Proverb-hunting is a very pleasant recreation. We have left a vast field practically untrodden. We cannot do better than conclude in the quaint words of a little pamphlet that we once came across—"a collection of the Choycest Poems relating to the late Times" (1662). "Gentlemen, you are invited here to a feast, and if variety cloy you not, we are satisfied. It has been our care to please you. These are select things, a work of time, which for your sake we publish, assuring you that your welcome will crown the entertainment. Farewell."
FOOTNOTES:
[65:A] "Love me little, love me long" is found in the writings of Christopher Marlowe: "Pray, love me little, so you love me long," in Herrick.
[66:A] "The Pleasant Historie of the two Angrie Women of Abington, with the humerous mirthe of Dick Coomes and Nicholas Prouerbes, two seruingmen. As it was lately played by the Right Honourable the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admirall, his Servants. By Henry Porter, gent. Imprinted at London for Joseph Hunt and William Farbrand, and are to be solde at the corner of Colman Street, neere Loathburie. 1599."
"Why urge yee me? My hart doth boyle with heate
And will not stoope to any of your lures:
A burnt child dreads the ffyre."—Timon, c. 1590.
[72:B] Ovid writes: "Tranquillas etiam naufragus horret aquas"—the man who has been wrecked dreads still water. The Portuguese make the cat the subject of their proverb—"Gato escaldado d'agua fria tem medo."
[73:A] We need scarcely point out that any reference to the use of any proverb is not intended to imply that this is the only use of it by that writer. "Yet gold is not that doth golden seem" is equally Shakespeare with the quotation given above. One passage will ordinarily suffice, but not because it is the only one available.
[74:A] The story is told by Pausanias: "Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra."—Horace.