with forethought and discretion; with selection\nof right objects, and in right proportion to each. Teaching this, the\nGreeks said, _Sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack_;[162]\nfor as it fares with the seed corn, which if it shall prosper, must\nbe providently dispersed with the hand, not prodigally shaken from\nthe sack\u2019s mouth, so is it with benefits, which shall do good either\nto those who impart, or to those who receive them. Thus again, there\nis a Danish which says, _So give to-day, that thou shalt be able to\ngive to-morrow_; and another: _So give to one, that thou shalt have to\ngive to another_.[163] And as closing this series, as teaching us in\na homely but striking manner, with an image Dantesque in its vigor,\nthat a man shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, take this\nItalian, _Our last robe_, that is our winding sheet, _is made without\npockets_.[164]\n\n[Sidenote: Manly proverbs.]\n\nLet me further invite you to observe and to admire the prevailing tone\nof manliness which pervades the great body of the proverbs of all\nnations: let me urge you to take note how very few there are which\nwould fain persuade you that \u201cluck is all,\u201d or that your fortunes are\nin any other hands, under God, than your own. This our own proverb,\n_Win purple and wear purple_, proclaims. There are some, but they are\nexceptions, to which the gambler, the idler, the so-called \u201cwaiter\nupon Providence,\u201d can appeal. For the most part, however, they\ncourageously accept the law of labour, _No pains, no gains_,\u2014_No\nsweat, no sweet_,\u2014_No mill, no meal_,[165] as the appointed law and\ncondition of man\u2019s life. _Where wilt thou go, ox, that thou wilt not\nhave to plough?_[166] is the Catalan remonstrance addressed to one,\nwho imagines by any outward change of circumstances to evade the\ninevitable task and toil of existence. And this is Turkish: _It is not\nwith saying Honey, Honey, that sweetness will come into the mouth_;\nand to many languages another with its striking image, _Sloth, the\nkey of poverty_,[167] belongs: while, on the other hand, there are in\nalmost all tongues such proverbs as the following: _God helps them that\nhelp themselves_;[168] or as it appears with a slight variation in the\nBasque: _God is a good worker, but He loves to be helped_. And these\nproverbs, let me observe by the way, were not strange, in their import\nat least, to the founder of that religion which is usually supposed\nto inculcate a blind and indolent fatalism\u2014however some who call\nthemselves by his name may have forgotten the lesson which they convey.\nCertainly they were not strange to Mahomet himself; if the following\nexcellently-spoken word has been rightly ascribed to him. One evening,\nwe are told, after a weary march through the desert, he was camping\nwith his followers, and overheard one of them saying, \u201cI will loose my\ncamel, and commit it to God;\u201d on which Mahomet took him up: \u201cFriend,\n_tie_ thy camel, and commit it to God;\u201d[169] do, that is, whatever is\nthine to do, and then leave the issue in higher hands; but till thou\nhast done this, till thou hast thus helped thyself, thou hast no right\nto look to Heaven to help thee.\n\n[Sidenote: Persian proverb.]\n\nHow excellently this unites genuine modesty and manly self-assertion:\n_Sit in your own place, and no man can make you rise_; and how good is\nthis Spanish, on the real dignity which there often is in doing things\nfor ourselves, rather than in standing by and suffering others to do\nthem for us: _Who has a mouth, let him not say to another, Blow_.[170]\nAnd as a part of this which I have called the manliness of proverbs,\nlet me especially note the noble utterances which so many contain,\nsummoning to a brave encountering of adverse fortune, to perseverance\nunder disappointment and defeat and a long-continued inclemency of\nfate; breathing as they do, a noble confidence that for the brave\nand bold the world will not always be adverse. _Where one door shuts\nanother opens_;[171] this belongs to too many nations to allow of our\nascribing it especially to any one. And this Latin: _The sun of all\ndays has not yet gone down_,[172] however, in its primary application\nintended for those who are at the top of Fortune\u2019s wheel, to warn\nthem that they be not high-minded, for there is yet time for many a\nrevolution in that wheel, is equally good for those at the bottom,\nand as it contains warning for those, so strength and encouragement\nfor these; for, as the Italians say: _The world is his who has\npatience_.[173] And then, to pass over some of our own, so familiar\nthat they need not be adduced, how manful a lesson is contained in\nthis Persian proverb: _A stone that is fit for the wall, is not left\nin the way_. It is a saying made for them who appear for a while\nto be overlooked, neglected, passed by; who perceive in themselves\ncapacities, which as yet no one else has recognised or cared to turn to\naccount. Only _be fit for the wall_; square, polish, prepare thyself\nfor it; do not limit thyself to the bare acquisition of such knowledge\nas is absolutely necessary for thy present position; but rather learn\nlanguages, acquire useful information, stretch thyself out on this side\nand on that, cherishing and making much of whatever aptitudes thou\nfindest in thyself; and it is certain thy turn will come. Thou wilt\nnot be _left in the way_; sooner or later the builders will be glad of\nthee; the wall will need thee to fill up a place in it, quite as much\nas thou needest a place to occupy in the wall. For the amount of real\ncapacity in this world is so small, that places want persons to fill\nthem quite as really as persons want to fill places; although it must\nbe allowed, they are not always as much aware of their want.\n\nAnd this proverb, Italian and Spanish, _If I have lost the ring, yet\nthe fingers are still here_,[174] is another of these brave utterances\nof which I have been speaking. In it is asserted the comparative\nindifference of that loss which reaches but to things external to\nus, so long us we ourselves remain, and are true to ourselves. _The\nfingers_ are far more than _the ring_: if indeed those had gone, then\n_the man_ would have been maimed; but another ring may come for that\nwhich has disappeared, or even with none the fingers will be fingers\nstill. And as at once a contrast and complement to this, take another,\ncurrent among the free blacks of Hayti, and expressing well the little\nprofit which there will be to a man in pieces of mere good luck, which\nare no true outgrowths of anything which is in him; the manner in\nwhich, having no root in himself out of which they grew, they will, as\nthey came to him by hazard, go from him by the same: _The knife which\nthou hast found in the highway, thou wilt lose in the highway_.[175]\n\n[Sidenote: Abuse of proverbs.]\n\nBut these numerous proverbs, urging self-reliance, bidding us first\nto aid ourselves, if we would have Heaven to aid us, must not be\ndismissed without a word or two at parting. Prizing them, as we well\nmay, and the lessons which they contain, at the highest, yet it will\nbe profitable for us at the same time always to remember that to such\nthere lies very near such a mischievous perversion as this: \u201cAid\nthyself, and thou wilt need no other aid;\u201d even as they have been\nsometimes, no doubt, understood in this sense. As, then, the pendant\nand counter-weight to them all, not as unsaying what they have\nsaid, but as fulfilling the other hemisphere in the complete orb of\ntruth, let me remind you of such also as the following, often quoted\nor alluded to by Greek and Latin authors: _The net of the sleeping\n(fisherman) takes_;[176]\u2014a proverb the more interesting, that we\nhave in the words of the Psalmist, (Ps. cxxvii. 2,) when accurately\ntranslated, a beautiful and perfect parallel: \u201cHe giveth his beloved\u201d\n(not \u201csleep,\u201d as in our version, but) \u201cin sleep;\u201d God\u2019s gifts gliding\ninto his bosom, he knowing not how, and as little expecting as having\nlaboured for them. Of how many of the best gifts of every man\u2019s life\nwill he not thankfully acknowledge this to have been true; or, if he\nrefuse to allow it, and will acknowledge no _eud\u00e6monia_, no \u2018favourable\nprovidence\u2019 in his prosperities, but will see them all as of work, how\nlittle he deserves, how little likely he is, to retain them to the end.\nLet us hold fast, then, this proverb as the most needful complement of\nthose.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs for young men.]\n\nI feel that I should be wanting to hearers such as those who are\nassembled here, that I should fail in that purpose which has been,\nmore or less, present to me even in dealing with the lighter portions\nof my subject, if I did not earnestly remind you of the many of these\nsayings that there are, which, while they have their lesson for all,\nyet seem more directly addressed to those standing, as not a few of us\nhere, at the threshold of the more serious and earnest portion of their\nlives. Lecturing to a _Young Men\u2019s Society_, I shall not unfitly press\nthese upon your notice. Take this Italian one, for instance: _When\nyou grind your corn, give not the flour to the devil, and the bran\nto God_;\u2014in the distribution, that is, of your lives, apportion not\nyour best years, your strength and your vigour to the service of sin\nand of the world, and only the refuse and rejected to your Maker, the\nwine to others, and the lees only to Him. Not so; for there is another\nancient proverb,[177] which we have made very well our own, and which\nin English runs thus: _It is too late to spare, when all is spent_.