CHAPTER VII
The Power of the Tongue—Speech and Silence—Knowledge and Wisdom not Interchangeable Terms—Truth and Untruth—Travellers' Tales—Flattery—Industry and Sloth—Youth—Friends, True and False—Riches and Poverty—The Ladder to Thrift—The Influence of Womankind—The Good Wife—The Shrew—The Testimony of Epitaphs—The Grey Mare—Home—Hope—Forethought—Excuses—Good and Ill Fortune—Retribution—Detraction—Pretension—Self-interest—Bribery and Corruption—Custom and Habit—The General Conduct of Life—The Weather—The Moon made of Green Cheese—Conclusion
Speech, wise or otherwise, and silence, under the same limitations, have supplied the material for countless wisdom-chips, the power of the tongue in what it says and how it says it being recognised as of vital importance, and this has been admitted at every period and under every sky. It has been said that "More have repented speech than silence," and the assertion has much experience in its favour. Though times arise when prompt speech is needful, and cowardice and a poor expediency prevents the words being uttered, it is, perhaps, more ordinarily the experience that one unavailingly regrets having spoken, and would give much to be able to recall the hasty and inconsiderate utterance.[194:A]
It has been truly said that he knows much who knows when to speak, but that he knows yet more who knows when to be silent, and that the good talker is known by what he says, and also by what he does not say. It has been very happily declared that "Flow of words is not always flow of wisdom," and that "Quality is ever better than quantity," so that "Words should be delivered not by number but by weight."[195:A] Another very true adage is that "Talking comes by nature, silence by understanding."
The Italians say: "Great eloquence, little conscience," and it is certainly true that "Great talkers fire too fast to take good aim." Speech has been declared to be the portraiture of the mind, so that as the man talks to us he is quite unconsciously depicting himself. "A close mouth catches no flies" says the old saw, and modest merit that trusts to its deserving is likely enough to be supplanted by the boldly importunate. Many would prefer to let these others do the impudent begging, and would surrender the flies, but keep their self-respect. Young tells us that
"Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil like bales unopen'd to the sun"—
which is very true; while Shakespeare's advice is no less so:
"Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest."
A very homely saw declares, "Least said, soonest mended," and certainly "Speaking silence is better than senseless speech"; but the assumption that the speech is of such a quality that it is best left unsaid is a little severe, and the mental atmosphere in which the less said implied the less to be mended would be, we would fain hope, a very exceptional one. We shall all agree that "Say well is good, but do well is better," and in the value of the caution that "In lavishing words one wears out ideas." An old rhyme hath it that "A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds," and a grave old writer advises us on this that "The way of God's commandments is more in doing than in discourse."[196:A] "Great talkers are ill doers" is another version of the saying.
It has been said, and very justly, that "Silence often expresses more powerfully than speech the verdict and the judgment," and to one who comes beneath its sway it must be more eloquent and more crushing than any audible denunciation that can be repudiated or challenged. It is a very common saying that "Silence gives consent," but one readily sees that this is much too sweeping. Nevertheless, the adage is of venerable antiquity and of wide distribution. We find it quoted by Euripides long before the Christian era. The Romans said, "Qui tacet consentire videtur," while the modern Frenchman believes that "Assez consent qui ne dit pas mot." In Psalm L. v. 21, things are presented on an entirely different footing. "Silence," says Shakespeare, "is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy if I could say how much." The tongue, "the unruly member," has been the subject of countless discourses and essays, and also of warning adages beyond number. The writer of Ecclesiasticus tells us that "The pipe and the psaltery make sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both," and a French proverb runs that "Douces paroles ne scorchent pas la langue."
Richard Taverner, writing in 1539, tells us that being "demaunded what in a man is the worst thyng and the best, Anacharsis answered—the tonge. Meanyng that the selfe same parte of a manne bryngeth most utilitie yf it be with ryght reason gouverned, and agayne is most perylouse and hurtfull yf otherwyse." This testimony may be accepted as being about the truth; but, as it is much less necessary to commend the good than to denounce the evil, the general set of proverb teaching is strongly in the latter direction. An old Roman proverb runs, "Lingua quo vadis?"—"Tongue, where goest thou?" The hint, to stop a moment and see in what direction we are being taken, the journey and its ending, is an excellent one.
"The first vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,
Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge,"[197:A]
writes Chaucer, in the "Manciple's Tale," and he repeats this in "Troilus and Creseide," and refers to this control of the tongue as part of the valuable practice and precept of the wise men of old:
"For which these wise clerkes that ben dede
Have euer this prouerbed to us young
That the first vertue is to kepe the toung."
Hence, "If you keep your tongue prisoner your body may go free." Another old proverb of similar import is, "Confine your tongue, lest your tongue confine you"; while the Spaniards throw even more force into their version, "Let not the tongue say what the head shall pay for." "Life and death are in the power of the tongue"—self-destruction, or that of others. "A fool's tongue may cut his throat" is a homely English saw, and very much to the point.
A very quaint old MS. in the Harleian collection deals with the faults and failings to which men are liable. Thus, for instance:
"With thy tong thou mayst thyself spylle,
And with tong thou mayst haue all thy wylle.
Here and se, and kepe thee stylle,[198:A]
Whatsoever ye thynk avyse ye wele."
This call to reflection terminates each verse. The whole poem is so quaintly refreshing that we cannot forbear quoting, at all events, one more verse—the caution against insobriety; and as this particular evil has, amongst its other bad effects, that of provoking strife, angry discussion, and foul language, we may still feel that it comes within our scope—the influence of the tongue:
"And thow goo vnto the wyne
And thow thynk yt good and fyne,
Take thy leve whane yt ys tyme,
Whatsoever ye thynk avyse ye wele."
An ancient proverb reminds us that "It is good sleeping in a whole skinne," and thereupon Heywood comments and advises: "Let not your tong run at rover, since by stryfe yee may lose and can not winne." To "Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know" is also an excellent discipline. The young, especially, shut themselves off from much valuable knowledge rather than admit their ignorance.[198:B]
In a manuscript of the fourteenth century we found the following:—
"Wykkyd tunge breket bon, the first
Thow the self haue non"—
This is the first reference that we have come across to a proverb commonly encountered in the form of "The tongue breaks bones, though she herself has none."[199:A] It is no doubt based on the passage in Ecclesiasticus, declaring that "The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh, but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue." The book of Ecclesiasticus is an overflowing treasury of wisdom. What could be wiser counsel, for example, than this?—"If thou hast understanding, answer thy neighbour: if not, lay thy hand upon thy mouth. Honour and shame is in talk, and the tongue of man is his fall. Be not called a whisperer, and lie not in wait with thy tongue." "Where there is whispering there is lying" says one of our proverbs, and it is in the main true. The honourable and straightforward thing can ordinarily be proclaimed in the ears of all.
The Spaniards declare that "La langua del mal amigo mas corta que el cuchillo"—"The tongue of a false friend is sharper than a knife." "Mors et vita in manibus linguæ": it is the arbiter of life and death, and yet it has been necessary to remind men that "It is better to lose a jest than a friend." A quick sense of humour, a talent at repartee, the power of seeing the ridiculous side of things, are dearly bought when their display is at the expense of the feelings of others.[199:B] A happy conceit may be the beginning of an unhappy strife, and it must be remembered that "He who makes others afraid of his wit had need be afraid of their memories"—the sarcastic speech, the little touch of ridicule rankling in the mind of the victim long after the utterer has entirely forgotten them.
We are reminded, too, that "A fool, when he hath spoken, hath done all"; and the Spaniard tells us that "A long tongue betokens a short head"—the braggart tells us much of what he is going to do, but the performance is not at all in proportion.[200:A]
"The price of wisdom is above rubies" we read in one of the most ancient of books, dating some fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; and Baruch, also writing in far-off time, exclaims: "Learn where is wisdom, where is strength, where is understanding, that thou mayst know also where is length of days and life, where is the light of the eyes and peace." The apocryphal books of the Bible include Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom, and in each of these the praise of wisdom is the dominant theme, as, for example: "Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away"; "She is a treasure unto men that never faileth"; "All gold of respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before her"; "All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is with Him for ever"; "The parables of knowledge are in the treasures of wisdom"; "Wisdom exalteth her children, and layeth hold of them that seek her." We need scarcely stay to point out that in the book of the Proverbs of Solomon wisdom is again exalted in many striking passages full of poetry and beauty.
We are all familiar with the adage, "Experientia docet"; but the following, equally true, is less well known—"He that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is a gainer by his loss." Another very happy saying is, that "A wise man has more ballast than sail," and yet another is that "Wisdom is always at home to those who call." It is very true, too, that "By the thoughts of others wise men may correct their own," for a wise man gets learning even from those who have none themselves; and "He is the true sage," says the Persian proverb, "who learns from all the world"—a wide field, but not too wide for profitable service.
We must be careful to bear in mind that knowledge and wisdom are not necessarily interchangeable terms; a man may have a far-reaching knowledge, and be a perfect encyclopædia of useful and useless facts, and yet be wofully deficient in wisdom. "Learning is but an adjunct to oneself," writes Shakespeare, in "Love's Labour's Lost," a sentence luminous and golden. We see the essential difference perhaps the better if we append to each its opposite—knowledge and ignorance, wisdom and folly.
The fool has supplied material for countless proverbs. Solomon tells us that "A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother"; that "A prating fool shall fall"; that "It is as sport to a fool to do mischief"; that "The fool shall be servant to the wise of heart"; that "He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly"; that "Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom"; that "He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow"; that "A fool returneth to his folly"; that "A fool uttereth all his mind"; that "Fools die for want of wisdom"; that "The legs of the lame are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools";[201:A] while the writer of Ecclesiasticus says—"Weep for the dead, for he hath lost the light; and weep for the fool, for he wanteth understanding. Make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest; but the life of the fool is worse than death. Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead, but for a fool all the days of his life." Many other Biblical references may very readily be found.
In the domain of secular literature and proverb-lore the material at our service is equally lavish in amount and definite in its pity and scorn of these unfortunates. The following may be accepted as samples from the bulk: "Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men"; "Folly, as well as wisdom, is justified in its children"; "Little minds, like small beer, are soon soured"; "Wise men make jests, and fools repeat them"; "He is a fool who makes his fist a wedge"; "On the heels of folly shame treads"; "To promise and give nothing is a comfort to a fool"; "A foolish judge passes a quick sentence"; "A wise man shines, a fool would outshine"; "Cunning is the fool's substitute for wisdom"; "The fools wonder, wise men ask"; "A fool and his money are soon parted";[202:A] "The fool says, Who would have thought it?"; "Folly jumps into the river, and wonders why Fate lets him"; "Wit is folly, unless a wise man has the keeping of it"; "A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer, but a wise man cannot ask more questions than a fool is ready to answer"; "A fool shoots without taking aim." These proverbs are severe, but one feels, on full consideration of them, one after another, that there is not one that is exaggerated. They all describe people whom we have all met, and who are still living.
There is some considerable compensation in the fact that "The less wit a man has, the less he knows he wants it." The French say that "Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire"—a fool always finds a bigger fool to admire him—and that, too, must be very comforting.[203:A] As writer and reader alike happily feel beyond any uncomfortable misgiving that these various proverbs refer to quite other folk than themselves, we may pick up a few hints from yet other proverbs as to our dealings with these unfortunate people. One point that we need to remember is that "He who has to deal with a blockhead has need of much brains." It is expedient, too, to remember that "If you play with a fool at home, he will play with you in the street"; and the caution may be given that "A fool demands much, but he is a greater fool that gives it." It is painful to know that "Knaves are in such repute that honest men are counted fools," though to be counted a fool by a knave is, after all, of little moment. We must bear in mind, too, that "No one is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes," and the true wisdom is to value good, from whatever quarter it comes.
The value of truth and the meanness of falsehood find due place in our proverb literature. "Truth," we are told, "hath always a fast bottom," a firm anchorage. "Truth hath but one way, but that is the right way." Esdras tells us that, "As for the truth, it endureth, and is always strong: it liveth and conquereth for evermore." Even in the old classic days, before Christianity influenced the lives of men, the beauty of truth was recognised, for Plautus wrote, two hundred years before the coming of Christ, "That man is an upright man who does not repent him that he is upright"; and Seneca declared that "He is most powerful who has himself in his power." It has been beautifully said that "Truth is God's daughter," and that "It may be blamed, but it may never be shamed."
The following sayings will bear consideration:—"Truth begets trust, and trust truth," "The usefullest truths are the plainest," "He who respects his word will find it respected," "Craft must have clothes, but truth can go naked," "No one ever surfeited of too much honesty," "A straight line is the shortest in morals as in mathematics," "It is always term-time in the court of conscience," "Character is the diamond that scratches every other stone," "Truth is the cement of society," "Sell not thy conscience with thy goods," "Smart reproof is better than smooth acquiescence." Truth, then, must necessarily make enemies, for "Honest men never have the love of a rogue," and "Truth is always unpalatable to those who will not relinquish error"—to those who love darkness rather than light.
In the Library of Jesus College, Cambridge, in a manuscript of the fifteenth century we find the following excellent teaching:
"Of mankynde thou shalt none sle
Ne harm with worde, wyll, nor dede;
Ne suffir non lorn ne lost to be
If thow wele may than help at nede.
Be thou no thef, nor theves fere
Ne nothing wyn with trechery;
Okur ne symony cum thow not nere,
But conciens clere kepe al ay trewely.
