“The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered in its proverbs,”—this is Lord Bacon’s well-worn remark; although, indeed, only well-worn because of its truth. “In them,” it has been further said, “is to be found an inexhaustible source of precious documents in regard of the interior history, the manners, the opinions, the beliefs, [37] the customs of the people among whom they have had their course.” [38] Let us put these assertions to the proof, and see how far in this people’s or in that people’s proverbs, their innermost Proverbs characteristic. heart speaks out to us; how far the comparison of the proverbs of one nation with those of others may be made instructive to us; what this comparison will tell us severally about each. This only I will ask, ere we enter upon the subject, that if I should fail here in drawing out anything strongly characteristic, if the proverbs regarded from this point of view should not seem to reveal to you any of the true secrets of national life, you will not therefore misdoubt those assertions with which my lecture opened; or assume that these documents would not yield up their secret, if questioned aright; but only believe that the test has been unskilfully applied; or, if you will, that my brief limits have not allowed me to make that clear, which with larger space I might not have wholly failed in doing.
I am very well aware that in following upon this track, one is ever liable to deceive oneself, to impose upon others, picking out and adducing such proverbs as conform to a preconceived theory, passing over those which would militate against it. Quite allowing that there is such a danger which needs to be guarded against, and also that there are a multitude of these sayings which cannot be made to illustrate difference, for they rest on the broad foundation of the universal humanity, underlying and deeper than that which is peculiar and national, I am yet persuaded that enough remain, and such as may with perfect good faith be adduced, to confirm these assertions; I am convinced that we may learn from the proverbs current among a people, what is nearest and dearest to their hearts, the aspects under which they contemplate life, how honour and dishonour are distributed among them, what is of good, what of evil report in their eyes, with very much more which it can never be unprofitable to know.
To begin, then, with the proverbs of Greece. That which strikes one most in the study of these, and which the more they are studied, the more fills the thoughtful student with wonder, is the evidence they yield of a leavening through and through of the entire nation with the most intimate knowledge of its own mythology, history, and poetry. The infinite multitude of slight and fine allusions to the legends of their gods and heroes, to the earlier incidents of their own history, to the Homeric narrative, the delicate side glances at all these which the Greek proverbs constantly embody, [39] assume an acquaintance, indeed a familiarity, with all this on their parts among whom they passed current, which almost exceeds belief. In many and most important respects, the Greek proverbs considered as a whole are inferior to those of many nations of modern Christendom. This is nothing wonderful; Christianity would have done little for the world, would have proved very ineffectual for the elevating, purifying, and deepening of man’s life, if it had been otherwise. But, with all this, as bearing testimony to the high intellectual training of the people who employed them, to a culture not restricted to certain classes, but which must have been diffused through the whole nation, no other collection can bear the remotest comparison with this.
Roman proverbs.
It is altogether different with the Roman proverbs. These, the genuine Roman, the growth of their own soil, are very far fewer in number than the Greek, as was indeed to be expected from the far less subtle and less fertile genius of the people. Hardly any of them are legendary or mythological; which again agrees with the fact that the Italian pantheon was very scantily peopled as compared with the Greek. Very few have much poetry about them, or any very rare delicacy or refinement of feeling. In respect of love indeed, not the Roman only, but Greek and Roman alike, are immeasurably inferior to those which many modern nations could supply. Thus a proverb of such religious depth and beauty as our own, Marriages are made in heaven, it would have been quite impossible for all heathen antiquity to have produced, or even remotely to have approached. [40]
In the setting out not of love, but of friendship, and of the claims which it makes, the blessings which it brings, is exhibited whatever depth and tenderness they may have. [41] This indeed, as has been truly observed, [42] was only to be expected, seeing how much higher an ideal of that existed than of this, the full realization of which was reserved for the modern Christian world. Yet the Roman proverbs are not without other substantial merits of their own. A vigorous moral sense speaks out in many; [43] and even when this is not so prominent, they wear often a thoroughly old Roman aspect; being business-like and practical, frugal and severe, wise saws such as the elder Cato must have loved, such as must have been often upon his lips; [44] while in the number that relate to farming, they bear singular witness to that strong and lively interest in agricultural pursuits, which was so remarkable a feature in the old Italian life. [45]
Number of Spanish proverbs.
It will not be possible to pass under even this hastiest review more than two or three of the modern families of proverbs. Let us turn first to the proverbs of Spain. I put these in the foremost rank, because the Spanish literature, poor in many provinces wherein other literatures are rich, is probably richer in this province than any other in the world, certainly than any other in the western world; and this I should be inclined to believe, both as respects the quantity and the quality. [46] In respect of quantity, the mere number of Spanish proverbs is astonishing. A collection I have been using while preparing these lectures, contains between seven and eight thousand, and yet does not contain all; for I have searched it in vain for several with which from other sources I had become acquainted. Nay, it must be very far indeed from exhausting the entire stock, seeing that there exists a manuscript collection brought together by a distinguished Spanish scholar, in which the proverbs have attained to the almost incredible amount of from five and twenty to thirty thousand. [47]
Spanish characteristics.