\nThe words have obviously a primary application to the goods of this\npresent life; it is ill saving here, when nothing or next to nothing\nis left to save. But they are applied well by a heathen moralist, (and\nthe application lies very near,) to those who begin to husband precious\ntime, and to live for life\u2019s true ends, when life is nearly gone, is\nnow at its dregs; for, as he well urges, it is not the least only which\nremains at the bottom, but the worst.[178] On the other hand, _The\nmorning hour has gold in its mouth_;[179] and this, true in respect of\neach of our days, in which the earlier hours given to toil will yield\nlarger and more genial returns than the later, is true in a yet higher\nsense, of that great life-day, whereof all the lesser days of our life\nmake up the moments, is true in respect of moral no less than mental\nacquisition. The _evening_ hours have often only _silver_ in their\nmouths at the best. Nor is this Arabic proverb, as it appears to me,\nother than a very solemn one, being far deeper than at first sight it\nmight seem: _Every day in thy life is a leaf in thy history_; a leaf\nwhich shall once be turned back to again, that it may be seen what was\nwritten there; and that whatever _was_ written may be read out in the\nhearing of all.\n\nAnd among the proverbs having to do with a prudent ordering of our\nlives from the very first, this Spanish seems well worthy to be\nadduced: _That which the fool does in the end, the wise man does at\nthe beginning_;[180] the wise with a good grace what the fool with an\nill; the one to much profit what the other to little or to none. A word\nworth laying to heart; for, indeed, that purchase of the Sibylline\nbooks by the Roman king, what a significant symbol it is of that which\nat one time or another, or, it may be, at many times, is finding place\nin almost every man\u2019s life;\u2014the same thing to be done in the end, the\nsame price to be paid at the last, with only the difference, that much\nof the advantage, as well as all the grace, of an earlier compliance\nhas past away. The nine precious volumes have shrunk to six, and these\ndwindled to three, while yet the like price is demanded for the few as\nfor the many; for the remnant now as would once have made all our own.\n\n[Sidenote: Study of the Classics.]\n\nI have already in a former lecture adduced a proverb which warns\nagainst a bad book as the worst of all robbers. In respect too of\nbooks which are not bad, nay, of which the main staple is good, but in\nwhich there is yet an admixture of evil, as is the case with so many\nthat have come down to us from that old world not as yet partaker of\nChrist, there is a proverb, which may very profitably accompany us in\nour study of all these: _Where the bee sucks honey, the spider sucks\npoison_. Very profitably may this word be kept in mind by such as at\nany time are making themselves familiar with the classical literature\nof antiquity, the great writers of heathen Greece and Rome. How much\nof noble, how much of elevating do they contain: what love of country,\nwhat zeal for wisdom, may be quickened in us by the study of them;\nyea, even to us Christians what intellectual, what large moral gains\nwill they yield. Let the student be as the bee looking for honey,\nand from the fields and gardens of classical literature he may store\nit abundantly in his hive. And yet from this same body of literature\nwhat poison is it possible to draw; what loss, through familiarity\nwith evil, of all vigorous abhorrence of it, till even the foulest\nenormities shall come to be regarded with a speculative curiosity\nrather than with an earnest hatred,\u2014yea, what lasting defilements of\nthe imagination and the heart may be contracted hence, till nothing\nshall be pure, the very mind and conscience being defiled. Let there\ncome one whose sympathies and affinities are with the poison and not\nwith the honey, and in these fields it will not be impossible for him\nto find deadly flowers and weeds from which he may suck poison enough.\n\nWith a few remarks on two proverbs more I will bring this lecture\nto an end. Here is one with an insight at once subtle and profound\ninto the heart of man: _Ill doers are ill deemers_; and instead of\nany commentary on this of my own let me quote some words which were\nnot intended to be a commentary upon it at all, and which furnish\nnotwithstanding a better than any which I could hope to give. They are\nwords of a great English divine of the 17th century, who is accounting\nfor the offence which the Pharisee took at the Lord\u2019s acceptance of\nthe affectionate homage and costly offering of the woman that was a\nsinner: \u201cWhich familiar and affectionate officiousness, and sumptuous\ncost, together with that sinister fame that woman was noted with, could\nnot but give much scandal to the Pharisees there present. For that\ndispensation of the law under which they lived making nothing perfect,\nbut only curbing the outward actions of men; it might very well be that\nthey, being conscious to themselves of no better motions within than\nof either bitterness or lust, how fair soever they carried without,\ncould not deem Christ\u2019s acceptance of so familiar and affectionate a\nservice from a woman of that fame to proceed from anything better than\nsome loose and vain principle ... for by how much every one is himself\nobnoxious to temptation, by so much more suspicious he is that others\ntransgress, when there is anything that may tempt out the corruptions\nof a man.\u201d[181]\n\n[Sidenote: Chinese proverb.]\n\nAnd in this Chinese proverb which follows, _Better a diamond with a\nflaw, than a pebble without one_, there is, to my mind, the assertion\nof a great Christian truth, and of one which reaches deep down to the\nvery foundations of Christian morality, the more valuable as coming to\nus from a people beyond the range and reach of the influences of direct\nRevelation. We may not be all aware of the many and malignant assaults\nwhich were made on the Christian faith, and on the morality of the\nBible, through the character of David, by the blind and self-righteous\nDeists of a century or more ago. Taking the Scripture testimony about\nhim, that he was the man after God\u2019s heart, and putting beside this the\nrecord of those great sins which he committed, they sought to set these\ngreat, yet still isolated, offences in the most hateful light; and\nthus to bring at once him, and the Book which praised him, to a common\nshame. But all this while, the question of _the man_, what he was,\nand what the moral sum total of his life, to which alone the Scripture\ntestimony bore witness, and to which alone it was pledged, this was a\nquestion with which they concerned themselves not at all; while yet it\nwas a far more important question than what any of his single acts may\nhave been; and it was this which, in the estimate of his character,\nwas really at issue. To this question _we_ answer, _a diamond_, which,\nif a diamond _with a flaw_, as are all but the one \u201centire and perfect\nchrysolite,\u201d would yet outvalue a mountain of _pebbles without one_,\nsuch as they were; even assuming the pebbles to _be_ without; and not\nmerely to _seem_ so, because their flaw was an all-pervading one, and\nonly not so quickly detected, inasmuch as the contrast was wanting of\nany clearer material which should at once reveal its presence.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[144] They have for their Latin equivalents such as these; Colo quod\napt\u00e2sti, ipsi tibi nendum est.\u2014Qui vinum bibit, f\u00e6cem bibat.\u2014Ut\nsementem feceris, ita metes.\n\n[145] In respect of other proverbs, such as the following, Tunica\npallio propior;\u2014Frons occipitio prior; I have greater doubt. The\nmisuse lies nearer; the selfishness may very probably be in the proverb\nitself, and not in our application of it; though even these seem not\nincapable of a fair interpretation.\n\n[146] On a toujours assez de force pour supporter le malheur de\nses amis. I confess this sounds to me rather like an imitation of\nRochefoucault than a genuine proverb.\n\n[147] Ognun tira l\u2019acqua al suo molino.\n\n[148] Ex alieno tergore lata secantur lora.\n\n[149] Zelf is de Man.\n\n[150] J\u2019aime mieux un raisin pour moi que deux figues pour toi.\n\n[151] Comptez apr\u00e8s votre p\u00e8re. Compare the Spanish: Entre dos amigos\nun notario y dos testigos.\n\n[152] Einmal, keinmal. This proverb was turned to such bad uses, that\na German divine thought it necessary to write a treatise against it.\nThere exist indeed several old works in German with such titles as\nthe following, _Ungodly Proverbs and their Refutation_. It is not for\nnothing that Jeremy Taylor in one place gives this warning: \u201cBe curious\nto avoid all proverbs and propositions, or odd sayings, by which evil\nlife is encouraged, and the hands of the spirit weakened.\u201d In like\nmanner Chrysostom (Hom. 73 in Matt.) denounces the Greek proverb: \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u1f7a\n\u1f24\u03c4\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b9\u03be\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9.\n\n[153] Peccato celato, mezzo perdonato.\n\n[154] Badly turned into a rhyming pentameter:\n\nConsonus esto lupis, cum quibus esse cupis.\n\n[155] There are very few inculcating an opposite lesson: this however\nis one: _Spend, and God will send_; which Howell glosses well; \u201cYes, a\nbag and a wallet.\u201d\n\n[156] Quien en un a\u00f1o quiere ser rico, al medio le ahorcan.\n\n[157] Male parta male dilabuntur.\u2014Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen.\n\n[158] Ungerechter Pfennig verzehrt gerechten Thaler.\n\n[159] Lo ageno siempre pia por su due\u00f1o.\n\n[160] Der Geiz sammlet sich arm, die Milde giebt sich reich. In the\nsense of the latter half of this proverb _we_ say, _Drawn wells are\nseldom dry_; though this word is capable of very far wider application.