Thou shalt in worde be trewe alsso;
And fals wytnes thou shalt none bere:
Loke thow not lye for frende nor foo
Lest thow they saull full gretely dere.
Hows, ne land, ne othir thyng,
Thow shalt not covet wrangfully;
But kepe ay wele Goddes biddyng
And Cristen fayth trow stedfastly."
Another writer gives the very wise advice to take some little care of what goes into the mouth, but much more of what comes out of it. Bacon, in his "Advancement of Learning," speaks of "The sun which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before," and Milton adopts the thought but modifies it into this: "Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam." It has been said that "Ridicule is the test of truth," but one scarcely sees why, and we see that Carlyle, referring to it in one of his books, says, "We have, oftener than once, endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism." Another adage, which we find in France as well as in England, is that "All truth must not be told at all times." Expediency is a somewhat doubtful guide, but expediency at its best is good common-sense, and common-sense admits the truth of this adage. A much more doubtful saying is that, "That is true which all men say," practically an echo of "Vox populi, vox Dei," though in the highest and deepest sense a great truth is involved in it. To assert that the clamour of the mob is necessarily inspired by the wisdom of Heaven is mere blasphemy; self-interest, prejudice, passion, are too evidently factors, and what all men are saying at a certain period may be but a passing emotion built on the shifting sand. Such a proverb so employed may serve well enough as a plea for drifting with the stream and shouting with the crowd, but if we go deeper the proverb is profoundly true. Man, born in the image of God, marred as that image now is, preserves yet something of the divine, and far below popular clamour and waves of passion is the seed of truth and righteousness; and where this throughout humanity blossoms into detestation of slavery, unjust war, or other outrage against the conscience of mankind, and the cry goes to Heaven against the iniquity, the Spirit of God is dwelling in the souls of men, and they become co-workers with Deity.
Falsehood, like truth, has its attendant proverbs. How true, for instance, is this, "Subterfuge is the coward's defence," or this, "Falsehood stings those who meddle with it."
"O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive."
Hence the French say, "Il faut qu'un menteur ait bonne mémoire"—"Liars need to have good memories"; while the Scotch say very happily, "Frost and fausehood hae baith a dirty wa'-gang." Other adages are: "To conceal a fault is to add to it another,"[206:A] "The credit that is got by a lie only lasts till the truth comes out," "Ill doers are ill deemers," "No poverty like poverty of spirit," "Better lose good coat than good conscience," "Half a truth is often a whole falsehood," "He who breaks his word bids others be false to him." "Almost, and very nigh, saves many a lie," is a saw that is somewhat difficult to classify; it appears to be on the side of truth, and yet it seems to suggest a way of coming nearly to the boundary-line without actually crossing into the domain of falsehood. In an old book of morals we find the precept, "In relating anything extraordinary it is better, in case of doubt, to be within rather than beyond the line of fact"—a somewhat half-hearted precept this!
"Travellers' tales" have long been under suspicion, and certainly some of the earlier explorers did expose the credence of their auditors and readers to a severe strain in some of their narrations. On the other hand, we must have the grace to admit that later explorers have verified many statements that were long held impossible. The Persians say that "Whoso seeth the world telleth many a lie"; while human nature is so essentially the same all the world over that in the sayings of a savage tribe in West Africa we meet with this, "He who travels alone tells lies." The common experience of mankind is unfortunately against the traveller, and he must sometimes be content to wait, years or centuries maybe, before his wonderful experiences are fully accepted.
It is a true and far-reaching proverb that "Error, though blind herself, sometimes brings forth seeing children." Thus from alchemy, with its elixir vitæ and aurum potabile, has sprung the science of chemistry; and astrology, a farrago of superstitious rubbish, had yet within it the seed that should afterwards develop into the grandest of all sciences, astronomy.
"Flattery," Swift tells us, "is the food of fools," and Gray speaks of "Painted flattery with its serpent train," while Goldsmith dwells on the
"Flattering painter who made it his care
To draw men as thy ought to be, not as they are."
The lines in "Julius Cæsar" will also be recalled, where Shakespeare writes, "But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered."[207:A] These various passages sufficiently indicate that when we tag on flattery to the end of our section on falsehood, the arrangement is not far wrong. Those only are the recipients of flattery from whom some benefit may be obtained; hence "Flatterers haunt not cottages" we are told, with quaint humour. That such incense is appreciated by its objects rather than plain truths may be gathered from another quaint old adage, "Flattery sits in the parlour when plain-dealing is kicked out of doors." Perhaps this is a little the fault of plain-dealing, its directness being not always tempered with courtesy. The man who boasts that he always speaks his mind is not invariably the pleasantest of companions. There must be a happy medium somewhere between acidulated brutality of frankness and the sugared seductiveness of flattery.
The virtue of industry and the vice of sloth are factors in life that have not by any means escaped the notice of the builders-up of our proverb lore and store. The praise and inculcation of industry may very happily be seen, for example, in this gleaning: "Every man's task is his life-preserver," for rust consumes more than use wears. "He who serves well need not fear to ask his wages"; "Those that trust to their neighbours may wait for their harvest"; "It is better to do the thing than to wish it done"; "A wise man makes more opportunities than he finds"; "He that will eat the kernel must crack the nut"; "Learn to labour and to wait, but learn to labour first"; "Well begun is half done";[208:A] "God calls men when they are busy, Satan when they are idle"; "Work provides easy chairs for old age"; "Time wasted is existence, used is life"; "Save yourself pains by taking pains"; "Things don't turn up, they must be turned up"; "If you don't open the door to the devil he goes away"; "One grain fills not the sack, but it helps"; "Prudence is not satisfied with maybe"; "Nothing venture nothing have"; "It is working that makes a workman"; "Industry is Fortune's right hand";[209:A] "A willing helper does not wait till asked"; "We must not spend all the time whetting the scythe"; "Love labour, for if you want it not for food you may for physic"; "Bustle is not necessarily industry"; "The deeper the ploughing the heavier the reaping"; "He that begins many things finishes but few"; "Good beginning makes good ending." To these one could readily add one hundred more.
It is a true saying that "Every man is the son of his own works," and another good old saw is that "The burden which one likes is not felt." The labour is then wonderfully lightened, and those who are fond of their calling think little of the attendant toil, but perform as a pleasure what others consider a weariness.
A proverb still in common use is that "Many hands make light work"; while sometimes one can do better work by not working at all, for "The master's eye will do more than his two hands," the supervision being of more value than the sharing in the toil.
An interesting old relic and reminder of old times, when the spinning-wheel was in daily use, is seen in the saying, "I have tow on my distaff"—in other words, I have work all ready to engage my attention. Chaucer and other old writers introduce this proverb, but now the lapse of time, or, rather, the change of customs, has made it obsolete, a distaff being as utterly out of date as a battle-axe or a pair of snuffers.
The entirely accepted, and very justifiable, belief that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," is seen in such proverbs as, "If the devil catch a man idle he will set him to work," and its parallel, "Our idle days are Satan's busy days." It has been said, again, that "An idle brain is the Devil's workshop," and that "It is an ill army where the Devil carries the colours." Chaucer is in full agreement, and says that "Idlenesse is the gate of all harmes. An idel is like to a place that hath no walles; theras deviles may enter on every side," while Bishop Hall declares that "The idle man is the Devil's cushion, upon which he taketh his free ease."
Amongst the many proverbs that have the dispraise of idleness as their theme we may quote the following:—"Easy it is to bowl down hill"; "He is but idle who might be better employed"; "They must starve in frost who will not toil in heat"; "Idleness is the greatest prodigality"; "Idleness always envies industry"; "Business neglected is business lost"; "He that maketh his bed ill must be content to lie ill"; "Better to do a thing than wish it done"; "More die of idleness than of hard work"; "There is more fatigue in laziness than in labour"; "Shameful craving must have shameless refusing"; "Fish are not caught in one's sleep"; "Like a pig's tail, going all day, and nothing done at night"; "Lie not in the mud and cry for Heaven's aid"; "Were wishes horses beggars would ride"; "One of these days is none of these days"; "Wishing is of all employments the poorest paid"; "Accusing the times is excusing ourselves"; "There belongs more than whistling in going to plough." Life, however brief, is made yet shorter by waste of its opportunities, and it has been very truly said that "He who will not work until he feels himself in the proper mood will soon find himself in the proper mood never to work at all." For years we have had illuminated round our study walls the stirring words: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave," and they have lightened for us many a burden, and given an impulse to many an undertaking.
A Spanish proverb says that "She that gazes much spins little"—the distraction caused by externals being fatal to concentration of thought on the work. "No mill, no meal," is an old English proverb, signifying that if the necessary rattle of the machinery and the supervision of it is an offence one must be content to forego the benefits. "Black will take no other colour," is to be read as a hint that vicious people are seldom or never satisfactorily reclaimed. Camden, writing in 1614, tells a story of "A lusty gallant that had wasted much of his patrimony, seeing a gentleman in a gowne, not of the newest cut, tolde him that he had thought it had beene his great-grandfather's gowne. 'It is so,' saith he, 'and I have also my great-grandfather's lands, and so have not you.'" We see that Fuller declares "Oil of whip to be the proper plaister for the cramp of lazinesse"; while Cowper compares the idler to "A watch that wants both hands, As useless if it goes as if it stands"—a very happy idea.
One Smart, whom we may without offence class amongst the lesser poets, wrote an ode on "Idleness," in which he declares that that is the goal, and work merely its means of attainment. He thus apostrophises his ideal:
"For thee, O Idleness, the woes
Of life we patiently endure;
Thou art the source whence labour flowes,
We shun thee but to make thee sure."
The aspirations, the temptations, the duties of youth, form the subject of divers proverbs. These we may illustrate sufficiently by a judicious selection from the great mass of material available. How excellent the advice: "Be true to the best of yourself"; or this, "Rather set than follow example"; or yet, again, this, "Take care to be what thou wouldst seem to be." How good the teaching: "Liberty is not the freedom to do as we like, but as we ought"; that "Golden age never was present age"; that "Trinkets are no true treasure"; and that "In seeking happiness we may overlook content"—the first may perhaps be ours, but the second should always be obtainable.
The very familiar adage, "As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," remains as true as ever; therefore "Guard well thy thoughts, for thoughts are heard in Heaven."[212:A] Another writer very aptly declares that "It is better to hammer and forge one's character than to dream oneself into one"; while the old adage, "Keep good company and be one of the number," is excellent advice, pithily put.
Tusser, some three hundred or more years ago, declared that
"The greatest preferments that childe we can giue,
Is learning and nurture, to traine him to liue."
It has been well said that "Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune," and that "If the brain sows not corn it plants thistles." Were a farmer to leave a field a year untilled, not only would the corn supply that it might have yielded be lost, but the ground would produce in abundance useless weeds that would scatter their seed on the wind over the whole country-side; neither brain nor cornfield will remain neutral and dormant; a crop of something or other is inevitable. "If a man empties his purse," says the proverb, "into his head no man can take it from him;" and other good adages are: "Not the studies, but the study, makes the scholar"; "Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything"; "It is less painful to learn in youth than to be ignorant in age"; while the doctrine of plain living and high thinking was admirably foreshadowed in this: "Cater frugally for the body, but feed the mind sumptuously"—an altogether excellent precept, and we must remember that, when all is done, the best and most important part of a man's education is that which he gives himself, and which fits him in this great workshop of the world to use his tools to the best advantage, and contribute something of value to the general store.
It is a wise counsel to "Read not books alone but men, and chiefly to be careful to read oneself"—to take stock of oneself from time to time; that youth should remember what seems too difficult then to realise, that a day will come when youth has fled, when the demands of life will continue, and the power to meet them will have weakened. Such proverbs as these should be pondered over: "Reckless youth makes rueful age"; "If youth knew what age would crave, it would both get and save"; "A young man negligent, an old man necessitous." The same truth is put as clearly, but not so lugubriously, in the quainter saying: "He that saveth his dinner will have the more for his supper"—he that spares, that is, when he is young may the better spend when he is old. We have this, again, in a slightly varied and more intense form in the French, "He sups ill who eats all at dinner."
When the youth goes forth into the world his knowledge of the trials and temptations of life is small, while his faith in himself is great, and he sadly needs, far more than he knows, guidance, human and divine. What of counsel and of warning will our proverbs yield here?
The following precepts answer this weighty question, and all are rich in wisdom and guidance:—"No one is mighty but he that conquers himself"; "As we sow the habit so we reap the character"; "Let others' shipwrecks be your beacons"; "Careless watch invites vigilant foe"; "Every day is a leaf in our history"; "We live in the body, not as the servant but as the master"; "One vice is more expensive than many virtues"; "Consider not pleasures as they come, but as they go"; "Wade not where you see no bottom"; "The path of virtue is the path of peace"; "Clean glove may hide soiled hand"; "Satan promises the best and pays the worst"; "Those that would be kept from harm must keep out of harm's way"; "One bad example spoils many good precepts"; "The day has eyes, the night has ears"; "He who makes light of small faults will fall into great ones"; "He that cometh into needless danger dies the Devil's martyr." Each of these will amply repay quiet pondering over.
We give two verses of a very striking poem from a manuscript of the fifteenth century. It is entitled, "Man his own Woe," and is fifteen verses long:
"I made covienaunte trewe to be
When I fiyrste crystened was,
I wente to the worlde, and turned fro Thee,
And folowede the fend and his trace.
Fro wrathe and enuye wolde I not passe,
With covetyse I was bawte also,
My flesh hadde his wyll, alas,
I wyte myselfe myne owene woo.
