(To the Editor.)
Famed as your miscellany is for local and provincial terms, customs, and proverbs, I have often wondered never to have met with therein this old comparative north country proverb—"As bad as ploughing with dogs;" which evidently originated from the Farm-house; for when ploughmen (through necessity) have a new or awkward horse taken into their team, by which they are hindered and hampered, they frequently observe, "This is as bad as ploughing with dogs." This proverb is in the country so common, that it is applied to anything difficult or abstruse: even at a rubber at whist, I have heard the minor party execrate the business in these words, "It is as bad as ploughing with dogs," give it up for lost, change chairs, cut for partners, and begin a new game.
H.B.A.
CROESUS.—A DRAMATIC SKETCH.
(For the Mirror.)
Cyrus, Courtiers, and Officers of State. Croesus bound upon the funeral pile which is guarded by Persian soldiers, several of them bearing lighted torches, which they are about to apply to the pile.
Croesus.—O, Solon, Solon, Solon.
Cyrus.—Whom calls he on?