\n\n[161] There is one remarkable Latin proverb on the moral cowardliness\nwhich it is the character of riches to generate, saying more briefly\nthe same which Wordsworth said when he proclaimed\u2014\n\n                  \u201cthat riches are akin\n     To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death;\u201d\n\nit is this: Timidus Plutus: and has sometimes suggested to me the\nquestion whether he might not have had it in his mind when he composed\nhis great sonnet in prospect of the invasion:\n\n    \u201cThese times touch monied worldlings with dismay;\u201d\n\nnot that his genius needed any such solicitation from without; for\nthe poem is only the natural outgrowth of that spirit and temper in\nwhich the whole series of noble and ennobling poems, the _Sonnets to\nLiberty_, is composed, and in perfect harmony with the rest; yet is it,\nnotwithstanding, in a very wonderful way shut up in the two words of\nthe ancient proverb.\n\n[162] \u03a4\u1fc7 \u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f45\u03bb\u1ff3 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03ba\u1ff3.\n\n[163] Giv saa i Dag, at du og kandst give i morgen.\u2014Giv een at du kand\ngive en anden.\n\n[164] L\u2019ultimo vestito ce lo fanno senza tasche.\n\n[165] This is the English form of that worthy old classical proverb:\n\u03a6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f04\u03bb\u03c6\u03b9\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9, or in Latin: Qui vitat molam, vitat\nfarinam.\n\n[166] Ahont anir\u00e1s, bou, que no llaures? I prefer this form of it to\nthe Spanish: Adonde yr\u00e1 el buey, que no are?\n\n[167] Pereza, llave de pobreza.\n\n[168] Dii facientes adjuvant.\n\n[169] According to the Spanish proverb: Quien bien ata, bien desata.\n\n[170] Quien tiene boca, no diga \u00e1 otro, Sopla.\n\n[171] Donde una puerta se cierra, otra se abre.\n\n[172] Nondum omnium dierum sol occidit.\n\n[173] Il mondo \u00e8, di chi ha pazienza.\n\n[174] Se ben ho perso l\u2019anello, ho pur anche le dita;\u2014Si se perdieron\nlos anillos, aqui quedaron los dedillos.\n\n[175] In their bastard French it runs thus: Gambette ous trouv\u00e9 nen\ngan chimin, nen gan chimin ous va p\u00e8d\u00e8 li. It may have been originally\nFrench, at any rate the French have a proverb very much to the same\neffect: Ce qui vient par la flute, s\u2019en va par le tambour; and compare\nthe modern Greek proverb: \u1f08\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1. (What the\nwind gathers, the devil scatters.)\n\n[176] \u0395\u1f55\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6.\u2014Dormienti rete trahit. The reader with a\n_Plutarch\u2019s Lives_ within his reach may turn to the very instructive\nlittle history told in connexion with this proverb, of Timotheus the\nAthenian commander; an history which only requires to be translated\ninto Christian language to contain a deep moral for all. (_Sulla_, c.\n6.)\n\n[177] Sera in imo parsimonia.\n\n[178] Seneca (_Ep._ i.): Non enim tantum _minimum_ in imo, sed\n_pessimum_ remanet.\n\n[179] Morgenstund\u2019 hat Gold im Mund.\n\n[180] Lo que hace el loco \u00e1 la postre, hace sabio al principio.\n\n[181] Henry More, _On Godliness_, b. 8. How remarkable a confirmation\nof the fact asserted in that proverb and in this passage lies in\nthe twofold uses of the Greek word \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1; having, for its first\nmeaning, an evil disposition in a man\u2019s self, it has for its second an\ninterpreting on his part for the worst of all the actions of other men.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\nTHE THEOLOGY OF PROVERBS.\n\n\nI sought, as best I could, in my last lecture to furnish you with some\nhelps for estimating the ethical worth of proverbs. Their theology\nalone remains; the aspects, that is, under which they contemplate, not\nnow any more man\u2019s relations with his fellow-man, but those on which\nin the end all other must depend, his relations with God. Between the\nsubject matter, indeed, of that lecture and of this I have found it\nnearly impossible to draw any very accurate line of distinction. Much\nwhich was there might nearly as fitly have been here; some which I\nhave reserved for this might already have found its place there. It\nis this, however, which I propose more directly to consider, namely,\nwhat proverbs have to say concerning the moral government of the world,\nand, more important still, concerning its Governor? How does all this\npresent itself to the popular mind and conscience, as attested by\nthese? What, in short, is their theology? for such, good or bad, it is\nevident that abundantly they have.\n\nHere, as everywhere else, their testimony is a mingled one. The\ndarkness, the error, the confusion of man\u2019s heart, out of which he\noftentimes sees distortedly, and sometimes sees not at all, have all\nembodied themselves in his word. Yet still, as it is the very nature of\nthe false, in its separate manifestations, to resolve into nothingness,\nthough only to be succeeded by new births in a like kind, while the\ntrue abides and continues, it has thus come to pass that we have\ngenerally in those utterances on which the stamp of permanence has been\nset, the nobler voices, the truer faith of humanity, in respect of its\nown destinies and of Him by whom those destinies are ordered.\n\nI would not hesitate to say that the great glory of proverbs in this\ntheir highest aspect, and that which makes many of them so full of\nblessing to those who cordially accept them, is the conviction of\nwhich they are full, that, despite all appearances to the contrary,\nthis world is God\u2019s world, and not the world of the devil, or of those\nwicked men who may be prospering for an hour; there is nothing in them\nso precious as their faith that in the long run it will approve itself\nto be such: which being so, that it must be well in the end with the\ndoer of the right, the speaker of the truth; no blind \u201cwhirligig of\ntime,\u201d but the hand of the living God, in due time \u201cbringing round its\nrevenges.\u201d It is impossible to estimate too highly their bold and clear\nproclamation of this conviction; for it is, after all, the belief of\nthis or the denial of this, on which everything in the life of each one\nof us turns. On this depends whether we shall separate ourselves from\nthe world\u2019s falsehood and evil, and do vigorous battle against them;\nor acquiesce in, and be ourselves absorbed by, them.\n\n[Sidenote: A lie has no legs.]\n\nListen to proverbs such as these; surely they are penetrated with the\nassurance that one who, Himself being The Truth, will make truth in\nsmall and in great to triumph at the last, is ruling over all: and\nfirst, hear a proverb of our own: _A lie has no legs_; it is one true\nalike in its humblest application and its highest; be the lie the\nmiserable petty falsehood which disturbs a family or a neighbourhood\nfor a day; or one of the larger frauds, the falsehoods not in word\nonly but in act, to which a longer date and a far larger sphere are\nassigned, which for a time seem to fill the world, and to carry\neverything in triumph before them. Still the lie, in that it is a\nlie, always carries within itself the germs of its own dissolution.\nIt is sure to destroy itself at last. Its priests may prop it up from\nwithout, may set it on its feet again, after it has once fallen before\nthe presence of the truth, yet this all will be labour in vain; it\nwill only be, like Dagon, again to fall, and more shamefully and more\nirretrievably than before.[182] On the other hand, the vivacity of the\ntruth, as contrasted with this short-lived character of the lie, is\nwell expressed in a Swiss proverb: _It takes a good many shovelfuls of\nearth to bury the truth_. For, bury it as deep as men may, it will have\na resurrection notwithstanding. They may roll a great stone, and seal\nthe sepulchre in which it is laid, and set a watch upon it, yet still,\nlike its Lord, it comes forth again at its appointed hour. It cannot\ndie, being of an immortal race; for, as the Spanish proverb nobly\ndeclares, _The truth is daughter of God_.[183]\n\nAgain, consider this proverb: _Tell the truth, and shame the devil_. It\nis one which will well repay a few thoughtful moments bestowed on it,\nand the more so, because, even while we instinctively feel its truth,\nthe deep moral basis on which it rests may yet not reveal itself to us\nat once. Nay, the saying may seem to contradict the actual experience\nof things; for how often telling the truth\u2014confessing, that is,\nsome great fault, taking home to ourselves, it may be, some grievous\nsin\u2014would appear anything rather than shaming the devil; shaming\nindeed ourselves, but rather bringing glory to him, whose glory, such\nas it is, is in the sin and shame of men. And yet the word is true,\nand deeply true, notwithstanding. The element of lies is that in which\nalone he who is \u201cthe father of them\u201d lives and thrives. So long then\nas a wrong-doer presents to himself, or seeks to present to others,\nthe actual facts of his conduct different from what they really are,\nconceals, palliates, denies them,\u2014so long, in regard of that man,\nSatan\u2019s kingdom stands. But so soon as the things concerning himself\nare seen and owned by a man as they indeed exist in God\u2019s sight, as\nthey are when weighed in the balances of the eternal righteousness;\nwhen once a man has brought himself to tell the truth to himself, and,\nwhere need requires, to others also, then having done, and in so far\nas he has done this, he has abandoned the devil\u2019s standard, he belongs\nto the kingdom of the truth; and as belonging to it he may rebuke, and\ndoes rebuke and put to shame, all makers and lovers of a lie, even to\nthe very prince of them all. \u201cGive glory to God,\u201d was what Joshua said\nto Achan, when he would lead him to confess his guilt. This is but the\nother and fairer side of the tapestry; this is but _shame the devil_,\non its more blessed side.