"Ryche manne a thefe ys another,
That of covetyse woll not slake,
What he with wronge begyle his brother,
In blysse ful sone shall he forsake.
Byfore God for thefte hit ys take,
All that wyth wronge he wynneth so;
But he the radure amends make
He shall wyte hymeself hys owen wo."
We have seen that rhymes are commonly used as a means of impressing proverbs on the memory. The four couplets—one from Gower's "Confessio Amantis"; one from Burns, from his "Tam O'Shanter"; one from "An Honest Man's Fortune," written by John Fletcher three hundred years ago; and the fourth from "The Lady's Dream" of Hood—that we now quote are equally worth remembrance:
"Lo now, my son, what it is,
A man to caste his eyes amis."
"Pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed."
"Our acts are angels, for good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."
"Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart."
Other good proverbs for those at the commencement of life, are: that "A man is valued as he makes himself valuable"; "Crises form not character, but reveal it"; "He that finds it easy to repent will not find it hard to sin"; "Wine neither keeps secrets nor carries out promises"; "Bacchus has drowned more than Neptune"; and, happy truth, "Every slip is not a fall." It must be remembered that, while a man may have enough of the world to drag him down, he will never have enough to satisfy him—peace and satisfaction being found in a quite other direction than what by a strange misnomer is called "life." "A sound conscience is a triple fence of steel," so "Better keep evil out than turn it out." "Character is property," and "A good conscience makes an easy couch"; "Complaining is a contempt upon oneself"; "Thanksgiving is good, thanks-living is better."
Friends, true and false, have made their mark on our proverb store, and counsels of encouragement and of warning are abundantly at our service. How to recognise the true friend, how to detect the counterfeit article, is invaluable knowledge, and if we could only at all times be as wise as our rich mass of proverb-lore would fain have us to be, we should in matters of friendship, and in most other things, make a very prosperous voyage on the sea of life. One seems to detect several grades or qualities of friendship in these adages. There is that, for instance, which is unfailing, which in sickness and health, poverty or wealth, is always true and real; then at the other end of the scale a sham article that soon has all the gilt rubbed off; and then in between these a less obvious failure, which has many of the marks of the real thing, and which will stand by one bravely when all is going smoothly, but which must not be put to any severe strain or it may snap. Then, again, we detect another variety of the article, who appears to be merely some one to be worked on, as, for example, "He is my friend that grindeth at my mill"—who comes to our help in our necessity, lends us money, tools, and so forth, and of whom we presently tire because he loses his yielding properties, or who presently tires of us and our multitudinous wants. Then there is the candid friend, who is theoretically such a helpmate, but who in practice grows unbearable. This by no means exhausts the types one meets with, and we soon find that "friend" is a noun of multitude and stands for many things, from pure gold down to the veriest brass or pinchbeck.
The touchy people who are easily offended are not the people to make friends, or to keep them long if they do make them. "Who would be loved must love," or, with a slightly different shade of meaning, "That you may be loved, forget not to be lovable." To love and to be lovable are both essential if you would be loved. "A man is little the better for liking himself if no one else like him," since self-sufficiency means selfishness, and love does not prosper on that. A very good hint against selfishness is found in the Spanish, "Who eats his dinner alone must saddle his horse alone," for no one will go out of their way to help curmudgeons. It is an excellent maxim, too, that "He who receives a good turn should never forget it; he who does one should never remember it."
All have not the tact of him whose praises Moore sings:
"Whose wit in the combat as gentle as bright
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade."
An old adage says, "Leave jesting ere it ceaseth to please"; while another warns us that "A joke never gains over an enemy, but often loses a friend."[217:A] Some folk have a bantering manner that is disastrous, and if not held sternly in check will presently turn a warm-hearted friendship into indifference and repulsion.
The part of the candid friend is a very difficult one; nothing short of transparent honesty and abounding sympathy will make it possible. "Few there are," says the adage, "that will endure a true friend"; while another runs, "I will be thy friend, but not thy vice's friend," but we should imagine that the recipient would scarcely take kindly to such a remark. "Better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break," but few can bear it. On the other hand, "Toleration should spring from our charity, and not from our indifference." "Reproach is usually honest—the same cannot always be said of praise"; but the happiest proverb is, "Charity is greater than all." Those who live their lives in the light of that will need no lessons in the art of friendship, but will be already in the midst of friends, and themselves of that happy company.
Some people's notion of acquaintance seems to be what they can get out of it, and though they talk freely of "my friend," such folk have little notion of friendship. The following proverbs, though not exclusively theirs, point to this state of mind: "A friend in need is a friend indeed," "Short reckonings make long friends," "The begging of a courtesy is selling of liberty," "He is not charitable that will not be so privately," "Lenders have better memories than borrowers," "He is my friend that succoureth me, not he that pitieth me," "Promises may get friends, but performance keeps them," "He that gives his heart will not deny his money," "He loseth his thanks who promiseth and delayeth." Chaucer, in the "Romant of the Rose," writes:
"Soth to saie
Of him that loueth trew and well
Frendship is more than is cattell,
For frend in Court aie better is
Then penny in purse certis";
while one of our old proverbs declares, "As a man is friended, so the law is ended." This seems to imply that in the case of the man who has friends on the bench Justice will be a little blinder than usual, but it is evident that an unknown and friendless culprit must necessarily start under a disadvantage.
The following proverbs we see we have classed in our rough notes as pertaining to "friends you have not proved,"[219:A] and this classification may very well stand. It includes such sayings as "Friends got without desert will be lost without cause," "A friend is never known till one have need," "Before you make a friend eat a bushel of salt with him." Heywood seems to have got very near to the root of the matter in these lines of his:
"Many kinsfolke and few friends, some folke say:
But I find many kinsfolke and friend not one.
Folke say it hath been sayd many yeares since gone
Prove thy friend ere thou hast neede: but in deede
A friend is never knone till a man have neede.
Before I had neede my most present foes
Seemed my best friends, but thus the world goes."
The experience, we suppose, of all men, if ever this testing time really comes, is a twofold surprise—how entirely some they had trusted failed them, and how splendidly others came out of whom it was not expected.
Seneca declares that "Our happiness depends upon the choice of our company," and we may, we suppose, take it that we all of us get about such friends as we deserve. "Our friends are the mirror in which we see ourselves." Other excellent adages pertaining to friendship are these: "Be slow in choosing a friend, slower yet in changing";[219:B] "Friendship multiplies joy and divides grief"; "Wherever you see your friend trust yourself"; "The way to have a friend is to be one"; "Hearts may agree though heads differ"; "Wise and good men are friends, others are but companions"; "Search thy friend for his virtues, thyself for thy faults"; "Love sought is good, but given unsought is better"; "God divideth man into men, that so they may help each other"; "A man is valued as he makes himself valuable." The Spaniards declare that "Eggs of an hour, bread of a day, wine of a year, a friend of thirty years, are best."
"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel";
and in another passage Shakespeare writes of kindly
"Words of so sweet breath compounded,
As made the things more rich";
and it certainly appears to us that if we had reached the lowest depth of destitution we would yet rather have the gracious inability to help that some would express to us than the brusque brutality of some donors. When one would seek fine thoughts admirably presented one naturally turns in the first place to Shakespeare, but Chaucer makes an excellent second. How charming this line from "The Clerke's Tale," "He is gentil that doeth gentil dedis," and this passage again from the "Romant of the Rose":
"Loue of frendshippe also there is,
Which maketh no man dou amis,
Of wil knitte betwixt two,
That wol not breke for wele ne wo."
Tusser, in his quaint directness, says in his "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie":
"The quiet friend all one in worde and dede
Great comfort is, like ready golde at nede
With bralling fooles that wrall for euerie wrong
Firme friendship neuer can continue long.
Oft times a friend is got with easie cost,
Which vsed euill is oft as quickly lost.
Hast thou a friend, as heart may wish at will?
Then vse him so to haue his friendship still.
Wouldst haue a friend, wouldst knowe what friend is best?
Haue God thy friend, who passeth all the rest."
The following sayings of warning and experience have their valuable lessons:—"Trust not new friend nor old enemy"; "Though the sore may be healed yet the scar may remain";[221:A] "Small wounds, if many, may be mortal"; "Vexation is rather taken than given"; "At the gate which suspicion enters friendship departs"; "False friends are worse than open enemies"; "He that ceased to be a friend never was a good one"; "An unbidden guest knoweth not where to sit"; "All are not friends that speak us fair"; "Every one's friend, no one's"; "A friend that you buy will be bought from you."
An old saw bluntly says, "To make an enemy lend money, and ask for it again"; and it is certainly an excellent rule to have as little to do with money matters as one can help with one's friends and relatives. To appeal for help and to be refused, to lend and to see very little chance of repayal, to receive and to be under a heavy sense of obligation, are all destructive of frank and hearty friendship. Chaucer declares that
"His herte is hard that woll not weke
When men of meeknesse him beseeke."
An excellent man, most kindly in all his dealings, told us that he never lent money. The borrower is ordinarily in such straits that he has little chance of ever repaying. If he never intends to pay he is a knave,[222:A] and if he has more honourable thought he is crushed by the burden of the debt. Anyone who came to our excellent friend with a true and touching story was sympathetically received, and his request for the temporary loan of twenty pounds promptly declined! As an alternative he was offered a somewhat smaller sum, the half or, mayhap, the quarter of this, as a free gift, which he never failed to accept joyfully. In one of the Harleian manuscripts, dating from the reign of Edward IV., the writer's experience is a very common one, and his decision sound:
"I wold lend but I ne dare,
I have lent and I will beware
When I lant I had a frynd,
When I hym asked he was unkynd.
Thus of my frynd I made my foo,
Therefore darre I lend no moo."
The writer was evidently a kindly man, desiring to do the best he could, and he touchingly appeals to us not to judge him harshly:
"I pray yo of your gentilnesse
Report for no unkyndnesse."
Some one has very wisely remarked that many of the disappointments of life arise from our mistaking acquaintances for friends, and then when some little testing incident arises they break under the strain. "Prosperity makes friends, adversity proves them." One sarcastic adage hath it that "Friends are like fiddle-strings: they must not be screwed too tight"; but the Scotch say, and justly, that "He that's no my friend at a pinch is no my friend ava." Some centuries ago, human nature being then evidently very similar to what it is to-day, a wise man wrote: "If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him. For some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble; and there is a friend who, being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach; again, some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy affliction."
In Chaucer's "Romaunt of the Rose," we find the poet using the expression, "Farewel fieldfare," a valediction on summer friends that, like the wild and migratory fieldfare, take to themselves wings and depart. An old rhyming adage declares that "In time of prosperity friends will be plenty, in time of adversity not one in twenty"; or, to quote Tusser:
"Where welthines floweth, no friendship can lack,
Whom pouertie pincheth, hath friendship as slack";
while Goldsmith, it will be remembered, bitterly sums all up in,
"What is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep,
A shade that follows wealth and fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep."
Another adage declares that "Compliments cost nothing but may be dearly bought," while another candidly warns, "I cannot be your friend and your flatterer too." The flatterer has ordinarily "an axe to grind,"
"His fetch is to flatter, to get what he can,
His purpose once gotten, a fig for thee then."
In the "Rambler" No. 155, Johnson sapiently remarks, "Flattery, if its operations be nearly examined, will be found to owe its acceptance, not to our ignorance, but to our knowledge of our failures, and to delight us rather as it consoles our wants than displays our possessions." Swift asserts that
"'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools,
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit."
Bacon tells us, however, that "There is no such flatterer as is a man's selfe, and there is no such remedie against flatterie of a man's selfe as the libertie of a friend." It has been said that "A friend's frown is worth more than a fool's smile," but a cynical writer has affirmed, with some little truth, that "Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them," and it was long since discovered that "Whoso casteth a stone at the birds frayeth them away, and he that upbraideth his friend breaketh friendship." The duty of remonstrance is one of the most difficult that the friend can undertake, and "Save, save, O save me from the candid friend!" is the cry of Canning in "The New Morality," a cry that many have been inclined to echo.
Our ancestors, with blunt directness, asserted that "Fish and guests stink in three days," while the Arabs have the picturesque proverb, "A thousand raps, but no welcome"—a pertinacious hammering at the closed door but no response from within; a fruitless endeavour to thrust an intimacy on those who do not desire it.
We have seen that the friend lost is never really recovered and may become very readily an implacable enemy. Shakespeare warns us to "Trust not him that hath once broken faith," and we most of us know by experience how true are the lines of Dryden:
"Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."
The ancient Romans had a proverb that the French have adopted in the words, "Jeter de l'huile sur le feu." We have no identical English proverb, but its meaning is clearly a reference to those evil spirits who foment a quarrel, add fuel to the fire, irritate rather than soothe, and who have no part or lot in the blessing promised to the peace-makers.
The following adages are here worthy of our consideration:—"He that does you an ill turn will not forgive you"; "Pardon others often, thyself seldom"; "We are bound to forgive an enemy, but we are not bound to trust him";[225:A] "Better ride alone than have a bad man's company"; "Haste is the beginning of wrath, and its end repentance"; "It is wiser to prevent a quarrel than to revenge it"; "If thou wouldst be borne with, bear with others." To these we may add the oft-used saw, "The absent are always wrong," without at all endorsing its truth. The absent are often quite as right as the other people, and are merely unable through absence to protect themselves from defamation.
