PROVERBS.
Invention and the Graces preside at the birth of a good proverb. Aside from the ideas expressed in them, they are deserving of the attention of literary men and all students of expression, from the infinite variety of turns of style they exhibit. "If you don't want to be tossed by a bull, toss the bull." Here, for instance, the thought is not only spirited, but it is so rendered as to give to the idea both the force of novelty and the agreeableness of wit. The words are as hard and compact, and the thought flies as swift, as a bullet.