\n\n[Sidenote: Vox populi, vox Dei.]\n\nOnce more;\u2014the Latin proverb, _The voice of the people, the voice of\nGod_,[184] is one which it is well worth our while to understand. If\nit were affirmed in this that every outcry of the multitude, supposing\nonly it be loud enough and wide enough, ought to be accepted as the\nvoice of God speaking through them, no proposition more foolish or\nmore impious could well be imagined. But _the voice of the people_ is\nsomething very different from this. The proverb rests on the assumption\nthat the foundations of man\u2019s being are laid in the truth; from which\nit will follow, that no conviction which is really a conviction of\nthe universal humanity, but reposes on a true ground; no faith, which\nis indeed the faith of mankind, but has a reality corresponding to\nit: for, as Jeremy Taylor has said: \u201cIt is not a vain noise, when\nmany nations join their voices in the attestation or detestation of\nan action;\u201d and Hooker: \u201cThe general and perpetual voice of men is\nas the sentence of God Himself. For that which all men have at all\ntimes learned, nature herself must needs have taught; and God being\nthe author of nature, her voice is but his instrument.\u201d (_Eccles.\nPol._, b. i. \u00a7 8.) The task and difficulty, of course, must ever be to\ndiscover what this faith and what these convictions are; and this can\nonly be done by an induction from a sufficient number of facts, and\nin sufficiently different times, to enable us to feel confident that\nwe have indeed seized that which is the constant quantity of truth in\nthem all, and separated this from the inconstant one of falsehood and\nerror, evermore offering itself in its room; that we have not taken\nsome momentary cry, wrung out by interest, by passion, or by pain, for\n_the voice of God_; but claimed this august title only for that true\nvoice of humanity, which, unless everything be false, we have a right\nto assume an echo of the voice of God.\n\nThus, to take an example, the natural horror everywhere felt in regard\nof marriages contracted between those very near in blood, has been\nalways and with right appealed to as a potent argument against such\nunions. The induction is so large, that is, the nations who have\nagreed in entertaining this horror are so many, oftentimes nations\ndisagreeing in almost everything besides; the times during which\nthis instinctive revolt against such unions has been felt, extend\nthrough such long ages; that the few exceptions, even where they are\nof civilized nations, as of the Egyptians who married their sisters,\nor of the Persians, among whom marriages more dreadful still were\npermitted, cannot be allowed any weight; and of course still less the\nexception of any savage tribe, in which all that constitutes the human\nin humanity has now disappeared. These exceptions can only be regarded\nas violations of the divine order of man\u2019s life; not as evidences that\nwe have falsely imagined an order where there was none. Here is a true\n_voice of the people_; and on the grounds laid down above, we have a\nright to assume this to be a _voice of God_ as well. And so too, with\nrespect to the existence of a First Cause, Creator and Upholder of\nall things, the universal consent and conviction of all people, the\n_consensus gentium_, must be considered of itself a mighty evidence\nin its favour; a testimony which God is pleased to render to Himself\nthrough his creatures. This man or that, this generation or the other,\nmight be deceived, but all men and all generations could not; the _vox\npopuli_ makes itself felt as a _vox Dei_. The existence here and there\nof an atheist no more disturbs our conclusion that it is of the essence\nof man\u2019s nature to believe in a God, than do such monstrous births as\nfrom time to time find place, children with two heads or with no arms,\nshake our assurance that it is the normal condition of man to have one\nhead and two arms.\n\nThis last is one of the proverbs which may be said to belong to the\nApology for Natural Religion. There are others, of which it would not\nbe far-fetched to affirm that they belong to the Apology for Revealed.\nThus it was very usual with Voltaire and other infidels of his time\nto appeal to the present barrenness and desolation of Palestine, in\nproof that it could never have supported the vast population which the\nScripture everywhere assumes or affirms. A proverb in the language\nof the arch-scoffer himself might, if he had given heed to it, have\nput him on the right track, had he wished to be put upon it, for\nunderstanding how this could have been: _As the man is worth, his\nland is worth_.[185] Man is lord of his outward condition to a far\ngreater extent than is commonly assumed; even climate, which seems at\nfirst sight so completely out of his reach, it is his immensely to\nmodify; and if nature stamps herself on him, he stamps himself yet more\npowerfully on nature. It is not a mere figure of speech, that of the\nPsalmist, \u201cA fruitful land maketh He barren for the wickedness of them\nthat dwell therein.\u201d (Ps. cvii. 34.) God makes it barren, and ever less\ncapable of nourishing its inhabitants; but He makes it so through the\nsloth, the indolence, the short-sightedness of those that should have\ndressed and kept it. In the condition of a land may be found the echo,\nthe reflection, the transcript of the moral and spiritual condition\nof those that should cultivate it: where one is waste, the other will\nbe waste also. Under the desolating curse of Mohammedan domination\nthe fairest portions of the earth have gone back from a garden to a\nwilderness: but only let that people for whom Palestine is yet destined\nreturn to it again, and return a righteous nation, and in a little\nwhile all the descriptions of its earlier fertility will be more than\nborne out by its later, and it will easily sustain its millions again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Proverb of Pythagoras.]\n\nHow many proverbs, which cannot be affirmed to have been originally\nmade for the kingdom of heaven, do yet in their highest fulfilment\nmanifestly belong to it, so that it seems as of right to claim that for\nits own, even as it claims, or rather reclaims, whatever else is good\nor true in the world, the seeds of truth wherever dispersed abroad, as\nbelonging rightfully to itself. Thus there is that beautiful proverb,\nof which Pythagoras is reputed the author: _The things of friends are\nin common_.[186] Where does this find its exhaustive fulfilment, but in\nthe communion of saints, their communion not with one another merely,\nthough indeed this is a part of its fulfilment, but in their communion\nwith Him, who is the friend of all good men? That such a conclusion lay\nlegitimately in the words Socrates plainly saw; who argued from it,\nthat since good men were the friends of the gods, therefore whatever\nthings were the gods\u2019, were also theirs; being, when he thus concluded,\nas near as one who had not the highest light of all, could be to that\ngreat word of the Apostle\u2019s, \u201cAll things are yours.\u201d\n\nNor can I otherwise than esteem the ancient proverb as a very fine one,\nand one which we may gladly claim for our own: _Many meet the gods,\nbut few salute them_. How often do _the gods_, (for I will keep in the\nlanguage which this proverb suggests and supplies,) _meet_ men in the\nshape of a sorrow which might be a purifying one, of a joy which might\nelevate their hearts to thankfulness and praise; in a sickness or a\nrecovery, a disappointment or a success; and yet how few, as it must be\nsadly owned, _salute_ them; how few recognise their august presences\nin this joy or this sorrow, this blessing added, or this blessing\ntaken away. As this proverb has reference to men\u2019s failing to _see_\nthe Divine presences, so let me observe by the way, there is a very\ngrand French one which expresses the same truth, under the image of a\nfailing to _hear_ the divine voices, those voices being drowned by the\ndeafening hubbub of the world: _The noise is so great, one cannot hear\nGod thunder_.[187]\n\n[Sidenote: One man, no man]\n\nHere is another proverb which the Church has long since claimed, at\nleast in its import, for her own: _One man, no man_.[188] I should\nfind it very hard indeed to persuade myself that whoever uttered it\nfirst, attached to it no deeper meaning than Erasmus gives him credit\nfor\u2014namely, that nothing important can be effected by a single man,\ndestitute of the help of his fellows.[189] The word is a far more\nprofound one than this, and rests on that great truth upon which the\ndeeper thinkers of antiquity laid so much stress\u2014namely, that _in\nthe idea_ the state precedes the individual, man not being merely\naccidentally _gregarious_, but essentially _social_. The solitary\nman, it would say, is a monstrous conception, so utterly maimed and\ncrippled must he be; the condition of solitariness involving so entire\na suppression of all which belongs to the development of that wherein\nthe true idea of humanity resides, of all which differences man from\nthe beasts of the field; and in this sense _One man_ is _no man_; and\nthis, I am sure, the proverb from the first intended. Nor may we stop\nhere. This word is capable of, and seems to demand, a still higher\napplication to man, as a destined member of the kingdom of heaven. But\nhe can only be in training for this, when he is, and regards himself,\nas not alone, but the member of a family. As _one man_ he is _no\nman_; and the strength and value of what is called Church teaching is\ngreatly this, that it does recognise and realize this fact, that it\ncontemplates and deals with the faithful man, not as isolated, but as\none of an organic body, with duties which flow as moral necessities\nfrom his position therein; rather than by himself, and as one whose\nduties to others are indeed only the exercise of private graces for his\nown benefit. And all that are called Church doctrines, when they really\nunderstand themselves, have their root and their real strength in that\ngreat truth which this proverb declares, that _One man is no man_, that\nonly in a fellowship and communion is or can any man be aught.