Poverty and riches naturally find a place in proverb-lore. "Poverty," says an old author, "is no crime, and it is no credit"; but the truth is, it is impossible to generalise quite so dogmatically as this—for poverty may be a crime when a lazy ne'er-do-well allows his wife and children to come to rags, and, on the other hand, it may be a credit when a man has done his best and foresworn all the dirty little tricks that have enriched his trade rivals. It is sometimes too readily and sentimentally assumed that poverty is itself a benediction; hence such sayings as "The poor are God's receivers and the angels are His auditors," but the real state of the case is excellently well put in the proverb, "There are God's poor, and the devil's poor."
"Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies."
Everywhere in life, some one has admirably said, the true question is not what we gain, but rather what we do. "Poverty need not be shame, but being ashamed of it is," poverty of spirit being a more distressing state of things than emptiness of pocket.
Let us turn to the wisdom of those who have gone before us, and see what teaching for our edification we may find. "Nothing is to be got without pains except poverty"; "Dependence is a poor trade to follow"; "Opportunities do not generally wait"; "Enough is a plenty, too much is pride"; "The groat is ill-saved which shames its master"; "Providence provides for the provident"; "To bear is to conquer"; "Poverty craves much, but avarice more"; "Gain ill-gotten is loss"; "Poverty is the mother of all arts"; "Content is the true philosopher's stone"; "If honesty cannot, knavery must not"; "Poor and content is rich"; "Flatterers haunt not cottages"; "Thrive honestly, or remain poor."
In a manuscript of the fifteenth century we found the following excellent precepts amongst many others, the whole being much too long to quote:
"If thou be visite with pouerte
Take it not to hevyle
For he that sende the adversite
May turn the agen to wele.
Purpose thy selfe in charite
Demene thy worschip in honeste
Let not nygardschip haue the maystre
For schame that may befalle
Faver not meche thy ryeches,
Set not lytel by worthynes
Kepe thyn hert from dowblenes
For any manner thyng."
Another budget of excellent precepts will commend itself to the thoughtful reader in the following:—"He who buys what he does not want will want what he cannot buy"; "Winter finds out what summer has laid up"; "Sleeping master makes servant lazy"; "Thrush paid for is better than turkey owed for"; "Better small fish than empty dish"; "He that borrows binds himself with his neighbour's rope"; "A man must plough with such oxen as he hath"; "He goes like a top, no longer than he is whipped"; "Better half a loaf than no bread"; "Better do it than wish it done"; "He that goes borrowing goes sorrowing"; "Better say here it is, than here it was"; "If you light the fire at both ends the middle will take care of itself."
Some three hundred years ago an old writer thought out what he called "the ladder to thrift," and these were some of his hints:
"To take thy calling thankfully
And shun the path to beggary.
To grudge in youth no drudgery,
To come by knowledge perfectly.
To plow profit earnestlie,
But meddle not with pilferie.
To hold that thine is lawfullie
For stoutness or for flatterie.
To suffer none live idlelie
For feare of idle knaverie.
To answere stranger ciuilie,
But show him not thy secresie.
To vse no friend deceitfully,
To offer no man villeny.
To learne how foe to pacifie,
But trust him not too trustilie.
To meddle not with vsurie
Nor lend thy monie foolishlie.
To loue thy neighbor neighborly
And shew him no discurtesy.
To learne to eschew ill company
And such as liue dishonestlie."
Though quaintly put—and their quaintness is accentuated by spelling such as would not at all pass muster in these iron-bound days of examinations for high and low, rich and poor—these halting couplets contain a full modicum of excellent common-sense.
It is not really the man whose possessions are few who is poor as he whose desires are great, and it has been well said that if we help some one who is worse off than ourselves we soon realise that we are more affluent than we thought. The helping to bear another's burden does not add to our own, but lightens it.
The French say, "Vent au visage rend un homme sage," a proverb fairly paralleled in an English adage, "Adversity makes a man wise, not rich." A quaint and serviceable proverb, quoted by Ray and others, though it has now passed quite out of use, is the assertion that "A bad bush is better than the open field," whether in sultry sunshine, piercing gale, or heavy downpour. It is better to have some friends, even though they can do little or nothing for us, than to be thrown quite destitute on a pitiless world; and it is wiser to make the best of what is than to scorn the small amount of help that it is able to give.
Wealth has its store of proverb-wisdom even in more abundance than poverty has, and it is only reasonable that this should be so, for it is a position of great responsibility, and its proper use requires all the wisdom that a man possesses, and sometimes, as we see, more than he possesses. Let us turn, then, to the precepts of the past and see what of value we can find in them for the present and the future. The following are a few of these:—"If a good man thrive, all will thrive with him";[229:A] "Riches rather enlarge than satisfy appetite"; "Possess your money, but do not let it possess you"; "Reputation is often measured by the acre"; "Great spenders are bad lenders"; "Liberality is not giving largely, but giving wisely"; "One may buy gold too dearly"; "He gives but little who gives only from a sense of duty"; "No estate can make him rich that hath a poor heart"; "Lavishness is not generosity"; "Great receipt renders us liable to great account"; "Wealth is not his that gets it, but his that enjoys it";[229:B] "Worth has been under-rated ever since wealth was over-rated"; "Covetous people always think themselves in want"; "He is alone rich who has contentment"; "God reaches us good things by our own hands"; "Slow help is very little help at all"; "Bounty is more commended than imitated";[229:C] "Spare well that you may spend well"; "The liberal hand gathers."[230:A] It has been said that "Some men give of their means and others of their meanness," and the statement has copious experience either way to fully justify it.
Plutarch declared "E tribus optimis rebus tres pessimæ oriuntur,"—that from three things excellent three very bad things were produced; truth begetting hatred, familiarity contempt, and success envy. Another old Roman saying is, "An dives sit, omnes quærunt, nemo an bonus"—all want to know if a man be rich, but no one troubles to inquire if he be good; yet "Great possession is not necessarily great enjoyment," and the moralist warns us—
"Put not in this world too much trust,
The riches whereof will turne to dust."[230:B]
"As a means of grace prosperity has never been much of a success." The Spaniards say, "Honor y provecho no capen en un saco": "Honour and profit cannot be contained in the same bag," rather too sweeping a statement. Another Spanish adage is, "El que trabaja y madra, hila oro": "He who labours and strives spins gold," reaps the reward of his industry. The French say, in praise of the thriftiness that is so characteristic of them, that "Le petit gain remplit la bourse": "Light gains make a full purse." Those who sell dearly sell little, and the small margin of profit oft repeated is the more advantageous. The Spanish proverb affirms that "He who would be rich in a year gets hanged in half a year," the pace being too great for honesty to keep up with. Another maxim of thrift is that "If you make not much of threepence you will never be worth a groat." The moral atmosphere, however, is getting a little stifling, and we are reminded of the lines of Gower on the over-frugal man:
"For he was grutchende euermore,
There was wyth hym none other fare
But for to pinche and for to spare
Of worldes mucke to gette encres."
Let us "Take care of the pence that the pounds may take care of themselves,"[231:A] but having got the pounds let us remember that "Judicious saving affords the means of judicious giving," and that "The best way to expand the chest is to have a large heart in it." "Money is a good servant but an ill master," and "He is not fit for riches who is afraid to use them"; "To a good spender God is treasurer."
Woman's influence on mankind is the subject of many proverbs, some of them kindly enough in tone, but the greater number of them characterised by satire and bitter feeling. As a sample of the first method of treating the subject may be instanced the testimony borne by this old rhyming adage: "Two things do prolong thy life—a quiet heart and a loving wife." It has been truly said that "A man's best fortune, or his worst, is a wife," and another excellent saying is this: "Men make houses—women make homes."[231:B]
Another wise old saw tells us that a man should "Choose a wife rather by ear than eye," judging her, not by personal charms, that are at best evanescent,[232:A] but by the kindliness of her nature and by the testimony of her worth that others declare. "Beauty," we are warned, "is but skin-deep," a truth that the old moralists and painters sometimes made more of with their paraphernalia of skulls and other symbols of mortality than was altogether seemly. St Chrysostom writes: "When thou seest a fair and beautiful person, a comely woman, having bright eyes and merry countenance, a pleasant grace, bethink with thyself that it is but earth that thou seest."[232:B]
Another piece of sound proverbial teaching is this: "Choose your wife on a Saturday, not Sunday," that is to say, be drawn to her rather by what you see of her industry and power of management than be merely fascinated by a triumph of the milliner's art; choose her rather when her sweetness of temper carries her smoothly through turmoil and worry than when the Sunday rest gives no test of her power to stand this strain. Saturday manners may be very different to Sunday manners.
"Good husewife good fame hath of best in the towne,
Ill husewife ill name hath of euerie clowne."
Amongst popular proverbs we find the cautious—"Marry in haste and repent at leisure,"[233:A] and "Love and lordship like not fellowship," and the advice—"Marry for love, but only love that which is lovely." It is very gracefully true, too, that "When the good-man's from home the good-wife's table is soon spread," while there is quaint sarcasm in this: "Next to no wife a good wife is best";[233:B] and the value of influence is brought before us in the adage, "A good Jack makes a good Jill."
In Torrington churchyard we find the following high testimony to a wife:—
"She was—my words are wanting to say what—
Think what a woman should be—she was that";
while in Chaucer's "Shipmanne's Tale" we find the following quaint appeal:—
"For which, my dere wife, I thee beseke,
As be to every wight buxom and meke,
And for to kepe our good be curious,
And honestly governe wel our hous."
The following Italian proverb is a very happy one, and accords entirely with general experience:—"La donna savia è all' impensata, alla pensata è matta": "Women are wise offhand and fools on reflection"; while the advice of the Spaniard, though ungracious enough in its utterance, is valuable—"El consejo de la muger es poco, y quieu no le toma es loco": "A woman's counsel is no great thing, but he who does not take it is a fool." An old English proverb goes so far as to declare that "A man must ask his wife's leave to thrive," and there is not a little wisdom in the counsel. A very ungracious proverb, indeed, is the German—"Es giebt nur zwei gute Weiber auf der Welt: die Eine ist gestorben, die Andere nicht zu finden": "There are only two good women in the world; one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found."
Some would tell us that marriages are made in heaven,[234:A] but a sapient saw reminds us that "There is no marriage in heaven, neither is there always heaven in marriage."
Gossip, and the mischief-making that may too often accrue from imprudent loquacity, have at all times been so commonly attributed to the fair sex that we naturally find many such proverbs as these: "Silence is not the greatest vice of a woman"; "A woman conceals what she does not know"; "He that tells his wife news is but newly married." The words of Hotspur will be recalled:
"Constant you are,
But yet a woman, and for secrecy
No lady closer; for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know."
The writer of Ecclesiasticus declares that "As the climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man"; while in a MS. of the time of Henry V. we find the following quaint statement:—
"Two wymen in one howse,
Two cattes and one mowse,
Two dogges and one bone
Maye never accorde in one."
Udall writes that "As the kynde of women is naturally geuen to the vyce of muche bablynge there is nothyng wherein theyr womanlynesse is more honestlie garnyshed than with sylence"; but a Welsh proverb declares that "A woman's strength is in her tongue,"[235:A] and we can scarcely be surprised that she is at times reluctant to forego the use of this weapon.
The Spaniards sarcastically assert that "He who is tired of a quiet life gets him a wife"; and Solomon, we recall, declares that "It is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top than with a brawling woman"; while another proverb bitterly, but truly, declares that "He fasts enough whose wife scolds all dinner-time"; and yet another hath it that "He that can abide a curst wife need not fear any"; so that an old writer breaks out:
"Why then I see to take a shrew
(As seldome other there be few)
Is not the way to thriue:
So hard a thing I spie it is,
The good to chuse, the shrew to mis,
That feareth me to wiue."
This bitter feeling against womankind is seen not only in our proverbs, but very largely also in epitaphs, as for example:
"Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and shrew,
If I said I respected her I should lie too."
"Here lies my wife, and, Heaven knows,
Not less for mine than her repose."
"Here lies my poor wife, much lamented;
She is happy, and I am contented."
"Here rests my spouse; no pair through life
So equal lived as we did;
Alike we shared perpetual strife,
Nor knew I rest till she did."
"Here lies my poor wife,
Without bed or blanket;
But dead as a door nail:
God be thanked."
At Prittlewell Church a man buried his two wives in one grave, and then placed over their remains this callous rigmarole:
"Were it my choice that either of the twaine
Might be restor'd to me to enjoy again,
Which should I choose?
Well, since I know not whether,
I'll mourn for the loss of both,
But wish for neither."[236:A]
On the tomb of a man at Bilston we get the other side, as the widow selected as a text the words: "If any man ask you, why do you loose him, then shall ye say unto him, because the Lord hath need of him." Those who recall the occasion on which these words were first used will see that her husband was, by implication, an ass.
Mere loquacity is satirised in the two following:—
"Here lies, returned to Clay,
Miss Arabella Young,
Who, on the first of May,
Began to hold her tongue."
"Beneath this silent stone is laid
A noisy, antiquated maid,
Who from her cradle talked till death,
And ne'er before was out of breath."
Other proverbs that deal with womankind are the following:—"He that has a wife has strife"; "Of all tame beasts sluts are the worst"; "If a woman were as little as good, a peascod would make her a gown and a hood"; "He that loses his wife and a farthing hath great loss of the farthing"; "Every man can tame a shrew but he that hath her"; "Lips, however rosy, must be fed"; "Women, wind, and fortune soon change." The feminine readiness to take refuge in tears is responsible for the following cynical adage:—"It is no more sin to see a woman weep than to see a goose go barefoot."[237:A] Another well-known proverb is that "No mischief in the world is done, but a woman is always one"; while the French say, if any inexplicable trouble breaks out, "Cherchez la femme"—in the assured belief that a woman is in some way or another at the bottom of it. Lamartine, on the other hand, declares that "There is a woman at the beginning of all great things." There is considerable truth in both statements, antagonistic as they are.
