many years to the study of glacial phenomena in this country and in Switzerland, proposed an explanation which had suggested itself to his mind several years before he had heard of that of M. de Mortillet. He saw that in any attempt to account for the existence of rock-basins by calling in the agency of subterranean force, the same difficulties start up that occur when valleys are referred to a similar cause. He first suggested, in 1859, that such basins might really be entirely due to the enormous grinding power of glacier-ice. In a subsequent year he elaborated his views in a detailed memoir, in which he called attention to the significant fact that lakes are abundant in those countries which were ice-covered during the glacial period, but comparatively rare in those regions which were not so affected. He further showed that the lakes all lay on the sites of old glaciers; that they did not coincide with the line of any open fissures; that they could not each be the result of a special subsidence of the ground or of the strata; that they could not have been hollowed out by mere running water; and that the only available explanation was that they had been slowly dug out of the solid rock by the grinding action of the vast masses of ice which moved seaward over the land during the long glacial period. Some such explanation was necessary for the completeness of the Huttonian philosophy. The rock-basins point to some power of erosion by which deep and wide hollows can be excavated. But no such power is furnished by rivers or by the sea, nor by any of the other denuding forces save glacier-ice. Availing itself of this additional and powerful agent, the doctrine that the existing outlines of our scenery have been carved out mainly by surface action, acquires a unity and consistency which afford strong evidence in its favour. Appealing to no merely conjectural causes, nor dazzled by the stupendous magnitude of the phenomena which it has to examine and explain, the Huttonian philosophy sedulously studies the working of existing nature, and by a slow and laborious method learns to recognise in rains, frosts, and glaciers, springs, rivers, and ocean, the tools that have been used in graving the present outlines of the continents. The controversy now waging on these subjects will undoubtedly end in the firm establishment of the truth. Those, on the one hand, who maintain the all-powerful effects of upheaval and depression, will be led to acknowledge that they have overlooked, almost despised, the less obtrusive forces; while those, on the other hand, who believe in the potency of these surface agents, will be prevented from forgetting that the movements of the earth's crust require to be recognised. When the two schools shall shall have accommodated their differences, and come to a general agreement, they will be able to join amicably in writing the latest but not the least curious chapter in the long history of our planet-the story of its outer surface. Scenery will be studied by them as a part of their science, not less than the rocks beneath. The outlines of the landscape will form in their eyes as essential a part of the geological investigation of a district as do now the various formations and strata out of which the landscape has been framed. They will thus open up a new and wide avenue of approach to their science-one which will lie open to every casual wayfarer. They will attract to the study an ever-growing number of followers; they will furnish an increasing source of pleasure to hundreds of readers who have no opportunity of ever becoming geologists; and they will give to geology a fresh and powerful claim to an important share in the science-education of our schools. ART. VIII.—1. Paramiographi Græci. Leutsch et Schneidewin. Gottinga, 1839-51. 2. Paræmiographi Græci. Edidit T. Gaisford, S.T.P. Oxonii, 1836. 3. Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum. Dr. Wilhelm Binder. Stuttgart, 1861. 4. Polydori Vergilii Urbinatis Adagia. 1498. 5. Adagiorum Opus Desiderii Erasmi. Lugduni, 1529. 6. Proverbs chiefly taken from the Adagia of Erasmus. By Robert Bland, M.D. London, 1814. 7. A Handbook of Proverbs, comprising Ray's Collection, with his Additions, &c. &c. Collected by H. G. Bohn. London, 1857. 8. A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs. with Index. By H. G. Bohn. London, 1857. 9. Proverbs, or Old Sayed Saws and Adages. James Howell, Esq. London, 1659. 10. A Dictionary of Spanish Proverbs. London, 1823. Collected by By John Collins. 11. Quelque Six Mille Proverbes. Par le P. Ch. Cahier. Paris, 1836. 12. Petite Encyclopédie des Proverbes Français. Par Hilaire le Gais. Paris, 1860. 