\n\nAnd then there is another proverb, which Plato so loved to quote\nagainst the sophists, the men who flattered and corrupted the nobler\nyouth of Athens, promising to impart to them easy short cuts to the\nattainment of wisdom and knowledge and philosophy; and this, without\ndemanding the exercise of any labour or patience or self-denial on\ntheir parts. But with the proverb, _Good things are hard_,[190] he\ncontinually rebuked their empty pretensions; with this he made at least\nsuspicious their promises; and this proverb, true in the sense wherein\nPlato used it, and that sense was earnest and serious enough, yet\nsurely reappears, glorified and transfigured, but recognisable still,\nin the Saviour\u2019s words: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is taken by violence,\nand the violent take it by force.\u201d[191]\n\n[Sidenote: Witnesses for the truth.]\n\nThis method of looking in proverbs for an higher meaning than any\nwhich lies on their surface, or which they seem to bear on their\nfronts; or rather of searching out their highest intention, and\nclaiming that as their truest, even though it should not be that\nperceived in them by most, or that which lay nearest to them at their\nfirst generation, is one that will lead us in many interesting paths.\nAnd it is not merely those of heathen antiquity which shall thus be\npersuaded often, and that without any forcing, to render up a Christian\nmeaning; but (as was indeed to be expected) still more often those of\na later time, even those which the world had seemed to claim for its\nown, shall be found to move in a spiritual sphere as their truest. Let\nme offer in evidence of this these four or five, which come to us from\nItaly: _He who has love in his heart, has spurs in his sides_;\u2014_Love\nrules without law_;\u2014_Love rules his kingdom without a sword_;\u2014_Love\nknows nothing of labour_;\u2014_Love is the master of all arts_.[192] Take\nthese, even with the necessary drawbacks of my English translation; but\nstill more, in their original beauty; and how exquisitely do they set\nforth, in whatever light you regard them, the free creative impulses of\nlove, its delight to labour and to serve; how worthily do they glorify\nthe kingdom of love as the only kingdom of a free and joyful obedience.\nWhile yet at the same time, if we would appreciate them at _all_\ntheir worth, is it possible to stop short of an application of them\nto that kingdom of love, which, because it is in the highest sense\nsuch, is also a kingdom of heaven? And then, what precious witness do\nthese utterances contain, the more precious as current among a people\nnursed in the theology of Rome, against the shameless assertion that\nselfishness is the only motive sufficient to produce good (?) works:\nfor in such an assertion the Romish impugners of a free justification\nconstantly deal; evermore charging this that we hold, of our\njustification by faith only, (which, when translated into the language\nof ethics, is at least as important in the province of morality as it\nis in that of theology,) with being an immoral doctrine, and not so\nfruitful in deeds of love as one which should connect these deeds with\na selfish thought of promoting our own safety thereby.\n\n[Sidenote: Christian proverbs.]\n\nThere are proverbs which reach the height of evangelical morality.\n\u201cLittle gospels\u201d[193] the Spaniard has somewhat too boldly entitled\nhis; and certainly there are many which at once we feel could nowhere\nhave arisen or obtained circulation but under the influence of\nChristian faith, being in spirit, and often in form no less than in\nspirit, the outbirths of it. Thus is it with that exquisitely beautiful\nproverb of our own: _The way to heaven is by Weeping-Cross_;[194] nor\notherwise with the Spanish: _God never wounds with both hands_;[195]\nnot with _both_, for He ever reserves one with which to bind up\nand to heal. And another Spanish, evidently intended to give the\nsum and substance of all which in life is to be desired the most,\n_Peace and patience, and death with penitence_,[196] gives this sum\ncertainly only as it presents itself to the Christian eye. And this of\nours is Christian both in form and in spirit: _Every cross hath its\ninscription_;\u2014the name, that is, inscribed upon it, of the person for\nwhom it was shaped; it was intended for those shoulders upon which it\nis laid, and will adapt itself to them; that fearful word is never true\nwhich a spirit greatly vexed spake in the hour of its impatience: \u201cI\nhave little faith in the paternal love which I need; so ruthless, or so\nnegligent seems the government of this earth.\u201d[197]\n\nSo too is it with that ancient German proverb: _When God loathes aught,\nmen presently loathe it too_.[198] He who first uttered this must have\nbeen one who had watched long the ways by which shame and honour travel\nin this world; and in this watching must have noted how it ever came\nto pass that even worldly honour tarried not long with them from whom\nthe true honour which cometh from God had departed. For the worldly\nhonour is but a shadow and reflex that waits upon the heavenly; it may\nindeed linger for a little, but it will be only for a little, after\nit is divorced from its substance. Where the honour from Him has been\nwithdrawn, he causes in one way or another the honour from men ere long\nto be withdrawn too. When He loathes, presently man loathes also. The\nsaltless salt is not merely cast out by Him, but is trodden under foot\nof _men_. (Matt. v. 13.) A Louis the Fifteenth\u2019s death-bed is in its\nway as hideous to the natural as it is to the spiritual eye.[199]\n\n[Sidenote: Sir Matthew Hale\u2019s proverb.]\n\nWe are told of the good Sir Matthew Hale who was animated with a true\nzeal for holiness, an earnest desire to walk close to God, that he\nhad continually in his mouth the modern Latin proverb, _We perish by\npermitted things_.[200] Assuredly it is one very well worthy to be of\nall remembered, searching as it does into the innermost secrets of\nmen\u2019s lives. It is no doubt true that nearly as much danger threatens\nthe soul from things permitted as from things unpermitted; in some\nrespects more danger; for these being disallowed altogether, do\nnot make the insidious approaches of those, which, coming in under\nallowance, do yet so easily slip into dangerous excess.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs and Scripture.]\n\nIt would be interesting to collect, as with reverence one might,\nvariations on scriptural proverbs or sayings, which the proverbs of\nthis world supply; and this, both in those cases where the latter have\ngrown out of the former, owing more nearly or more remotely their\nexistence to them, and in those also where they are independent of\nthem,\u2014so far, that is, as anything true can be independent of the\nabsolute Truth. Some of those which follow evidently belong to one\nof these classes, some to the other. Thus Solomon has said: \u201cIt is\nbetter to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling\nwoman in a wide house;\u201d (Prov. xxi. 9;) and again: \u201cBetter a dry\nmorsel and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with\nstrife.\u201d (Prov. xvii. 1.) With these compare the two proverbs, a Latin\nand Spanish, adduced below.[201] The Psalmist has said: \u201cAs he loved\ncursing, so let it come unto him.\u201d (Ps. cix. 17.) The Turks express\ntheir faith in this same law of the divine retaliations: _Curses,\nlike chickens, always come home to roost_; they return, that is, to\nthose from whom they went forth, while in the Yoruba language there\nis a proverb to the same effect: _Ashes always fly back in the face\nof him that throws them_; while our own, _Harm watch, harm catch_,\nand the Spanish, _Who sows thorns, let him not walk barefoot_,[202]\nare utterances of very nearly the same conviction. Our Lord declares,\nthat without his Father there falls no single sparrow to the ground,\nthat \u201cnot one of them is forgotten before God.\u201d (Luke xii. 6.) The\nsame truth of a _providentia specialissima_, (between which and no\nprovidence at all there is indeed no tenable position,) is asserted in\nthe Catalan proverb: _No leaf moves, but God wills it_.[203] Again,\nHe has said: \u201cNo man can serve two masters.\u201d (Matt. vi. 24.) And the\nSpanish proverb: _He who must serve two masters, must lie to one_.[204]\nOr compare with Matt. xix. 29, this remarkable Arabic proverb:\n_Purchase the next world with this; so shalt thou win both_. He has\nspoken of \u201cmammon of unrighteousness\u201d\u2014indicating hereby, in Leighton\u2019s\nwords, \u201cthat iniquity is so involved in the notion of riches, that\nit can very hardly be separated from them;\u201d and this phrase Jerome\nillustrates by a proverb that would not otherwise have reached us;\n\u201cthat saying,\u201d he says, \u201cappears true to me: _A rich man is either\nhimself an unjust one, or the heir of one_.