In the household where the unfortunate husband has allowed the control to slip into the hands of his wife, "The grey mare is the better horse." The French call this "Le marriage d'epervier"—a hawk's wedding, because the female hawk is the bigger bird. In "A Treatyse Shewing and Declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Days," c. 1550, we find:
"What! shall the graye mayre be the better horse,
And be wanton styll at home?
Naye, then, welcome home, Syr Woodcocke,
Ye shall be tamed anone."
Heywood, writing in the year 1546, has the couplet:
"She is, quoth he, bent to force you perforce,
To know that the grey mare is the better horse,"
and in many of the old plays the saying crops up:
"Ill thrives that hapless family that shows
A cock that's silent and a hen that crows;
I know not which live more unnatural lives,
Obeying husbands, or commanding wives."
"The whistling maid" and "the crowing hen" are alike held objectionable, these masculine performances being considered entirely out of place and of bad omen.
The perils of matrimony would, according to the proverb-mongers, appear to be so great that we can scarcely wonder at the counsel:
"If that a batchelor thou bee
Keepe the same style, be ruled by mee,
Lest that repentance all too late
Rewarde thee withe a broken pate.
Iff thou be yonge then marye not yett,
Iff thou be olde thou hast more wytt:
For yonge men's wyves wyll not be taught,
And olde men's wyves bee good for nought."
The home-life has goodly store of proverbial wisdom associated with it. The French say: "Chaque oiseau trouve son nid bien," and the Italians, "Ad ogni uccello il suo nido é bello," while the Englishman says, "East, west, home is best."[239:A] Monckton Milnes very truly says, "A man's best things are nearest him, lie close about his feet"; and a charming old saying is this, that "Small cheer, with great welcome, make a big feast." Proverbs, it must be confessed, are ordinarily very worldly wise, and much more frequently see the worse than the better side of things, and most of the adages about the home are very materialistic in tone; the sweet sentiment that is associated with the idea must be sought elsewhere. "The suit is best that fits me best," says an English adage, and the comfort of content is seen again in the Scottish saying—"Better a little fire that warms than mickle that burns." Socrates, passing through the markets, cried: "How much is here I do not want." "He who wants content," says an old proverb, "cannot find an easy chair."
Prudential maxims are very numerous; thus, we are warned that "Wilful waste makes woful want," that "Silks and satins put out the kitchen fire," and that "If you pay not a servant his wages he will pay himself;" while caution in another direction is advised in the saying, "The child says in the street what he heard at the fireside," and in this: "One bad example spoils many good precepts." The Germans say that "It is easier to build two hearths than to keep a fire in one," while the Portuguese advocate a judicious blending of prudence with sentiment in the adage: "Marry, marry, but what about the housekeeping?"—a by no means unimportant consideration. Love in a cottage will fare the better if the larder be not too bare.
The writer of Ecclesiasticus describes very happily the plight of the unwelcome guest—the man or woman who, as we say in English, is sitting all the while on thorns. "Better is the life of a poor man in a mean cottage than delicate fare in another man's house. For it is a miserable life to go from house to house, for where thou art a stranger thou darest not open thy mouth. Give place, thou stranger, to an honourable man; my brother cometh to be lodged, and I have need of mine house"—a sufficiently humiliating dismissal. It has, we presume, been the lot of most people to find themselves the objects of a special and not quite disinterested friendship; to feel that one is being used, and one's kindness abused. Such people in the end defeat their own object, since one soon learns to avoid the risk of an invitation for a week when we remember that the last acceptance of such an invitation meant a two months' sojourn, and the upsetting of all our plans. Proverbs relating to this state of things will be seen in "An unbidden guest knows not where to sit"; "Who depends on another's table may often dine late"; and the advice to "Scald not your lips with another's porridge"—all warnings of excellent value and weight.
Our readers will long ere this have discovered that the book of Ecclesiasticus is ever at our elbow when we would find words of wisdom, and we turn to it now afresh in our search for caution as to the tale-bearer and the breaker of confidences. "Love thy friend and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewrayest his secrets follow no more after him. For as a man hath destroyed his enemy, so hast thou lost the love of thy neighbour. As one that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy neighbour go, and shall not get him again." And elsewhere, in the same treasury of wisdom, we read: "Whoso discovereth secrets loseth his credit, and shall never find friend to his need." In the Book of Proverbs[241:A] we find: "He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends"—loss of faith implying loss of friend.
Chaucer, it will be remembered, says that "Three may keep a counsel if twain be away." Another old writer tells us that "Curiosity is a kernel of the forbidden fruit, which still sticketh in the heart of the natural man," and this is seen almost at its worst when endeavouring to find out a matter that the person most concerned would desire to leave unknown, and quite at its worst when knowledge thus gained is made general property. "None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them." There is no more trying person to deal with than he or she who continually punctuate their conversation with cautions that they "wish this matter to go no further," and warn us that that detail is "entirely between ourselves." They are an unmitigated nuisance.
A very quaint old proverb is that which tells us that "He was scarce of news that told that his father was hanged," and a very excellent rule of conduct is this: "Whether it be to friend or foe talk not of other men's lives." We are warned, too, that "He who chatters to you will chatter also of you," and the experience of most of us will confirm the wisdom of the adage.
Other happy sayings are these: "No one will repeat the matter if it be not said"; "Sudden trust heralds sudden repentance"; "More have repented of speech than of silence"; "A fool will neither give nor keep counsel"; "He that tells all he knows will also tell what he does not know"; "To tell our own secrets is folly, to tell those of others treachery"; "Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend hath a friend"—great discretion is therefore necessary.
Heywood warns the man who thinks himself secure:
"Some heare and see him whom he heareth and seeth not
For fieldes have eies and woods have eares ye wot,"
an idea that we find yet earlier in a manuscript, "King Edward and the Shepherd," written about the year 1300:
"The were bettur be styll,
Wode has erys, felde has syght."
So gracious a gift of Heaven to the sons of men as hope must necessarily find recognition in our proverbial wisdom. Our readers will recall the lines in Pope's "Essay on Man," where he declares that
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home
Rests and expatiates in a life to come."
And in "Measure for Measure" we read that "the miserable have no other medicine, but only hope"; hence the saying: "Quench not hope, for when hope dies all dies." The Italians say: "L'ultima che si perde è la speranza"—the last thing lost is hope,[242:A] and the terrible words in the "Paradise Lost" recur to us:
"So farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost,
Evil, be thou my good."
Lord Bacon, being in York House garden, looking at some fishermen as they were throwing their nets in what was then the pellucid and silvery Thames, asked them what they would take for their catch. They mentioned a certain price, and his lordship offered them somewhat less, which they declined to accept. They drew up their nets and in it were but three small fishes, and Lord Bacon said that it had been better for them had they closed with his offer. They replied that they had hoped that the catch would have been much greater, and his lordship in response reminded them of the proverb, "Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad supper";[243:A] and an admirably true saying it is.
A pithy old adage has it that "Hope is as cheap as despair," and it is certainly pleasanter; while another proverb tells us, as we lament departed opportunities, "When one door shuts another opens," a comforting state of things that the experience of many will confirm. How strong the encouragement to look forward with courage when cares seem overwhelming is the reminder that "When the tale of bricks is doubled Moses comes." Philosophy, good as it is, breaks under the strain, and is, when most wanted, but a broken reed. Goldsmith, in his play of "The Good-natured Man," says that "this same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey," and Rochefoucauld equally happily declares that "Philosophy triumphs easily over past and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy." We are reminded here anew of that definition of a proverb, "The wit of one voicing the experience of many," for certainly here Rochefoucauld supplies the esprit while the rest of mankind can in this matter supply the experience.
A quaint little French proverb is this, "L'espoir du pendu que la corde casse," when they wish to express the idea of a very faint ground indeed for hope. When all that a man who is already hanging can hope for is that the cord may perchance break, his chance of a reprieve is but small. He has most legitimate ground for hope who has already done what in him lay to deserve success, hence foresight and forethought are a valuable possession: the one to see in advance the possibilities, the other to think how best to turn them to account:
"When all is done, lerne this my sonne
Not friend, nor skill, nor wit at will,
Nor ship, nor clod, but onelie God,
Doth all in all.
Man taketh paine, God giueth gaine,
Man doth his best, God doth the rest,
Man knew well intendes, God foizon[244:A] sendes
Else want he shall."
The value of forethought in various directions is enforced in the following wisdom-chips: "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds"; "Hasty climbers have sudden falls";[245:A] "Count not your chickens before they are hatched"; "He that would enjoy the fruit must not gather the flower"; "Short reflection may save long regret"; "From bad to worse is poor exchange"; "Haste makes waste"; "Leave not to hazard what forethought may provide for"; "Cast not away the dirty water till thou hast clean"; "Little chips will kindle a large fire"; "Look before you leap"; "Beware of—had I known this before"; "Better be sure first than sorry after"; "Be wisely worldly, not worldly wise"; "Take heed that the relish be not spoiled by the cost"; "Heaven is a cheap purchase, whatever it costs"; "Ask thy purse what thou shouldest buy"; "He that measureth not himself is measured"; "When a fool hath bethought himself, the market is over"; "If things could be done twice all would be wise"; "Small beginnings may have great endings"; "A forest is in an acorn"; "Every maybe hath a maybe not"; "While it is fine weather mend your sails"; "Measure thrice before cutting once"; "Haste trips up its own heels"; "Take more time, that you may have done the sooner"; "Wisdom not only gets but retains"; "Defer not till to-morrow to be wise"; "Safe bind, safe find"; "A little wariness may save much weariness"; "Haste is a poor apology"; "That which the fool has to do in the end the wise man does at first"; and even then the dilatory man may never compass the task, for our position in life on the morrow depends largely upon our attitude of to-day, and the remedy of to-morrow may come too late. "Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds." It has been said that if we cannot go backward and change what has been we can go forward and change what is, but even this unfortunately is only partly true, and the shadow of the past may darken the future, do what we will.[246:A] Hence the adage, "To-morrow is untouched," cannot be accepted without reservation.
Other proverbs that may well be quoted in praise of forethought are these: "Little stumble may save big fall"; "He who begins and does not finish, loses his labour"; "Put out your arm no further than your sleeve will reach"; "To change and to better are not always the same thing"; "Quick choice, long repentance."
"Take warning at once, that a worse may not hap,
Foresight is the stopper of many a gap."
The French say truly enough that "Tout le monde est sage après coup," an equivalent saying to our "After-wit is everybody's wit"; and the Portuguese declare that "An empty purse makes a man wise, but too late,"—a most unfortunate state of things. Another well-known adage is "Festina lente"—tarry a little that we make our end the sooner. "Presto et bene non conviene"—hastily and well rarely meet. A Ciceronian maxim was, "Certis rebus certa signa præcurrunt"—certain signs are the forerunners of certain events, or, as we say in English, "Coming events cast their shadows before."
"Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow."[246:B]
"Chi va piano va lontano"—he who goes gently travels far. A quaint old proverb tells us that "It is good to have a hatch before your door"—in order, that is, that one may not rush out too impetuously, but that a momentary pause may give opportunity for a moment's consideration. One of the most startling proverbs on this need of forethought is the Arab "Live, thou ass, until the clover sprouts"—a better day is coming, despondency must give place to patience and to hope.
The manufacture of excuses has not escaped the notice of the proverb-makers and users. These excuses take two forms—the excuses that omission calls for, and those that commission needs—that black may look at least grey, if not absolutely white. A very good example of the former is this, "Am I my brother's keeper?"—originally the plea of a murderer, and ever after the excuse of those who would wrap themselves up in their selfishness, and shut their eyes, their hearts, their consciences, their pockets, to the needs of the suffering. It has been well said that "Apologies only account for that which they do not alter." In some few cases, such as "A bad workman finds fault with his tools," or "The creaking wheel blames the badness of the road," the utterance is quaint and not unwholesome, and very true to human nature; but in most of these proverbs dealing with excuses there is an actual incitement to evil, a justification of wrongdoing, an implication that people are only honest because it pays better or because the chance of knavery is for the time being debarred to them. We have so often heard the declaration that "Opportunity makes the thief," that it has lost its meaning; but if we really think it out a moment, how abominable in teaching it is! A similar saying is this, "A bad padlock invites a picklock," an insinuation that we would all be dishonest if we got the opportunity; while the Spaniards say, "Puerta abierta al santo tiento"—an open door tempts a saint. Shakespeare's utterance, "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done," may express a sad truth, but after all we would fain believe that things are not quite so bad as not a few of our proverbs would imply: there is surely yet some little virtue and honesty left.
Fortune, good or ill, is not by any means overlooked. Thus we find the philosophic reflection, "Fortune can take nothing from us but what she gave"; and the warning, "Fortune is constant in nothing but inconstancy." We are warned yet again that "When fortune comes smiling she often designs the most mischief." All, however, is not blind chance; the hand of God is guiding; "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." Nor is the hand of man without its influence, for "To him that is willing ways are not wanting," and "If you weave your web God will find the thread." The Italians say, "Vien la fortuna a chi la procura"—good fortune is to him who earns it; while the French declare, "Qui ne se lasse pas lasse l'adversité"—he who does not tire tires adversity, and steady perseverance will conquer ill-fortune. "La fortune aide aux audacieux," say the French again, while the Romans declared, "Fortes fortuna adjuvat"—fortune assists the brave, the classic reading of our more homely version, "Nothing venture, nothing have."
