It may just be worth a passing notice to observe, that Shakespeare never mentions tobacco, nor alludes to it even indirectly. What a brilliant subject for a critic! A treatise might be written to prove from this circumstance that the great poet was not in the habit of smoking; or, on the contrary, that he was so great an admirer of the pernicious weed, that, being unable to allude to it without a panegyric, he very wisely eschewed the subject for fear of giving offence to his royal master, the author of the 'Counterblast.' The discussion, at all events, would be productive of as much utility as the disputes which have occasioned so many learned letters respecting the orthography of the poet's name.
[JACK-A-DANDY.]
Boys have a very curious saying respecting the reflection of the sun's beams from the surface of water upon a ceiling, which they call "Jack-a-dandy beating his wife with a stick of silver." If a mischievous boy with a bit of looking-glass, or similar material, threw the reflection into the eye of a neighbour, the latter would complain, "He's throwing Jack-a-dandy in my eyes."
[VII.—PROVERB-RHYMES.]
Metrical proverbs are so numerous, that a large volume might be filled with them without much difficulty; and it is, therefore, unnecessary to say that nothing beyond a very small selection is here attempted. We may refer the curious reader to the collections of Howell, Ray, and Denham, the last of which chiefly relates to natural objects and the weather, for other examples; but the subject is so diffuse, that these writers have gone a very short way towards the compilation of a complete series.
Give a thing and take again,
And you shall ride in hell's wain!
Said by children when one wishes a gift to be returned, a system naturally much disliked. So says Plato, των ορθως δοθεντων αφαιρεσις ουκ εστι. Ray, p. 113, ed. 1768. Ben Jonson appears to allude to this proverb in the Sad Shepherd, where Maudlin says—"Do you give a thing and take a thing, madam?" Cotgrave, Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1632, in v. Retirer, mentions "a triviall proverb:"
Give a thing,
And take a thing,
To weare the divell's gold-ring.
And it is alluded to in a little work entitled Homer à la Mode, a mock poem upon the First and Second Books of Homer's Iliads, 12mo. Oxford, 1665, p. 34: