The incident is referred to by Dante in the "Inferno." Amid his wanderings in these gloomy shades he presently arrives where
"One deprived of both his hands, who stood
Lifting the bleeding stumps amid the dim
Dense air, so that his face was stained with blood,
Cried—'In thy mind let Mosca take a place,
Who said, alas! "Deed done is well begun,"
Words fraught with evil to the Tuscan race.'"
It is a widely recognised principle that those who live in glass houses themselves should be very careful how they throw stones at others, as retaliation is so fatally easy.[77:A] In a collection of "Proverbes en rimes," published in Paris in 1664, we find—
"Qui a sa maison de verre
Sur le voisin ne jette pierre."
In the "Troilus" of Chaucer we find the same prudent abstinence from stone-throwing advocated, but in this case it is the stone-thrower's head and not his house that is in danger of reprisals.
"Who that hath an hede of verre
Fro caste of stones war hym in the werre."
The use of the word "verre" instead of glass seems to suggest that the French version was so far current in England that all would know it, and that it was immaterial whether the rendering was in French or in English. When James of Scotland succeeded, at the death of Elizabeth, to the English throne, one of the first results was that London became inundated with Scotchmen, all anxious to reap some benefit from the new political position. This influx caused a considerable amount of jealousy, and the Duke of Buckingham organised a movement against them, and parties were formed for the purpose of breaking their windows, and in a general way making them feel the force of an adverse public opinion. By way of retaliation, a number of Scotchmen smashed the windows of the duke's mansion in St Martin's Fields, known as "the Glass House," and on his complaining to the king His Majesty replied, "Steenie, Steenie, those who live in glass houses should be carefu' how they fling stanes." The story is told in Seton's "Life of the Earl of Dunfermline," and it will be appreciated that the quotation by our "British Solomon" of this ancient adage was very neatly put in.
Those who pride themselves on a certain blunt directness of speech, and who declare that they always speak their mind, further define the position they take up by declaring that they call a spade a spade. There certainly are occasions when such a course is the only honest one, when a man has to make his protest and refuse to connive at any circumlocution or whittling away of principle. There are other occasions when a regard for the feelings of others makes such a proceeding sheer brutality, and it is, we believe, a well-established fact that the audience of those who pride themselves on speaking their mind ordinarily find that they are the victims of a somewhat unpleasant experience. Baxter declares, "I have a strong natural inclination to speak of every subject just as it is, and to call a spade a spade, so as that the thing spoken of may be fullest known by the words. But I unfeignedly confess that it is faulty because imprudent." "I am plaine," we read in Marprelate's "Epitome," "I must needs call a spade a spade," and Ben Jonson advises to "boldly nominate a spade a spade."
In the year 1548 Archbishop Cranmer was busily engaged on a design for the better unity of all the Protestant churches by having one common confession and one body of doctrine drawn out of Holy Writ, to which all could give their assent. Melancthon, amongst others, was consulted by the archbishop, and was very favourable to the idea, but he strongly advised him, if the matter were to be carried to a successful issue, "to avoid all ambiguities of expression, call a spade a spade, and not cast words of dubious meaning before posterity as an apple of discord." Wise and weighty words that never fructified.
John Knox, who was not by any means the man to go out of his way to prophesy smooth things or palliate wrong-doing by any euphuism or a prudent turning away of the head, declares, "I have learned to call wickedness by its own terms, and to call a fig a fig and a spade a spade"; while Shakespeare, in his "Coriolanus," goes equally straight to the mark: "We call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools but folly." Erasmus writes: "Ficus ficus, ligonem ligonem vocat" of a certain man.