The victim of ill-fortune is reminded that "It is a long lane that has no turning"; or, as Gower puts it:
"Sometime I drew into memoire
Howe sorowe maie not euer last."
The French have a saying, "The wind in a man's face makes him wise," equivalent to the English adage, "Adversity makes a man wise, not rich," and so the Psalmist sings, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." Trouble works, however, in a twofold way, and while some it softens, others it hardens.
It is a matter of common observation that misfortunes often fall most unexpectedly, and that they seldom come singly.
"O soden hap, O thou fortune unstable,
Like to the scorpion so deceivable,
That flatrest with thy hed whan thou wilt sting."[249:A]
"Mischiefs," says an old proverb, "come by the pound and go away by the ounce," and the Italians have a practically identical saying. These calamities come sometimes in such a flood that no resistance to their attack seems of any avail, hence the quaint and homely adage, "There is no fence against a flail." The Romans had the saw, "Mustelam habes"—you have a weasel in your house, which they applied to those with whom everything seemed to turn out unfortunately: to meet a weasel being considered by the Romans an ill-omen.
It has been said that each man is the architect of his own fortune.[249:B] The statement is not wholly true, but it is sufficiently so to justify such proverbs as "As you have made your bed, so you must lie"; "As you brew, so must you drink"; and we must be prepared to take the consequences of our own fault. Zeno, the philosopher, having detected his servant in a theft, ordered him to be whipped; the servant, in excuse for what he had done, said it was decreed by the fates that he should be a thief, alluding to the doctrine of fatalism which his master maintained. And so, too, it was decreed, said Zeno, that you should be whipped. It has been well said that "Presumption first blinds a man, and then sets him running." The Germans say, "Wer da fallt, über ihm laufen alle Welt"—he that falls down all the world runs over. All are ready to bear a hand in beating the man whom fortune buffets; and, as an old proverb says, "When the tree is fallen every man goeth to it with his hatchet." This kicking a man when he is down would appear a mean and contemptible proceeding were it not dignified by being termed the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, and this somehow throws a halo of philosophy on the proceeding, and the kicker is seen to be working out a law of the universe, in which the kicked also has an essential place.
We are told, truly enough, that "Half a loaf is better than no bread," that "A man had better be half-blind than have both his eyes out." Burke declares that "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is our helper"; and the French say, "On apprend en faillant"—one learns by failing. Riches entail responsibility and anxiety, and a poet of the reign of Queen Elizabeth would have us believe that they are on the whole more trouble than gain:
"Take upp thy fortune wythe good hape,
Wyth rytches thou doste fyle thy lappe;
Yet lesse were better for thy store,
Thy quyetnes sholde be the more."
One compensation of poverty is perhaps seen in the adage, "He that is down need fear no fall." We are told, too, that "A threadbare coat is armour against the highwayman"; and Chaucer, in "The Wif of Bathe's Tale," tells how
"The poure man whan he goth by the way,
Before the theves he may sing and play,"
since he has nothing to lose, and therefore nothing to fear.
The sad but just law of retribution finds its due recognition in our proverb lore. The following may be taken as a few examples of this: "He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith"; "Over-reachers most ordinarily over-reach themselves"; "A guilty mind punishes itself"; "He that will not be saved needs no preacher"; "He who sows thorns must not go barefoot"; "He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind"; "Hoist with his own petard." Shakespeare tells us how
"Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all";
and of one elsewhere who cries: "I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial." Do we not see again the dread law of retribution in the passage:
"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
The thief doth fear each bush an officer,"
and Gay tells us how at last all has to be faced, and the responsibility of one's actions has to be realised—
"Then comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more."
As an alternative to a picture so sombre, we may quote the declaration, that "Chastisement is the knife that tells we still abide in the Vine."
Detraction, hypocrisy, ingratitude are all scourged by proverbs, but one feels over and over again how very much the proverbial wisdom of our ancestors seemed to dwell on the darker side of things. One may find a dozen adages that have ingratitude as their theme, but scarcely one that sings the praise of sweet thankfulness, and in like manner pretension, boasting, time-serving, self-interest have their attendant proverbs, while the praise of gentle modesty and sweet self-surrender finds little or no place. It may, perhaps, be said that this latter end is reached practically by the denouncing of the evil, but this is scarcely so—a scathing attack on falsehood is in its time needful, but there is still place and need for the recognition of the spotless beauty of truth. Denunciation may do much, but sweet persuasiveness yet more.
Shakespeare, in his "Cymbeline," writes of deadly slander—
"Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile";
and again, in "Much Ado about Nothing," we find the line—"Done to death by slanderous tongues"; and yet again warns us that "No might nor greatness in mortality can censure 'scape," and that "Back-wounding calumny the whitest virtue strikes." Byron writes in his "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" of those whose evil task is "Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer," and Thomson tells how "Still the world prevailed, and its dread laugh,"—a laugh "which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn."
The following adages may be quoted:—"Envy shoots at others and wounds itself"; "Envy never does a good turn but when it designs an evil one"; "Malice seldom wants a mark to aim at"; "'They say' is a poisoned arrow." The Welsh say—"Faults are thick where love is thin." Other sayings are—"One jeer going forth brings back another"; "Once in people's mouths, 'tis hard to get out of them again"; "Those who have most need of credit seldom get much"; "The evil which issues from thy mouth falls into thy bosom"; "The sting of a reproach is in the truth of it";[253:A] "He that prepares a net for another should not shut his own eyes"; "Respect is better got by deserving than by exacting"; "Little minds, like weak liquors, are soon soured"; "Suspicion, like bats, fly by twilight"; "In a little mind everything is little"; "Despise none and despair of none"; "Faint praise is disparagement"; "A blow from a frying-pan blacks, though it may not hurt"; "Truth is truth, though spoken by an enemy"; "Harm set, harm get"; "Envy never enriched any man."
In a curious manuscript of the fifteenth century may be found "the answere which God gave to a certyn creture that desired to wit whate thinge was moost plesure to hym in this worlde." The answer is a very full one, fuller than we can quote, but it includes the following precepts:—"Suffre noysous wordis with a meke harte, for that pleseth me more than thow beate thy body with as many roddys as growen in an hundred wodys. Have compassion on the seeke and poore, for that pleaseth me more than thow fasteth fifty wynter brede and water. Saye no bakbyting wordis, but shon from them and love thy nayghber and turne alle that he saithe or dothe to good, me onely love and alle other for me, for that pleseth me more than if thowe every daye goo upon a whele stikking fulle of nayles that shulde prik thy bodye." Another manuscript of the same date that has come under our notice, in the Library of Jesus College, Cambridge, introduces a personification of the deadly sins, and each is treated with much graphic power, thus, under the heading of "Invidia" we find—
"I am full sory in my hert
Of other mens welefare and whert:
I ban and bakbyte wykkedly,
And hynder all that I may sikerly."
The sneaking treachery of the envious man, grieved to the heart at the welfare of others, and doing them what evil he can safely compass, is very forcibly painted, and this of "Ira," in its picture of downright brutality, is as graphic—
"I chide and feght and manas fast;
All my fomen I wylle doun kast,
Mercy on thaym I wylle none haue
But vengeance take, so God me saue."
Revenge, however sweet it may appear, always costs more than it is worth, so that to be of this mind is to scourge oneself with one's own flail. Thus the adage says truly enough, "To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves." Another useful hint is that "Anger is danger, and even the anger of the righteous is not always righteous anger." How full, too, of wisdom the precept that "Anger should set with the sun but not rise with it," carrying on with vindictive perseverance into the present and the future the evil of the past. Other proverbs are:—"Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance"; "Anger makes a rich man hated, and a poor man scorned"; "Anger is more hurtful than the injury that caused it"; "A man in a passion rides a horse that runs away with him"; "Anger may glance into the breast of a good man, but rests only in the bosom of fools"; "An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes"; and to these many others bearing on the subject might be added.
Other excellent wisdom chips are these:—"Religion is the best armour in the world, but the worst cloak"; "Imitate good but do not counterfeit it"; "Roguery with pretext is double roguery"; "Better the blame of the just than the praise of the wicked." Of all the virtues it has been said that gratitude has the shortest memory—"Eaten bread is soon forgotten." The Spaniards have, too, a very graphic proverb: "Cria el cuervo y sacarte ha los ojos"—breed up a crow and he will tear out your eyes; while the French say: "Otez un vilain, du gibet, il vous y mettra"—save a thief from the gallows and he will place you there.
Pretension is exposed in many proverbs. An excellent one is this: "The best horseman is always on his feet." This is sometimes varied into "The man on the wall is the best player." It is in either version an obvious satire on the looker-on, who always tells how he could have done the thing better. Other good saws are these: "In a calm all can steer"; "Vainglory blossoms but does not bear"; "All his geese are swans"; "We cannot all do everything"; "Not even the youngest is infallible"; "Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works"; "Presumption blinds a man and then sets him running"; "Vanity has no greater foe than itself"; "A small mind has usually still room for pride"; "Insolence is pride with her mask pulled off"; "Arrogance is a weed that grows on poor soil."
Sir Thomas More reminds us that "Pride, as the proverb is, must needs have a shame," while a yet older writer declares that "Loste and deignouse pride and ille avisement mishapnes oftentide," and centuries even before this we find the warning that "A haughty spirit goes before a fall." Shakespeare puts the matter very pithily—"Who knows himself a braggart (let him fear this: for it will come to pass), That every braggart shall be found an ass." "Brag is a good dog, but hold-fast is a better," we are told; a less familiar version found in old collections of proverbs being, "Brag is a good dog, but dares not bite." A very quaint old saw against boasting and pretension is this, "We hounds killed the hare, quoth the lap-dog"; while another good doggy adage is the warning that "A snappish cur must be tied short." "Great boasters," we are told, "are little doers,"[256:A] even as "Great promisers are bad paymasters." It is equally true, the statement that "One sword keeps another in its sheath." A quaint proverb hath it that "My father's name was Loaf, and I die of hunger," a Spanish satire on those who, in poorest circumstances, yet boast of their kindred,[256:B] while a very true Italian saw is that "Many are brave when the enemy is running." On the other hand, "A brave retreat is a brave exploit." Throughout our pages we have made but slight reference to Biblical sayings since these are so readily accessible to all, and are, we may presume, so well known, but we cannot here quite forbear, for the counsel—"Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off"—seems so particularly happy a termination to our proverbs on pretension and boasting. Having thus broken through our procedure, we are tempted to add yet one more reference from the same source, the splendid irony on the man, "Wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason"—a race not yet extinct.
The following proverbs, dealing with various phases of self-interest, have more or less of worldly wisdom in them, and are worth quotation:—"Better go round than fall in the ditch"; "Better say here it is than here it was"; "Better cut the shoe than pinch the foot"; "If you wish a thing done—go; if not—send"; "Light not a blaze that you cannot extinguish"; "A hook's well lost to catch a salmon"; "Buyers want a hundred eyes; sellers, two"; "All is lost that is poured into a cracked dish"; "Those who put on livery must put on patience"; "Of two evils choose the less"; "Better one's house too little one day than too large all the year beside"; "Sometimes it is better to give your apple than to eat it yourself"; "Venture not all in one bottom"; "A man's gift makes room for him"; "An ass laden with gold overtakes everything"; "If you grease a cause well it will stretch"; "Praise the bridge by which you pass over"; "It is wit to pick a lock, but wisdom to let it alone"; "Those disposed for mischief will never want occasion"; "A petitioner that spares his purse angles without his bait."
In "The Ship of Fools," 1570, we find the line, "Aungels worke wonders in Westminster Hall," the angel being a coin of that period, and the Hall the great seat of Justice, or at all events, of Law. The Romans had a proverb—"Bos in lingua"—an ox on the tongue. As some of the ancient money was stamped with the device of an ox, the proverb was a delicate way of saying that a man had been bribed to be silent. We are told that Demosthenes, having received a present from some who wished to obtain a privilege that they were fearful he would oppose, appeared in the court with his throat muffled up, pretending that he had so violent a cold as to be incapable of speaking; but one of the members of the court suspected the matter, and quoted this proverb, intimating that it was not the cold but the bribe that had debarred him from speech. Another of these old Roman proverbs was, "Argenteis hastis pugna et omnia expugnabis"—if only one fights with silver spear they will be all-conquering. A similar cynical maxim appreciative of the power of bribery and corruption is that, "Where gold avails argument fails." Another old Roman adage was, "Oleum et operam perdere"—to lose both oil and labour. This was applied to those who had spent much time, given much labour, made considerable pecuniary sacrifice, to attain some object, and had, after all, failed in doing so. Those who contended in the public games freely anointed their limbs with oil to make them supple ere entering on the contest, and so if, after all, they were conquered they lost both oil and labour. In like manner, the student poring over his books and burning the midnight oil, if he failed in the acquisition of knowledge, lost oil and labour. The ancients tell how a man, having a suit at law, sent to the judge a present of a vessel of oil, but his antagonist sent a fatted pig, and this turned the scale in his favour, and he gained his cause. Justice may well be represented as blind when such proceedings are possible. The first man complained and reminded the judge of his gift, but the judge told him that a great pig had rushed in and overturned the oil, so that it and his labour in bringing it had been lost. Whether the proverb grew out of the story or the story out of the proverb it is now impossible to pronounce any opinion upon.
