Lilly, in the "Euphues," seems to think that comparisons may at times be an offence when the objects of such a scrutiny are incomparable in their excellence; that each is so perfect that any suggestion of comparison becomes necessarily a depreciation and a dethronement. Hence he writes—"But least comparisons should seeme odious, chiefly where both the parties be without comparison, I will omitte that," and he returns to this idea in his "Midas," where he distinctly lays down the proposition that "Comparisons cannot be odious where the deities are equall."
The picturesque adage, "a rolling stone gathers no moss," is still popular amongst our people. In Turner's "Five hundred pointes of good husbandrie," a book written between three and four hundred years ago, we find the same precept:
"The stone that is rouling can gather no mosse;
Who often remoueth is sure of losse.
The rich it compelleth to paie for his pride;
The poore it vndooeth on euerie side."
Marston, in "The Fawn," written in the year 1606, has an allusion to this proverb:
"Thy head is alwaies working: it roles and it roles,
Dondolo, but it gathers no mosse."
In the "Vision of Piers Plowman" we appear at first sight to have a quaint and interesting variant—"Selden mosseth the marbelston that men ofte treden." But it will be seen that in thus altering the wording from the type-form we have also varied its significance; it is, in fact, a new saying, and of different application. To point out to a restless and aimless ne'er-do-well, throwing up one position after another, that no moss will be found growing on the doorstep of some busy office would be an entirely pointless proceeding not tending to edification.
Another familiar proverb is "well begun is half done." We find its equivalent in Horace and the severer Juvenal. Many of our proverbs were as familiar to Horace as to ourselves. "Money in purse will always be in fashion," and to "harp on the same string" are expressions, for instance, that were very familiar to the ancient Romans, and which are quite as intelligible to-day.
In the "Confessio Amantis" of Gower we find:
"A prouerbe I haue herde saie,
That who that well his worke beginneth,
The rather a good ende he winneth."
This proverb has historic interest, as its use on one fateful occasion was the final cause of desolating civil war that long ravaged Tuscany. When Boundelmonte broke his engagement with a lady of the family of the Amadei, and married into another, the kinsmen assembled in council to consider how the slight should be avenged, and atonement made for their wounded honour. Some of the more impetuous demanded the death of the young cavalier as the only possible reparation; but others hesitated, not from any particular regard for the traitor, but because of the great issues involved—consequences which in the after-event proved so disastrous to the Florentines. At length Mosca Lamberti, tired of this hesitation, sprang to his feet, and declared that those who talked were not likely to do anything else but talk, that the consideration of the matter from every point of view would lead to no worthy result, and make them objects of contempt, and then quoted the adage familiar to them all—"Capo a cosa fatta"—well begun is half done. This sealed the fatal determination, the die was cast, Boundelmonte was murdered, and thus was Florence at once involved in the strife between Guelph and Ghibelline, and the fair land of Tuscany became the battlefield of those contending factions.