\u201d[205] Again, the Lord has\nsaid: \u201cMany be called, but few chosen;\u201d (Matt. xx. 16;) many have the\noutward marks of a Christian profession, few the inner substance. Some\nearly Christian Fathers loved much to bring into comparison with this\na Greek proverb, spoken indeed quite independently of it, and long\npreviously; and the parallel certainly is a singularly happy one: _The\nthyrsus-bearers are many, but the bacchants few_;[206] many assume the\nsigns and outward tokens of inspiration, whirling the thyrsus aloft;\nbut those whom the god indeed fills with his spirit are few all the\nwhile.[207] With our Lord\u2019s words concerning the mote and the beam\n(Matt. vii. 3, 5) compare this Chinese proverb: _Sweep away the snow\nfrom thine own door, and heed not the frost upon thy neighbour\u2019s\ntiles_.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs in sermons.]\n\nIt has been sometimes a matter of consideration to me whether we of\nthe clergy might not make larger use, though of course it would be\nonly occasional, of proverbs in our public teaching than we do. Great\npopular preachers of time past, or, seeing that this phrase has now\nso questionable a sound, great preachers for the people, such as have\nfound their way to the universal heart of their fellows, addressing\nthemselves not to that which some men had different from others, but\nto that rather which each had in common with all, have been ever great\nemployers of proverbs. Thus he who would know the riches of those in\nthe German tongue, with the vigorous manifold employment of which\nthey are capable, will find no richer mine to dig in than the works\nof Luther. And such employment of them would, I believe, with our\ncountry congregations, be especially valuable. Any one, who by after\ninvestigation has sought to discover how much our rustic hearers carry\naway, even from the sermons to which they have attentively listened,\nwill find that it is hardly ever the course and tenor of the argument,\nsupposing the discourse to have contained such; but if anything was\nuttered, as it used so often to be by the best puritan preachers,\ntersely, pointedly, epigrammatically, this will have stayed by them,\nwhile all beside has passed away. Now, the merits of terseness and\npoint, which have caused other words to be remembered, are exactly\nthose which signalize the proverb, and generally in a yet higher\ndegree.\n\nIt need scarcely be observed, that, if thus used, they will have to be\nemployed with prudence and discretion, and with a careful selection.\nThus, even with the example of so grave a divine as Bishop Sanderson\nbefore me, I should hesitate to employ in a sermon such a proverb\nas _Over shoes, over boots_\u2014one which he declares to be the motto\nof some, who having advanced a certain way in sin, presently become\nutterly wretchless, caring not, and counting it wholly indifferent, how\nmuch further in evil they advance. Nor would I exactly recommend such\nuse of a proverb as St. Bernard makes, who, in a sermon on the angels,\ndesiring to shew _\u00e0 priori_ the extreme probability of their active and\nloving ministries in the service of men, adduces the Latin proverb:\n_Who loves me, loves my dog_;[208] and proceeds to argue thus; We are\nthe dogs under Christ\u2019s table; the angels love Him, they therefore love\nus.\n\nBut, although not exactly thus, the thing, I am persuaded, might be\ndone, and with profit. Thus, in a discourse warning against sins of\nthe tongue, there are many words which we might produce of our own\nto describe the mischief it inflicts that would be flatter, duller,\nless likely to be remembered than the old proverb: _The tongue is not\nsteel, but it cuts_. On God\u2019s faithfulness in sustaining, upholding,\nrewarding his servants, there are feebler things which we might bring\nout of our own treasure-house, than to remind our hearers of that\nword: _He who serves God, serves a good Master_. And this one might\nsink deep, telling of the enemy whom every one of us has the most to\nfear: _No man has a worse friend than he brings with him from home_.\nIt stands in striking agreement with Augustine\u2019s remarkable prayer\n\u201cDeliver me from the evil man, from myself.\u201d[209] Or again: _Ill weeds\ngrow apace_;\u2014with how lively an image does this set forth to us the\nrank luxuriant up-growth of sinful lusts and desires in the garden of\nan uncared-for, untended heart. I know not whether we might presume\nsufficient quickness of apprehension on the part of our hearers to\nventure on the following: _The horse which draws its halter is not\nquite escaped_; but I can hardly imagine an happier illustration of\nthe fact, that so long as any remnant of a sinful habit is retained\nby us, so long as we draw this halter, we make but an idle boast of\nour liberty; we may, by means of that which we still drag with us, be\nat any moment again entangled altogether in the bondage from which we\nseemed to have entirely escaped.\n\nIn every language some of its noblest proverbs, such as oftentimes\nare admirably adapted for this application of which I am speaking,\nare those embodying men\u2019s confidence in God\u2019s moral government of the\nworld, in his avenging righteousness, however much there may be in\nthe confusions of the present evil time to provoke a doubt or even a\ndenial of this. Thus, _Punishment is lame, but it comes_, which, if not\nold, yet rests on an image derived from antiquity, is good; although\ninferior in every way, in energy of expression, as in fulness of sense,\nto the ancient Greek one: _The mill of God grinds late, but grinds\nto powder_;[210] for this brings in the further thought, that his\njudgments, however long they tarry, yet, when they arrive, are crushing\nones. There is indeed another of our own, not unworthy to be set beside\nthis, announcing, though with quite another image, the same fact of the\ntardy but terrible arrivals of judgment: _God comes with leaden feet,\nbut strikes with iron hands_. And then, how awfully sublime another\nwhich has come down to us as part of the wisdom of the ancient heathen\nworld; I mean the following: _The feet of the (avenging) deities are\nshod with wool_.[211] Here a new thought is introduced,\u2014the noiseless\napproach and advance of these judgments, as noiseless as the steps of\none whose feet were wrapped in wool,\u2014the manner in which they overtake\nsecure sinners even in the hour of their utmost security. Who that has\nstudied the history of the great crimes and criminals of the world, but\nwill with a shuddering awe set his seal to the truth of this proverb?\nIndeed, meditating on such and on the source from which we have derived\nthem, one is sometimes tempted to believe that the faith in a divine\nretribution evermore making itself felt in the world, this sense of a\nNemesis, as men used to call it, was stronger and deeper in the earlier\nand better days of heathendom, than alas! it is in a sunken Christendom\nnow.\n\n[Sidenote: Proverbs not profane.]\n\nBut to resume. Even those proverbs which have acquired an use which\nseems to unite at once the trivial and the profane, may yet on closer\ninspection be found to be very far from having either triviality or\nprofaneness cleaving to them. There is one, for instance, often taken\nlightly enough upon the lips: _Talk of the devil, and he is sure to\nappear_; or as it used to be: _Talk of the devil, and his imps will\nappear_; or as in German it is: _Paint the devil on the wall, and\nhe will shew himself anon_;\u2014which yet contains truth serious and\nimportant enough, if we would only give heed to it: it contains, in\nfact, a very solemn warning against a very dangerous sin, I mean,\ncuriosity about evil. It has been often noticed, and is a very curious\npsychological fact, that there is a tendency in a great crime to\nreproduce itself, to call forth, that is, other crimes of the same\ncharacter: and there is a fearful response which the evil we may hear\nor read about, is in danger of finding in our own hearts. This danger,\nthen, assuredly makes it true wisdom, and a piece of moral prudence\non the part of all to whom this is permitted, to avoid knowing or\nlearning about the evil; especially when neither duty nor necessity\noblige them thereto. It is men\u2019s wisdom to talk as little about the\ndevil, either with themselves or with others, as they can; lest he\nappear to them. \u201cI agree with you,\u201d says Niebuhr very profoundly in\none of his letters,[212] \u201cthat it is better not to read books in which\nyou make the acquaintance of the devil.\u201d And certainly there is a\nremarkable commentary on this proverb, so interpreted, in the earnest\nwarning given to the children of Israel, that they should not so much\nas _inquire_ how the nations which were before them in Canaan, served\ntheir gods, with what cruelties, with what abominable impurities, lest\nthrough this inquiry they should be themselves entangled in the same.\n(Deut. xii. 29, 30.) They were not to talk about the devil, lest he\nshould appear to them.