"The case is altered, quoth Plowden," was a very popular adage with our ancestors, and especially in Shropshire. Edmund Plowden was an eminent lawyer in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, born at Plowden, a little village in Shropshire. The following circumstance is said to have given birth to the adage:—A neighbour asked him what remedy he had in law against a person whose hogs had broken into his field, and he was assured that the law would amply protect his rights. Whereupon the farmer replied that they were his (Plowden's) hogs. "Nay then, neighbour," quoth Plowden, "the case is altered." We learn hereby that it is hardly well for a man to be both defendant and judge, but it is due to Plowden's memory to add that in choosing the name of some lawyer to tack on to the proverb they merely took the name of one exceptionally well known. He was by a distinguished contemporary writer described as "A man second to none in his profession for honour and integrity." Plowden or no Plowden, the adage points to the duty of doing as we would be done by, and is a fair satire on the general readiness of lawyers to argue on either side at short notice, and to take very special care of "number one."
The old saying, "As coy as Croker's mare," may refer to some incident of which all knowledge is now lost; but as we sometimes find it rendered, "As coy as a crocker's mare," it has been, with great reason, suggested that this crocker is simply a crock-dealer, a retailer of earthenware round the country, to whom the possession of a restive animal would mean the smashing up of his stock and his consequent ruin. In a play of the year 1566, where a widow of somewhat flippant mood appears, we are told that "Of auncient fathers she took no cure nor care, She was to them as koy as a croker's mare."
A proverb that has a curious history is, "Two heads are better than one, said Weymark." Three-fourths of this is of great antiquity, and, we may take it, rank in significance with "In the multitude of counsellors there is safety," and other proverbs of that type. Whence, then, came the added fourth, and why? One theory is that it is a mere accretion, but this probably everyone, except the broacher of the idea, will feel to be very unlikely. Weymark is a distinctly peculiar name, and there must surely be some allusion to some one so called. It has been suggested that we should read it as way-mark,[149:A] a mark to guide the traveller: that we should understand that two heads are better than one to guide us on our earthly journey, but in this case why the word "said"?
In the "Anglorum Speculum," A.D. 1684, we get on to firmer ground; we there read that "One Wiemark was called to account for saying the head of Sir Walter Raleigh (beheaded that day) would do very well on the shoulders of Sir Robert Naunton; and having alleged in his own justification that two heads were better than one, he was for the present dismissed. Afterwards Wiemark being, with other wealthy persons, called on for a subscription to St Paul's, first subscribed a hundred pounds at the Council Table, but was glad to double it after Mr Secretary had told him two heads were better than one." We can readily understand that this jeering addition to the old saw quickly found acceptance when the incident got abroad.
The expression, "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow," has an extended range over our old literature, but its meaning is very enigmatical. Heywood writes, "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow, Went that sow back at that bidding, trow you?" In John Grange's "Golden Aphroditis" (1577) we read, "Yet wrested he so his effeminate bende to the siege of backwarde affection, that both trumpet and drumme sounded nothing but baccare, baccare." Wherever we find this baccare—in "Roister Doister," "The Dial," "Repentance of Mary Magdalene," the "Scourge of Folly," "Mydas," or elsewhere—its significance is always "Stand back." Its spelling is very variable.[150:A] Who Mortimer was, it is hopeless to conjecture, or on what occasion he found it necessary to curb the impatience of his sow.
The expression, "As wise as Dr Doddipol," is of sarcastic significance. The name of this doctor is spelt in many ways, but in all its variations the saying preserves its depreciatory character. Skelton in "Colin Clout" has Dr Daupatus and Doddypatis. Hoddypoule, Huddypeake, Dotypoll, Noddipole, are other readings one encounters in old plays and the like. In Fox's "Book of Martyrs" we have, "I will contemne these dastardly dotipoles." Latimer in his sermons used the plainest language. In preaching before King Edward, he said, "But some will say our curate is nought, an asshead, a dodipoll, a lacklatine," while in another of his discourses he breaks out, "Ye brainsicke fooles, ye hoddy-peakes, ye doddy poules." We may perhaps explain that these epithets were not applied to his audience; they were words put by the preacher into the mouths of the Pharisees in their disgust at the flocking of the common people to the teaching of the Messiah. In the works of Sir Thomas More, 1557, we find him declaring of something that, concerning it, "a verye nodypoll nydyote might be ashamed."[151:A]
Sterne in "Tristram Shandy" is quite Latimeresque. He writes: "Here, without staying for my reply, shall I be called as many blockheads, numsculls, doddypoles, dunderheads." Thompson uses the expression "doddering mast" in his description of a storm, while Dryden writes of a rotting "doddar'd oke" falling piecemeal to the ground. The idea all through is clearly weakness, feebleness, physical or mental.
Another proverb, "Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton," has a certain historic interest. A collection of proverbs was presented by its compiler to Queen Elizabeth, with the declaration that it contained every proverb in the English language. To test the matter, she asked if he had this one, and he was obliged to confess that he had not. Without the surname appended it may often be found in various old authors; in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Prophetess," for instance, we find the passage, "Nor bate ye an ace of a sound senator." We are told that this Bolton was one of the courtiers in attendance on Henry VIII., who, in card-playing with his Sovereign, was discreet enough to beg to be allowed an ace, or some such considerable advantage, that he might have some little chance against so skilful a player. The proverb was ordinarily used as an appeal for some little advantage, or, ironically, as a hint to some one whose statements were held to be a little beyond credence to abate them somewhat.
It will readily be noted that most of these name-proverbs are obsolete, but one of them, "What will Mrs Grundy say?" is still in use. It is found in the old play of "Speed the Plough," and was thence transported into general service. A Mrs Ashfield was there represented as always in terror of the opinion of this old lady, until at length her husband, a bluff old farmer, can stand it no longer, and bursts out: "Be quiet, wool ye? Always ding, dinging Dame Grundy into my ears, What will Mrs Grundy say!" The influence of the old lady is yet strong in the land.
In the west of England we encounter the adage, "He will live as long as old Ross of Potterne." Potterne is a village near Devizes, and this venerable Ross was probably a genuine centenarian, though all clue to him is now lost. The proverb is sometimes rather unkindly amplified into, "Who lived till all the world was a-weary of him," a very unhappy state of things for all parties.