Other keen proverbs are:—"He that finds a thing steals it if he restores it not"; "What will not make a pot may make a lid"; "The best patch is off the same cloth"; "Break not eggs with a hatchet"; "Ease and honour are seldom bedfellows"; "Stretch your legs according to your coverlet"; "Pin not your faith on another's sleeve"; "As a man is finded so the law is ended"; "Live and let live"; "An ill agreement is better than a good judgment"; "Misreckoning is no payment"; "Name not a rope in his house that hanged himself." A very marked example of this delicacy of feeling is seen in the saying, "Father disappeared about assizes-time, and we asked no questions!" "Take away fuel and you take away fire"; "No man is impatient with his creditors"; "Command yourself and you may command much else."
Turning our attention awhile in other directions, we find the Spaniard's warning, "Cada cuba bucele al vino que tiene"—the cask smells of the liquid it held; a man's surroundings stamp him, and he is known by the company he keeps. Self-interest is blatant in the Spanish saying that "People don't give black puddings to those who kill no pigs"; and the same cynical teaching is found in the French adage, "To one who has a pie in the oven you may give a piece of your cake."[259:A] The French version of "To him that hath shall be given," is, "He who eats chicken gets chicken."[259:B] The Spanish proverbs, as we have seen, have a strong tinge of mocking sarcasm in them; here are two more examples: "Give away for the good of your soul what you cannot eat"; "Steal the pig but give away the feet in alms." There is a delightful touch of human nature in the French saying, "No one is so open-handed as he who has nothing to give," or its Scotch equivalent, "They are aye gudewilly o' their horse that hae nane." Another canny Scotch experience is that "He that lacks (disparages) my mare would buy my mare." Self-interest degenerates into self-abasement in the Arab counsel, "If the king at noon-day says it is night, behold the stars." The Persian warning, "It is ill sport between the cotton and the fire," is very graphic. The old Roman, "Aliam quercum excute," the advice to go and shake some other tree, since enough has been gathered here, is expressive. It is equivalent to telling one's importunate neighbour that he must really try fresh ground at last; to advise one's friend to cease from the pursuit they have been following, since they have reaped from it all the advantage it is likely to yield to them. A dignified and noble saying is this, "Deridet sed non derideor"—he laugheth, but I am not laughed at; the impertinence is suffered, is passed unregarded, and falls flat and dead.
Custom and habit exercise their influence on our proverb lore; thus we are told, wisely enough, that "Custom is the plague of wise men, the idol of fools." Kelly tells a good story, in illustration of this bowing to custom, of a captain's wife whose husband the South Sea Islanders had eaten, being consoled by a friend; "Mais, madame, que voulez-vous? Chaque peuple a ses usages." The power of habit is immense; an old saying tells us that "Habit is overcome by habit," but ordinarily the habit in possession fights hard, and is not readily dispossessed. Hence it is of solemn warning to "Kill the cockatrice while yet in the egg." It is one of the most familiar of truisms that "Habit becomes second nature," and that "What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh." To check at the beginning may be difficult, but to overcome in the end may be impossible. "Can the Ethiopian," asks the prophet, "change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil." As the bough of a tree bent from its usual direction returns to its old position so soon as the temporary force to which it yielded is removed, so do men return to their old habits so soon as the motives, whether of interest or fear, which had influenced them, are done away. "Nature," says Lord Bacon, "is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. Let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; for nature will be buried a great time and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation, like as it was with Æsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her." The same philosopher gives the following admirable caution: "A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds: therefore let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other." The Spaniards say: "Mudar costumbre a par de muerte"—to change a habit is like death.
"Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas."
And Shakespeare, in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," exclaims: "How use doth breed a habit in a man!" The ancient Romans declared: "Fabricando fit faber," which we find in French as "En forgeant ou devient forgeron"; in Spanish, as "El usar saca oficial"; in German, as "Uebung macht den meister"; and in English, as "Use makes the craftsman."
Boys catch the habit of stammering if thrown with those who stammer, and the Dutch declare: "Die bij kreupelen woont, leert hinken"—he that lives with cripples learns to limp. Fortunately, there are good habits as well as bad ones; hence the Romans taught: "Boni principii finis bonus," and the French say, "De bon commencement bonne fin"—we insensibly imitate what we habitually admire.
Experience teaches, and we propose to quote some few of the proverbial lessons that are of value in the conduct and wear and tear of life, and we commence with the homely bit of wisdom that, if realised, would save so much of worry and heartache: "What can't be cured must be endured."[262:A] Another good saying is: "Well begun is half done"—poetically rendered by the Italians in the counsel, "Begin your web, and God will find you thread." "Procrastination is the thief of time," is another well-worn and excellent adage. How valuable, again, are these: "Teaching of others teacheth the teacher"; "He teaches ill that teaches all"; "He that seeks trouble rarely misses it"; "He that is surety is not sure"; "Look before you leap"; "The horse that draws is most whipped"; "Blow first and sip after"; "At open doors dogs come in"; "He that is angry without cause must be pleased without amends"; "It is but lip-wisdom that lacks experience"; "Fetters, though of gold, are fetters still"; "Without danger, danger cannot be overcome"; "Experience is a dear school, but fools learn in no other"; "Some advice at fourpence is a groat too dear"; "The counsel that we favour we most scrutinise"; "He that sits to work in the market-place shall have many teachers"; "Valour that parleys is near surrender"; "As you salute you will be saluted"; "Responsibility must be shouldered, you cannot carry it under your arm"; "One eye-witness is better than ten hear-says"; "If you pity knaves you are no friend to honest men"; "Every man is a pilot in a calm sea"; "Plant the crab-tree where you will it will never bear pippins"; "Wide will wear, but narrow will tear." This last, homely as it sounds, is excellent in its counsel in praise of a wise liberality.
The ancient Roman, "Bis dat qui cito dat," that is so often quoted in advocacy of prompt aid, re-appears in modern Italy in the version, "A gift long waited for is not given, but sold." "Say not to your neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give, when thou hast it by thee." "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,"[263:A] and ready help at the critical moment might have averted a catastrophe. Another very true classic adage is, "Beneficium accipere, libertam est vendere"—accept a favour and you sell your freedom. Excellent counsel is in the twin proverbs, "Deliberating is not delaying," and "That is a wise delay which maketh the road safe." An old writer[263:B] very sagely puts it thus: "When we are in a strait that we know not what to do, we must have a care of doing we know not what," and thus save time by giving time.
Advice for the conduct of life is freely bestowed on us by our proverbial wisdom. We may well head the examples we propose to give with the caution, "In vain does he ask advice who will not follow it."
"Few things," says Dr Johnson, "are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice." Another reading is that "He that will not be counselled cannot be helped." Some few specimens of counsel tendered are these: "At great bargains pause awhile"; "The best throw of the dice is to throw them away"; "Raise up no spirits that you cannot lay"; "Rather suffer a great evil than do a little one"; "Agree, for the law is costly"; "Avoid the pleasure that will bite to-morrow"; "Let the shipwrecks of others be your beacons"; "Let every man praise the bridge he goes over." Speak not ill of him who hath done you a courtesy, or whom you have made use of to your benefit. The Arabs in like spirit teach, "A well from which thou drinkest throw not a stone into it." An Italian saw sarcastically says, "Does thy neighbour annoy thee? lend him a zechin"—he will then keep out of the way. A Danish proverb wisely advises to "Take help of many, and counsel of few"; while a homely German proverb—"Henke nicht alles auf einen Nagel"—warns us not to hang all on one nail; or, as our equally homely English proverb has it, "Do not carry all your eggs in one basket"—have not all your ventures in one vessel.
The weather in this our changeable climate has supplied abundant store for popular lore; it would indeed suffice in itself to yield material for a goodly volume, and the result would be a collection of great literary and antiquarian interest.
One very familiar adage is the comforting statement that "It is an ill wind that blows no one any good." Shakespeare quotes it more than once; in one case it is rendered as "Ill blows the wind that profits nobody," and elsewhere, "Not the ill wind which blows no man good," while Tusser gives us the rhyming version—
"Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good."
Another old saw teaches that "Ill weather is seen soon enough when it comes," but this is indefensible, for while it is a wise counsel not to meet troubles half way, to exercise no forethought at all is mere lunacy. Such a proverb, again, as this, "Though the sun shine leave not your coat at home," is much too rigid in its insistence, and the advice, whether taken literally or metaphorically, would be at times absurd. If we try it, for instance, in this guise—Though surrounded by loving friends carry suspicion ever with you—we feel that the tension is needless. A much truer saying is this, "When the sun shines nobody minds him, but when he is eclipsed all consider him," and we realise at last on the withdrawal of the benefit of how great value it had been to us.
A wise and helpful Latin proverb is, "Sequitur Ver Hyemem"—spring succeeds winter, and sunshine follows rain. "After a storm, calm," or, as the French have it, "Apres la pluie vient le beau temps."
"What, man, plucke up your harte, bee of good cheere,
After cloudes blacke wee shall have wether clere."
"Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning," is no discovery of yesterday.
"March winds and April showers bring forth the May flowers," and the French recognise the welcome assurance in their version, "Mars venteux, Avril pluvieux, font le Mai gai et gracieux," while across the Rhine the saying is again, "Märzen Wind and Aprilen Regen verheissen im Mai grossen segen." The value of dry weather at sowing time is indicated in the saying that "A bushel of March dust is worth a king's ransom"; while "February fill-dyke" is a testimony to the abundant rain that is ordinarily characteristic of that month; in France it is said that "Fevrier remplit les fosses: Mars les seche." This rain is of great value, and "All the months of the year curse a fair Februeer," and "If the grass look green in Janiveer 'twill look the worser all the year." The exigencies of rhyme are responsible for the miscalling of these month-names. A great many of these rustic weather proverbs are thrown into more or less, and ordinarily more, uncouth rhyme, no doubt as an aid to memory; thus we are told that "No weather's ill if the wind be still," that it is well should "September blow soft till the fruit's in the loft," and that "If the first of July be rainy weather, 'twill rain more or less four weeks together." We are taught again that "In February if thou hearest thunder thou wilt see a summer's wonder." Undoubtedly a thunderstorm in February might well be regarded as one of the least likely things to happen in July, while the hearing of its sonorous peals would certainly be a remarkable feat of vision. As the literal acceptance is so impossible we must perforce look a little below the surface, and when we recall that our ancestors were great at prognostics we see that we are expected to regard this ill-timed storm as an omen of coming events of startling nature. Thus Willford, in his "Nature's Secrets," teaches that "Thunder and lightning in winter is held ominous, portending factions, tumults, and bloody wars, and a thing seldome seen, according to ye old adigy, Winter's thunder is ye Sommer's wonder."[266:A]
The countryman has abundant opportunity of studying the varying aspects of Nature, hence he has discovered that "An evening red and morning grey will set the traveller on his way";[267:A] though he seems to have also observed that "If the sun in red should set, the next day surely will be wet." The two statements appear to directly contradict each other. On the other hand we are told that when the reverse happens, "The evening grey and morning red make the shepherd hang his head"; and that "If the sun should set in grey the next will be a rainy day"; the sun setting in a bank of clouds—the west in this country being the direction in which we ordinarily look for wet weather—the result on the morrow will probably be rain. Hence, "A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning, a rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight"; or in Germany, "Regenborgen am Morgen macht dem Schäfer sorgen: Regenborgen am Abend ist dem Schäfer labend."
The statement that "The moon is made of green cheese" may be mentioned in passing. Shacklock, in the "Hatchet of Heresies," written in 1565, says, "They may make theyr blinde brotherhode, and the ignorant sort beleeve that the mone is made of grene chese," and many old writers introduce this venerable belief in their plays and other works. We now-a-days associate the idea with age, the green suggesting mouldiness, but the word here means the very opposite, and refers really to a cheese not matured; the moon being new every month, the material of which it was composed never got beyond the green or unripe stage.
It is popularly held that "When the wind is in the east 'tis good for neither man nor beast," and a quaint Spanish proverb advises, "Ask no favour during the Solano." This Solano is a wind that blows over from Africa, and is exceedingly hot and dry. It is also known as the sirocco. The moral clearly is that when people are in a state of irritation it is not advisable to lay one's needs before them, the time being inopportune.
Many of our weather proverbs are very naturally associated with various saints' days. Thus we get "St Martin's Summer" and "All Saints' Summer" in reference to the bright clear weather that we occasionally get in the late autumn, All Saints' Day being on the first, and St Martin's Day on the eleventh of November. Allusions to both will be found in Shakespeare; thus, in "I. Henry VI."—"Expect St Martin's Summer, halcyon days." The eighteenth of October was in like manner called "St Luke's little Summer." Another old adage was, "If the day of St Paul be clear, then shall betide a happy year"; this day, the festival of the conversion of the saint, was in the calendar ascribed to January the 25th.
Another well-known belief is summed up in the old rhyme: "St Swithin's day if it do rain, for forty days it will remain." This date is July 15th, and it may not be generally known that, taking the year round, July is often a very rainy month. The Saint was Bishop of Winchester, and when he died, in the year 862, he desired to rest where the sweet rain of heaven might fall. His desire was respected, but later on the monks thought it beneath his and their dignity that he should be laid to rest in the graveyard, and so they proposed to re-inter the body in the choir, but when the day came the rain was so terrific that they had to postpone matters till the next day. This, however, was no better, nor was the next, or next, till at length, after forty such postponements, it dawned upon them that their late bishop felt a strong objection to the removal of his remains, and they at last had the sense to decide to let him rest in peace as he had desired, whereupon the sun burst forth, and it is to be hoped that they all lived happy ever after.
