“Quum tua pervideas oculis male lippus inunctis,
Cur in amicorum vitiis tam cernis acutum,” etc.
The query Plautus puts, “How is it that no man tries to search into himself, but each fixes his eyes on the wallet of the one who goes before him?” is in allusion to the fable of Jupiter having loaded men with a couple of wallets; the one, filled with our own vices, being slung at our backs,
“Propriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit;”
the other, heavy with our neighbour’s faults, hung in front,
“Alienis ante pectus suspendit gravem.”
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others, is neither better nor worse, says Dean Swift, than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so. The proverbs of all nations show all nations to be alive to the ridiculous in this respect. The kiln calls the oven, burnt house, says one. In Italy, the pan says to the pot, Keep off, or you’ll smutch me. In Spain, the raven bawls hoarsely to the crow, Get out, blackamoor! (Quítate allá, negro!) In Germany, one ass nicknames another, Long-ears. And Dr. Trench is rather taken with a certain originality in the Catalan version of the proverb: “Death said to the man with his throat cut, ‘How ugly you look!’” They should be fair, hints Juvenal, who venture to deride the disproportioned leg or sooty hide, Loripedem rectus derideat, Æthiopem albus. Yet, as the Ettrick shepherd once sang in his native Doric:—
“There’s some wi’ big scars on their face,
Point out a prin scart on a frien’;
And some, black as sweeps wi’ disgrace,