\n\nAnd other proverbs, too, which at first sight may seem over-familiar\nwith the name of the great enemy of mankind, yet contain lessons\nwhich it would be an infinite pity to lose; as this German: _Where\nthe devil cannot come, he will send_;[213] a proverb of very serious\nimport, which excellently sets out to us the _penetrative_ character\nof temptations, and the certainty that they will follow and find men\nout in their secretest retreats. It rebukes the absurdity of supposing\nthat by any outward arrangements, cloistral retirements, flights\ninto the wilderness, sin can be kept at a distance. So far from this,\ntemptations will inevitably overleap all these outward and merely\nartificial barriers which may be raised up against them; for our great\nenemy is as formidable from a seeming distance as in close combat;\n_where he cannot come, he will send_. There are others of the same\nfamily, as the following: _The devil\u2019s meal is half bran_; or _all\nbran_, as the Italians still more boldly proclaim it;[214] unrighteous\ngains are sure to disappoint the getter; the pleasures of sin, even in\nthis present time, are largely dashed with its pains. And this: _He had\nneed of a long spoon that eats with the devil_;\u2014men fancy they can\ncheat the arch-cheater, can advance in partnership with him up to a\ncertain point, and then, whenever the connexion becomes too dangerous,\nbreak it off at their will; being sure in this to be miserably\ndeceived; for, to quote another in the same tone: _He who has shipped\nthe devil, must carry him over the water_. Granting these and the like\nto have been often carelessly uttered, yet they all rest upon a true\nmoral basis in the main. This last series of proverbs I will close\nwith an Arabic one, to which not even this appearance of levity can be\nascribed; for it is as solemn and sublime in form as it is profoundly\ndeep in substance: _The blessings of the evil Genii are curses_. How\ndeep a meaning the story of Fortunatus acquires, when taken as a\ncommentary on this.\n\nBut I am warned to draw my lecture to an end. I have adduced in the\ncourse of these lectures no inconsiderable number of proverbs, and\nhave sought for the most part to deduce from them lessons, which were\nlessons in common for us all. There is one, however, which I must not\npass over, for I feel that it contains an especial lesson for myself,\nand a lesson which I should do wisely and well at this present time\nto lay to heart. When the Spaniards would describe a tedious writer,\none who possesses the art of exhausting the patience of his readers,\nthey say of him: _He leaves nothing in his inkstand_. The phrase is\na singularly happy one, for assuredly there is no such secret of\ntediousness, no such certain means of wearing out the attention of our\nreaders or our hearers, as the attempt to say everything ourselves,\ninstead of leaving something to be filled up by their intelligence;\nwhile the merits of a composition are often displayed as really, if\nnot so prominently, in what is passed over as in what is set down; in\nnothing more than in the just measure of the confidence which it shows\nin the capacities and powers of those to whom it is addressed. I would\nnot willingly come under the condemnation, which waits on them who thus\n_leave nothing in their inkstand_; and lest I should do so, I will\nbring now this my final lecture to its close, and ask you to draw out\nfor yourselves those further lessons from proverbs, which I am sure\nthey are abundantly capable of yielding.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[182] Perhaps the Spanish form of this proverb is still better: La\nmentira tiene _cortas_ las piernas; for the lie does go, though not\nfar. Compare the French: La v\u00e9rit\u00e9, comme l\u2019huile, vient au dessus.\n\n[183] La verdad es hija de Dios.\n\n[184] Vox populi, vox Dei.\n\n[185] Tant vaut l\u2019homme, tant vaut sa terre.\n\n[186] \u039a\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n[187] Le bruit est si fort, qu\u2019on n\u2019entend pas Dieu tonner.\n\n[188] \u0395\u1f37\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1, \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1.\n\n[189] Sensus est nihil egregium pr\u00e6stari posse ab uno homine, omni\nauxilio destituto.\n\n[190] \u03a7\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac.\n\n[191] The deepening of a proverb\u2019s use among Christian nations as\ncompared with earlier applications of the same may be illustrated by an\nexample, which however, as not being directly theological, and thus not\nbearing immediately upon the matter in hand, I shall prefer to append\nin a note. An old Greek and Latin proverb, _A great city, a great\nsolitude_, (Magna civitas, magna solitudo,) seems to have dwelt merely\non the outside of things, and to have meant no more than this, namely,\nthat a city ambitiously laid out and upon a large scheme would with\ndifficulty find inhabitants sufficient, would wear an appearance of\nemptiness and desolation; as there used to be a jest about Washington,\nthat strangers would sometimes imagine themselves deep in the woods,\nwhen indeed they were in the centre of the city. But with deeper\ncravings of the human heart after love and affection, the proverb was\nclaimed in an higher sense. We may take in proof these striking words\nof De Quincey, which are the more striking that neither they nor the\ncontext contain any direct reference to the proverb: \u201cNo man,\u201d he\nsays, \u201cever was left to himself for the first time in the streets, as\nyet unknown, of London, but he must have felt saddened and mortified,\nperhaps terrified, by the sense of desertion and utter loneliness which\nbelongs to his situation. No loneliness can be like that which weighs\nupon the heart in the centre of faces never ending, without voice or\nutterance for him; eyes innumerable that have \u2018no speculation\u2019 in\ntheir orbs which _he_ can understand; and hurrying figures of men and\nwomen weaving to and fro, with no apparent purposes intelligible to a\nstranger, seeming like a masque of maniacs, or a pageant of shadowy\nillusions.\u201d A direct reference to the proverb is to be found in some\naffecting words of Lord Bacon, who glosses and explains it exactly in\nthis sense;\u2014\u201cFor a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery\nof pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.\u201d\n\n[192] Chi ha l\u2019amor nel petto, ha lo sprone a i fianchi.\u2014Amor regge\nsenza legge. (Cf. Rom. xiii. 9, 10.)\u2014Amor regge il suo regno senza\nspada.\u2014Amor non conosce travaglio. (Cf. Gen. xxix. 20, 30.)\u2014Di tutte\nle arti maestro \u00e8 amore.\u2014Di tutto condimento \u00e8 amore.\n\n[193] Evangelios peque\u00f1os.\n\n[194] Der Weg zum Himmel geht durch Kreuzdorn. Compare the medieval\nobverse of the same: Via Crucis, via lucis.\n\n[195] No hiere Dios con dos manos.\n\n[196] Paz y paciencia, y muerte con penitencia.\n\n[197] _Memoirs of Margaret Fuller_, vol. 3, p. 266. In respect of\nwords like these, wrung out from moments of agony, and not the abiding\nconvictions of the utterer, may we not venture to hope that our own\nproverb, _For mad words deaf ears_, is often graciously true, even in\nthe very courts of heaven?\n\n[198] Wenn Gott ein Ding verdreufst, so verdreufst es auch bald die\nMenschen.\n\n[199] The following have all a right to be termed Christian proverbs:\nChi non vuol servir ad un solo Signor, \u00e0 molti ha da servir;\u2014E padron\ndel mondo chi lo disprezza, schiavo chi lo apprezza;\u2014Quando Dios\nquiere, con todos vientos llueve.\n\n[200] Perimus licitis.\n\n[201] Non quam late sed quam l\u00e6te habites, refert.\u2014Mas vale un pedazo\nde pan con amor, que gallinas con dolor.\n\n[202] Quien siembra abrojos, no ande descalzo. Compare the Latin: Si\nvultur es, cadaver expecta; and the French: Maudissons sont feuilles;\nqui les seme, il les recueille.\n\n[203] No se mou la fulla, que Deu no ha vulla. This is one of the\nproverbs of which the peculiar grace and charm nearly disappears in the\nrendering.\n\n[204] Quien \u00e0 dos se\u00f1ores ha de servir, al uno ha de mentir.\n\n[205] Verum mihi videtur illud: Dives aut iniquus, aut iniqui h\u00e6res.\nOut of a sense of the same, as I take it, the striking Italian proverb\nhad its rise: Mai divent\u00f2 fiume grande, chi non v\u2019entrasse acqua\ntorbida.\n\n[206] \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9, \u03c0\u03b1\u1fe6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03ac\u03ba\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9.\n\n[207] The fact which this proverb proclaims, of a great gulf existing\nbetween what men profess and what they are, is one too frequently\nrepeating itself and thrusting itself on the notice of all, not to have\nfound its utterance in an infinite variety of forms, although none\nperhaps so deep and poetical as this. Thus there is another Greek line,\nfairly represented by this Latin:\n\n    Qui tauros stimulent multi, sed rarus arator;\n\nand there is the classical Roman proverb: Non omnes qui habent\ncitharam, sunt cithar\u0153di; and the medieval rhyming verse:\n\n    Non est venator quivis per cornua flator;\n\nand this Eastern word: _Hast thou mounted the pulpit, thou art not\ntherefore a preacher_; with many more.\n\n[208] Qui me amat, amat et canem meum. (_In Fest. S. Mich. Serm._ 1, \u00a7\n3.)\n\n[209] Libera me ab homine malo, a meipso.\n\n[210] \u1f48\u03c8\u1f72 \u0398\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bc\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, \u1f00\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03ac.\nWe may compare the Latin: Habet Deus suas horas, et moras; and the\nSpanish: Dios no se queja, mas lo suyo no lo deja.\n\n[211] Dii laneos habent pedes.\n\n[212] _Life_, vol. i. p. 312.\n\n[213] Wo der Teufel nicht hin mag kommen, da send er seinen Boten hin.\n\n[214] La farina del diavolo se ne v\u00e0 in semola.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nON THE METRICAL LATIN PROVERBS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. (See p. 29.)\n\n\nI have not seen anywhere brought together a collection of these\nmedieval proverbs cast into the form of a rhyming hexameter. Erasmus,\nthough he often illustrates the proverbs of the ancient world by\nthose of the new, does not quote, as far as I am aware, through the\nwhole of his enormous collection, a single one of these which occupy\na middle place between the two; a fact which in its way is curiously\nillustrative of the degree to which the attention of the great\nHumanists at the revival of learning was exclusively directed to the\nclassical literature of Greece and Rome. Yet proverbs in this form\nexist in considerable number; being of very various degrees of merit,\nas will be seen from the following selection; in which some are keen\nand piquant enough, while others are of very subordinate value; those\nwhich seemed to me utterly valueless\u2014and they were not few\u2014I have\nexcluded altogether. The reader familiar with proverbs will detect\ncorrespondents to very many of them, besides the few which I have\nquoted, in one modern language or another, often in many.