The subject of our book has a scope so all-embracing, a wisdom so piquant, an utterance so quaint, a wit so trenchant, a body of material so vast, an antiquity so remarkable that not a volume but a library would be needed to do it justice.
He who would desire to discourse wisely, comprehensively, on the proverbs of all times and of all countries has before him a task too great for fulfilment, if not too vast for ambition, and what to select from the sheer necessity of its inclusion, what to discard since the impossibility of completeness might be our plea in forgiveness of its absence, has been a problem constantly before us. Where there are many men there are many minds, and we shall be, doubtless, blamed alike by some for what they find, and, no less, for what they fail to find. Could our readers see, as we now see before us on reaching this our last page, the great bulk of material that we have accumulated, and that remains unused, they would realise the better the vastness of the field—the ever-recurring problem and responsibility of selection.
The subject has been, from the first page to the last, one of abounding interest to us, and we would fain hope that we have succeeded in imbuing our readers with something of the pleasure that we have ourselves derived from a study in itself so full of charm.
FOOTNOTES:
[194:A] The Portuguese warn us that great talkers make many mistakes, in the adage, "Quem muito falla muito erra."
[195:A] "They have spent theyr tyme lesse fruitfully heretofore in ouer runnyng a multitude of wordes with small consideracion or weyghing of them."—Fisher, A Godlye Treatise.
[196:A] "There are perilous times at hande by reason of some that vnder pretence of godlynesse turne true godlynesse vp side down, and so prate boastynglye of themselues as thoughe the Christian religion consisted in wordes and not rather in purenesse of herte."—Udall.
[197:A] "The tunge is but a litel membre, and reiseth greet thingis. Lo hou litel fier breuneth a ful greet word: and our tunge is fier, the unyversitie of wickidnesse."—St James. Translation of Wiclif.
[198:A] In the "Parlament of Byrdes," written somewhere about 1550, the chough, or Cornish crow, is thus admonished, in very similar strains to the above:
"Thou Cornysshe, quod the Hauke, by thy wil
Say well, and holde thee styll."
[198:B] The following wisdom-chips may be commended to these unfortunates: "Affectation of wisdom often prevents our being wise"; "The man who knows most knows his own ignorance"; "Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much: wisdom is humble that he knows no more."
"Thou hast hearde of many a man,
Tongue breaketh bone and it selfe hath none."
—The "Parlament of Byrdes," c. 1550.
[199:B] "Raise not the credit of your wit at the expense of your judgment."
[200:A] "Beaucoup de bruit, peu de fruit," as the expressive French jingle has it.
[201:A] "By a fole in the prouerbes is pryncypally vnderstande him that in folowynge his awne councell defendeth infydelyte and the vnknowing of God for trueth and hyghe wysdome."—Matthew.
"A foole and his monie be soone at debate
Which after with sorrow repents him too late."
—Tusser's Husbandrie, 1580.
[203:A] "No creature smarts so little as a fool."—Pope.
"A fault denied is twice committed,
And, oftentimes, excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse for the excuse."—Shakespeare.
[207:A] And again in another passage—
"O that men's ears should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery."
[208:A] In France they say, "Il est bien avancé qui a bien commencé." In both English and French versions there is a certain ring that helps the memory.
[209:A] "Industrie is a qualitie procedying of Wytte and Experience by whyche a man perceyveth quickely, inuenteth freshely, and counsayleth spedily: wherfore they that be called industrious do most craftely and depely vnderstand in al affayres what is expedient, and by what meanes or wayes they may sonest exployte them. Those thingis in whome other men trauayle these lightley and with facilitie spedeth, and findeth new wayes and meanes to bring to effecte that he deseyreth."—Sir Thomas Elyot.
[212:A] "To dread no eye, and to fear no tongue is the great and blessed prerogative of the innocent life"; "Man is a thinking being, whether he will or not—all he can do, then, is to turn his thoughts aright."
[217:A] Similar wise counsel is found in the warning that "A jest driven too far brings home hate," and that "Jeerers must be content to taste of their own broth."
"Myne ease is builded all on trust,
And yet mistrust breedes myne anoye."—Gascoigne.
[219:B] "I love everything that is old—old friends, old times, old manners, old books."—"She Stoops to Conquer."
"What find you better or more honourable than age? Take the pre-eminence of it in everything: in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree."—"The Antiquary."
[221:A] "Geflickte Freundschaft wird selten wieder ganz," say the Germans—patched up friendship seldom becomes whole again.
[222:A] Tusser writes of such:
"His promise to pay is as slipprie as ice,
His credit much like the cast of the dice,
His knowledge and skill is in prating too much,
His companie shunned, and so be all such.
His friendship is counterfeit, seldome to trust."
[225:A] "The book sayeth that no wight retourneth safely into the grace of his olde enemie, and Ysope sayth, ne troste not to hem, to which thou hast some time hed werre or enmitee, ne telle hem not thy counseil."—Chaucer, The Tale of Melibeus.
[229:A] "To become rich is a good thing, but to make all rich about you is better."—V. Hugo.
"They call'd thee rich, I deem'd thee poor,
Since, if thou dar'dst not use thy store,
But sav'd it only for thy heirs,
The treasure was not thine, but theirs."
"The prodigal robs his heir; the miser himself."
[229:C] "Bountifulness is as a most fruitful garden, and mercifulness endureth for ever." "Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in distribution, the rest is but conceit."
"Who shuts his hand hath lost his gold,
Who opens it, hath it twice told."
[230:A] "If lyberalyte be well and duely employed it acquireth pepetuelle honour to the gyuer, and moche frute and syngular commoditie thereby encreaseth."—Elyot.
[230:B] "A little wealth will suffice us to live well, and still less to die well." "Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly."
[231:A] "But then their saving pennie proverbe comes."—"Two Angry Women of Abington," 1599.
[231:B] "Who so fyndeth an honest faythfull woman she is moch more worth than perles. The hert of her husband maye safely trust in her, so that he shall have no nede of spoyles. She wyll do hym good and not euill all the dayes of her lyf. Strength and honoure is her clothynge and in the latter daye she shall reioyce. She openeth her mouth with wysdome, and in her tonge is the lawe of grace. She loketh well to the wayes of her housholde, and eateth not her bred with ydelnes. Her children aryse and call her blessed: and her husband maketh moche of her."—"Matthew's Version of Bible," 1537.
"La beauté du visage est un frêle ornement,
Une fleur passagère, un éclat d'un moment."—Molière.
[232:B] "But admitting your body's finer, all that beauty is but skin-deep."—"The Female Rebellion," 1682. "All the beauty of the world, 'tis but skin-deep, a sunne-blast defaceth it."—"Orthodoxe Paradoxes," 1650.
"Daughter, in this I can thinke none other
But that it is true thys prouerbe old,
Hastye loue is soone hot and soone cold."
—"Play of Wyt and Science," c. 1540.
[233:B] "Whosoever lives unmarried lives without joy, without comfort, without blessing. Love your wife like yourself, honour her more than yourself. It is woman alone through whom God's blessings are vouchsafed to a house. She teaches the children, speeds the husband, and welcomes him when he returns, keeps the house godly and pure, and God's blessings rest upon these things."—Talmud.
[234:A] "You see marriage is destinie, made in heaven, though consummated on earth."—Lely, Mother Bombie, 1594. Shakespeare, too, in the "Merchant of Venice," declares that "hanging and wiving go by destiny." In "The Cheats," written by Wilson in 1662, Scruple remarks, "Good sir, marriages are made in heaven." Many similar passages to these might be cited.
"He is a fool who thinks by force or skill
To turn the current of a woman's will."
Tuke, Adventures of Five Hours, 1673.
[236:A] The following, from Wycombe Church, is an agreeable variation:
"Here lies one, whose rest
Gives me a restless life,
Because I've lost a good
And virtuous wife."
In Milton Abbot Church we find a memorial to one Bartholomew Doidge and Joan, his wife. The wife was buried on the 1st of February 1681, and the husband on the 12th, and the inscription goes on to say:
"She first deceased: he a little tried
To live without her, liked it not, and died."
[237:A] "By thys tale ye may se that the olde prouerbe ys trew that yt is as gret pyte to se a woman wepe as a gose to go barefoote."—"Mery Tayls," c. 1525. Puttenham, in "The Arte of English Poesie," 1589, gives a rather different rendering, a satire on feminine gush and misplaced sympathy, "By the common prouerbe a woman will weepe for pitie to see a gosling goe barefoote."
"The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone,
Boldly proclaims the happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long night of revelry and ease.
The naked savage, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands, and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Nor less the patriot's boast, where'er he roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home."
—Goldsmith, The Traveller.
[241:A] The Book of Proverbs is no less rich in wisdom than the Book of Ecclesiasticus, but the latter being somewhat less familiar to many readers we prefer to draw upon its pages in illustration of our English adages.
"To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires."
—Spenser.
[243:A] In the following passage Bacon shows us hope as a veritable life-preserver. "Hope, being the best of all the affections and passions, is very powerful to prolong life, if, like a nodding muse, it does not fall asleep and languish, but continually feeds the fancy: and therefore such as propose certain ends to be compassed, thriving and prospering therein according to their desire, are commonly long-lived; but having attained to their highest hopes, all their expectations and desires being satisfied, live not long afterwards."
[244:A] In Cotgrave's Dictionary defined as "store, plentie, abundance, great fulnesse, enough."
[245:A] "Babel's projectors, seeking a name, found confusion; and Icarus, by flying too high, melted his waxen wings and fell into the sea." "Grey cap for a green head." Gray express the idea very forcibly:
"Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then hurl the wretch from high,
To bitter scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning infamy!"
[246:A] "Life is like wine, he that would drink it pure must not drain it to the dregs."—Sir William Temple.
[246:B] Coleridge.
[249:A] Chaucer, The Marchaunt's Tale.
[249:B] "Men at some time are masters of their fates."—Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar.
[253:A] The friends of a Roman patrician condemned by Tiberias to death, dwelt strongly on the injustice of the sentence. "That," said he, "my friends, is my greatest consolation, you do not surely wish that I had been guilty!"
"But did this boaster threaten, did he pray,
Or, by his own example, urge their stay?
None, none of these, but ran himself away."
—Dryden, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book xiii.
[256:B] The Spanish revel in these proverbs of sarcastic nature. Another, for instance, is, "Praise me, friends, I love my daughters," applied to those who expect commendation for fulfilling the most obvious duties.
[259:A] In Germany they say, "Siedet der Topf, so blühet die Freundschaft"—while the pot boils the friendship blooms.
[259:B] In Welsh proverb lore, "Have a horse of your own and then you can borrow another."
"Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done."
Macbeth.
[263:A] "Is not a patron," says Dr Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield, "one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the land encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours had been kind: but it has been delayed until I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."
[263:B] One Richard Nichols, of Warrington, writing in 1670 or thereabouts. Many of his sayings are admirable; here are half-a-dozen of them: "Self-denial makes a poor condition easy, and a rich one safe"; "A good intention will not justify a bad action"; "Though time be not lasting, yet what depends upon time is everlasting"; "The weak, when watchful, are more safe than the strong when secure"; "He that has all his religion in his prayers has no religion at all"; "The best way to wipe off reproaches is to live so that none will believe them."
[266:A] "Sondayes thundre should bryng ye death of learned men, judges, and others: Mondayes thundre ye death of women: Tuesdayes thundre plentie of graine: Wednesdayes thundre ye death of ye wicked: Thursdayes thundre plentie of sheepe and corne: Fridaies thundre ye slaughter of a great man and other horrible murders: Saturdayes thundre a generall plague and grate deathe."—Leonard Digges, A Prognostication Everlasting of Ryght Good Effecte, 1556.
[267:A] Sometimes rendered as, "Evening red and morning grey, tokens of a bonny day"; or, "An evening red and a morning grey are the two sure signs of a fine day."
Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, London, E.C.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Page iv and viii are blank in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page iii: "[original has single quote]FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS," ETC.
Page 23: Durum et durum non[original has not] faciunt murum
Page 43: bottom of the sea," says the old proverb.[original has comma]
Page 99: old English[original has Engish] proverb
Page 113: what sacred book shall he[original has be] recite
Page 118: recalls the hypocrisy[original has hyprocrisy] of the wolf
Page 126: you may have a horse of your[original has you] own some day
Page 135: and[original has nad] "Every day in thy life is a page in thy history."
Page 135: "The Notable and Antient Historie of the Cherrie and the Slae"[original has single quote]
Page 144: who they list and whosoever[original has whoesoever] displeaseth them
Page 171: Echar magaritas a puercos[original has puerco s]
Page 180: estimate of the respective[original has repective] values
Page 185: we read in "[original has single quote]Colyn Cloute"
Page 189: the saying that we have already quoted[original has quotod]
Page 191: perhaps puzzle them to explain.[original has comma]
Page 215: "Wine neither keeps secrets nor carries out promises"[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 234: Some would tell[original has tells] us that marriages
Page 246: saying to our[original has extraneous comma] "After-wit is everybody's wit"
Page 267: refers really to a cheese[original has chesse] not matured
[29:A] the works of Ewald,[comma missing in original] Berthean, Hitzig
[149:A] "[quotation mark missing in original]Set thee up waymarks."
[232:A] Number was added to footnote by transcriber.