"For a flying foe
Discreet and provident conquerors build up
A bridge of gold."—Massinger, The Guardian.
"Ouuerez tousiours a voz ennemys toutes les portes et chemins et plustost leur faictes ung pont d'argent, affin des les renvoyer."—Rabelais, Gargantua.
See also the Italian proverb—"A nemico che fugge un ponte d'oro." "Le Comte de Pitillan en parlant de la guerre soulouit dire quand ton ennemy voudra fuir, fais luy un port d'or."—Extract from Les divers propos memorables des Nobles et Illustres Hommes."—Gilles Corrizot. Paris, 1571.
"Press not a falling man too far."—Shakespeare, King Henry VIII.
CHAPTER III
"The Book of Merry Riddles"—Introduction of Proverbs in our Literature—A Surfeit of Proverbs—"The two Angrie Women of Abington"—Fuller on the Misuse of Proverbs—The Sayings of Hendyng—Proverbs in Works of Chaucer, Lydgate, Spenser, Dryden, Shakespeare, and other Writers—The "Imitation of Christ"—Glitter is not necessarily Gold—The Cup and the Lip—Comparisons odious—The Rolling-Stone—The "Vision of Piers Plowman"—Guelph and Ghibelline—Dwellers in Glass Houses—A Spade is a Spade—Chalk and Cheese—Silence gives Consent—A Nine Days' Wonder—The little Pot soon Hot—Weakest to the Wall—Proverb-Hunting through our old Literature.
Throughout the Middle Ages a great use was made, as we have seen, of these popular adages on tapestries, rings, and in fact wherever they could be employed. Shakespeare, it will be recalled, writes of a but moderately good poetaster as one "whose poetry was