\n\n    Accipe, sume, cape, tria sunt gratissima Pap\u00e6.\n\nLet me observe here, once for all, that the lengthening of the\nfinal syllable in _cap\u00ea_, is not to be set down to the ignorance\nor carelessness of the writer; but in the theory of the medieval\nhexameter, the unavoidable stress or pause on the first syllable\nof the third foot was counted sufficient to lengthen the shortest\nsyllable in that position.\n\n    Ad secreta poli curas extendere noli.\n\n    \u00c6gro sanato, frustra dices, Numerato.\n\n    Amphora sub veste raro portatur honeste.\n\n    Ante Dei vultum nihil unquam restat inultum.\n\n    Ante molam primus qui venit, non molat imus.\n\nA rule of natural equity: Prior tempore, prior jure;\u2014_First\ncome, first serve_.\u2014\u201cWhoso first cometh to the mill, first\ngrint.\u201d\u2014_Chaucer._\n\n    Arbor naturam dat fructibus atque figuram.\n\n    Arbor ut ex fructu, sic nequam noscitur actu.\n\n    Ars compensabit quod vis tibi magna negabit.\n\n    Artem natura superat sine vi, sine cur\u00e2.\n\n    Aspera vox, Ite, sed vox est blanda, Venite.\n\nAn allusion to Matt. xxv. 34, 41.\n\n    Cari rixantur, rixantes conciliantur.\n\n    Carius est carum, si pr\u00e6gustatur amarum.\n\n    Casus dementis correctio fit sapientis.\n\n    Catus s\u00e6pe satur cum capto mure jocatur.\n\n    Cautus homo cavit, si quem natura notavit.\n\n    Conjugium sine prole, dies veluti sine sole.\n\n    Contra vim mortis non herbula crescit in hortis.\n\n    Cui puer assuescit, major dimittere nescit.\n\nThe same appears also in a pentameter, and under an Horatian image:\nQuod nova testa capit, inveterata sapit.\n\n    Cui sunt multa bona, huic dantur plurima dona.\n\n    Cum jocus est verus, jocus est malus atque severus.\n\nSo the Spanish: Malas son las burlas verdaderas.\n\n    Curvum se pr\u00e6bet quod in uncum crescere debet.\n\n    Curia Romana non qu\u00e6rit ovem sine lan\u00e2.\n\n    Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.\n\n\u201cHe that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.\u201d (Rom. xii. 8.) Cf. Ecclus.\nxxxv. 9; SENECA, _De Benef._, i. 1.\n\n    Deficit ambobus qui vult servire duobus.\n\n    Dormit secure, cui non est functio cur\u00e6.\n\n_Far from court, far from care._\n\n    Ebibe vas totum, si vis cognoscere potum.\n\n    Est facies testis, quales intrinsecus estis.\n\n    Est nulli certum cui pugna velit dare sertum.\n\n    Ex lingu\u00e2 stult\u00e2 veniunt incommoda multa.\n\n    Ex minimo crescit, sed non cito fama quiescit.\n\n    F\u0153mina ridendo flendo fallitque canendo.\n\n    Frangitur ira gravis, cum fit responsio suavis.\n\n    Fures in lite pandunt abscondita vit\u00e6.\n\nSo in Spanish: Ri\u00f1en las comadres, y dicense las verdades.\n\n    Furtivus potus plenus dulcedine totus.\n\n    Hoc retine verbum, frangit Deus omne superbum.\n\n    Illa mihi patria est, ubi pascor, non ubi nascor.\n\n    Impedit omne forum defectus denariorum.\n\n    In vestimentis non stat sapientia mentis.\n\n    In vili veste nemo tractatur honeste.\n\nThe Russians have a worthier proverb: _A man\u2019s reception is according\nto his coat; his dismissal according to his sense_.\n\n    Linguam fr\u00e6nare plus est quam castra domare.\n\n    Lingua susurronis est pejor felle draconis.\n\n    Musca, canes, mimi veniunt ad fercula primi.\n\n    Mus salit in stratum, cum scit non adfore catum.\n\n    Ne credas undam, placidam non esse profundam.\n\n    Nil cito mutabis, donec meliora parabis.\n\n    Nobilitas morum plus ornat quam genitorum.\n\n    Non colit arva bene, qui semen mandat aren\u00e6.\n\n    Non est in mundo dives qui dicit, Abundo.\n\n    Non habet anguillam, per caudam qui tenet illam.\n\n    Non stat securus, qui protinus est ruiturus.\n\n    Non vult scire satur quid jejunus patiatur.\n\n    Omnibus est nomen, sed idem non omnibus omen.\n\nIn a world of absolute truth, every name would be the exact utterance\nof the thing or person that bore it; but in our world not every\nIren\u00e6us is peaceable, nor every Blanche a blonde. Vigilantius ought\nrather, according to Jerome, to have been named Dormitantius; and\nAntiochus Epiphanes, (the Illustrious,) was for the Jews Antiochus\nEpimanes, (the Insane.)\n\n    Parvis imbutus tentabis grandia tutus.\n\n    Pelle sub agnin\u00e2 latitat mens s\u00e6pe lupina.\n\n    Per multum, Cras, Cras, omnis consumitur \u00e6tas.\n\n    Prodigus est natus de parco patre creatus.\n\n    Quando tumet venter, produntur facta latenter.\n\n    Qui bene vult fari, debet bene pr\u00e6meditari.\n\n    Quidquid agit mundus, monachus vult esse secundus.\n\n    Qui petit alta nimis, retro lapsus ponitur imis.\n\n    Qui pingit florem non pingit floris odorem.\n\n    Qui se non noscat, vicini jurgia poscat.\n\n    Quisquis amat luscam, luscam putat esse venustam.\n\n    Quisquis amat ranam, ranam putat esse Dianam.\n\n    Quod raro cernit oculi lux, cor cito spernit.\n\n    Quo minime reris, de gurgite pisce frueris.\n\n    Quos vult sors ditat, et quos vult sub pede tritat.\n\n    Res satis est nota, plus f\u0153tent stercora mota.\n\n    Scribatur portis, Meretrix est janua mortis.\n\n    Sepes calcatur, qu\u00e2 pronior esse putatur.\n\n    Si curiam curas, pariet tibi curia curas.\n\n    Si nequeas plures, vel te solummodo cures.\n\n    Si non morderis, cane quid latrante vereris?\n\n    Stare diu nescit, quod non aliquando quiescit.\n\n    Subtrahe ligna focis, flammam restinguere si vis.\n\n    Sunt asini multi solum bino pede fulti.\n\n    Sus magis in c\u0153no gaudet quam fonte sereno.\n\n    Tam male nil cusum, quod nullum prosit in usum.\n\n    Tot\u00e2 equidem novi plus test\u00e2 pars valet ovi.\n\n    Ultra posse viri non vult Deus ulla requiri.\n\n    Verba satis celant mores, eademque revelant.\n\n    Vos inopes nostis, quis amicus quisve sit hostis.\n\n    Vulpes vult fraudem, lupus agnum, f\u0153mina laudem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAdd to these a few of the same description, but unrhymed:\n\n    Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantam.\n\nIt is with this proverb, which is almost of all languages, that Lady\nMacbeth taunts her husband, as one\u2014\n\n    \u201cLetting, I dare not, wait upon, I would,\n     Like the poor cat i\u2019 the adage.\u201d\u2014Act I. Scene 7.\n\n    Cochlea consiliis, in factis esto volucris.\n\n    Dat Deus omne bonum, sed non per cornua taurum.\n\nThe Chinese say: _Even the ripest fruit does not drop into one\u2019s\nmouth_; and another Latin: Non volat in buccas assa columba tuas.\n\n    Ense cadunt multi, perimit sed crapula plures.\n\n    Furfure se miscens porcorum dentibus estur.\n\nWith a slight variation the Italian: Chi si fa fango, il porco lo\ncalpesta.\n\n    Ipsa dies quandoque parens, quandoque noverca.\n\n    Invidus haud eadem semper quatit ostia D\u00e6mon.\n\n    Mirari, non rimari, sapientia vera est.\n\n    Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum.\n\n    Non stillant omnes quas cernis in a\u00ebre nubes.\n\n    Non venit ad silvam, qui cuncta rubeta veretur.\n\n    Occurrit cuicunque Deus, paucique salutant.\n\n    Pro ratione Deus dispertit frigora vestis.\n\n    Quod rarum carum; vilescit quotidianum.\n\n    Sermones blandi non radunt ora loquentis.\n\n    Stultorum calami carbones, m\u0153nia chart\u00e6.\n\nSo the French: Muraille blanche, papier des sots.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAdd further a few which occupy two lines:\n\n    Argue consultum, te diliget; argue stultum,\n    Avertet vultum, nec te dimittet inultum.\n\n    Balnea cornici non prosunt, nec meretrici;\n    Nec meretrix munda, nec cornix alba fit und\u00e2.\n\n    Dives eram dudum; fecerunt me tria nudum;\n    Alea, vina, Venus; tribus his sum factus egenus.\n\n    Quando mulcetur villanus, pejor habetur;\n    Ungentem pungit, pungentem rusticus ungit.\n\nLatin medieval ones in the same spirit abound: among others this\ndetestable one with its curious triple rhyme: Rustica gens est optima\nflens, et pessima ridens.\n\n    Si bene barbatum faceret sua barba beatum,\n    Nullus in hoc circo queat esse beatior hirco.\n\n    Si qu\u00e2 sede sedes, et sit tibi commoda sedes,\n    Ill\u00e2 sede sede, nec ab ill\u00e2 sede recede.\n\n    Hoc scio pro certo, quod si cum stercore certo,\n      Vinco seu vincor, semper ego maculor.\n\n    Multum deliro, si cuique placere requiro;\n      Omnia qui potuit, h\u00e2c sine dote fuit.\n\n    Permutant mores homines, cum dantur honores;\n      Corde stat inflato pauper, honore dato.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\nLONDON:\nSAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,\nCHANDOS STREET.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note\n\n\nErrors corrected were as follows:\n\nFootnote 24: \u201c1\u201d changed to \u201cl\u201d (Quintilian, _Inst._ l. 4);\n\nFootnote 90: \u201cKirchkofsblumen\u201d changed to\n\u201cKirchhofsblumen\u201d (Hare sind Kirchhofsblumen);\n\nFootnote 96: \u201cMissa \u00c7apateiros\u201d changed to \u201cmissa \u00e7apateiros\u201d\n(Va\u00f4 \u00e1 missa \u00e7apateiros).\n\nIn addition, obvious punctuation errors were repaired.\n\nVariable hyphenation and spelling were preserved. Apart from the\ncorrections above, errors in foreign languages have also been left\nuncorrected.","title":"Proverbs and Their Lessons: Being the Subject of Lectures Delivered to Young Men's Societies at Portsmouth and Elsewhere","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":41415}