[2] Le Fabre, Life of the Spider, Ch. ix. (Eng. trans. by Teixeira de Mattos, 1912).
[2a] Cp. G. A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, p. 288.
[3] R. J. Moulton, Modern Reader’s Bible, p. 1456.
[4] Cf. such sayings as “Coals to Newcastle”—a proverb that has a parallel in many countries, for example, the Greek phrase, “Owls to Athens.”
[5] Trench, Proverbs and their Lessons, first published in 1857: a learned and brilliant little volume to which the present chapter is indebted for several suggestions.
[6] χαλεπὰ τὰ καλὰ.
[7] κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων.
[8] A version, doubtless, of Proverbs 1022.
[9] John Morley, Aphorisms: An Address to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution (1887) p. 7.
[10] As a text-book it was at least memorable. A distinguished man of letters tells me that one of its injunctions, taught him in his first school, he might claim never to have forgotten: Let thy foot be seldom in thy neighbour’s house, lest he be weary of thee and hate thee (Pr. 2517). His friends bear regretful and emphatic witness that the facts completely justify his claim.