13. Arabic Proverbs Translated and Explained. By J. L. Burckhardt. London, 1830. 14. Wit 14. Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. Captain R. F. Burton. London, 1865. 15. Scots Proverbs. By Allan Ramsay. Edinburgh, 1797. 16. Mavor's Proverbs, Alphabetically Arranged. London, 1804. 17. Select Proverbs of all Nations. By Thomas Fielding. London, 1824. 18. Proverbs of all Nations, Compared, Explained, and Illustrated. By Walter K. Kelly. London, 1861. 19. Proverbs and their Lessons. By Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D. Fourth edition. London, 1857. W ISDOM manifests herself in divers forms, but seldom perhaps in any more acceptably or impressively than when she clothes herself in proverbial guise. Reading and observation leave some mark on minds of any calibre, and the result of such impression, in its most popular and perhaps most durable form, is the proverb;' the coiner of which does not indeed transmit his name with the gift of condensed wisdom he bequeaths to posterity, but in his namelessness enjoys an immortality of popular favour such as falls to the lot of few orations, or poems, or treatises. Considerations of this kind seem to justify that class of definitions of a proverb which make its essence to be wisdom in brief.' While Aristotle speaks of Proverbs as 'remnants which, on account of their shortness and correctness, have been saved out of the wreck and ruins of ancient Philosophy,' Agricola declares them to be 'short sentences into which, as in rules, the ancients have compressed life.' Quaint Thomas Fuller defined it much matter decocted into few words;' and James Howell 'a great deal of weight wrapt up in a little;' nor is the modern definition, the wisdom of many and the wit of one,' unallied to these, if it conveys the idea that the proverb places before us in witty conciseness the pith of wisdom that has been often enunciated less compendiously. Accurate definition is always a hard matter, and, not least, the definition of a proverb. Catching one or two salient points, we are apt to overlook others. Shortness, salt, and significance,' noted by Howell as essential to a proverb, will, as Archbishop Trench justly remarks, apply to the epigram with equal fitness; and, as the same writer shews, brevity, point, and wit' will not make a saying a proverb without the endorsement of popular acceptance. Erasmus defines a proverb as Celebre dictum, scitâ quâpiam novitate insigne,' but though the celebre dictum' is well enough, the latter part of the definition is surely not of the essence essence of a proverb. Passing other inadequate definitions, we resort to etymology. Proverbium' is from pro, 'publicly,' and verbum, 'a word'; and the Greek correlative paramia,* imports 'a trite, roadside expression.' Whether adagium' may be traced to 'ad agendum aptum' is more problematical; but, if so, it points to a distinction between proverbium' and 'adagium,' the latter embracing the moral side of the former and more general word. At all events, the verbal interpretation of proverbium, paramia, and the Spanish refran (a referendo) tends to shew that triteness, common usage, and popular acceptance are essential features of the proverb. To this Cooper testifies in his Thesaurus (1584), where he englishes proverbium,' an 'an old sayed sawe;' and James Howell, ever a great authority when proverbs are on the tapis, attaches the same importance to popular acceptance when he likens proverbs to 'natural children legitimated by prescription and long tract of ancestriall time.' Truly their parentage is involved in mystery: they cannot claim the advantages of rank and prestige-they are unable to point to illustrious progenitors-yet never were foundlings less in a position to feel their situation, for while they have become the common charge and property, they meet in society a welcome that never fails or fluctuates in heartiness-which is more than can always be said for lengthier lucubrations of acknowledged wisdom. Of foundlings, it might be urged, it were lost labour to investigate the genealogy. And yet in the case of proverbs this is hardly so. Though the sire may remain unknown to the end of time, it is possible to trace up many a proverb to remote antiquity, and establish its claim to precedence through many generations. Often may the curious find all the excitement of the chase, in hunting a proverb from country to country, perhaps after all only to lose the scent, and not run it to earth. The nations and languages of Europe, Asia, and Africa, have each and all their special stores of wit and wisdom in the shape of proverbs; yet in all and each there is so much that seems akin to the rest, that an investigator is driven either to look for some common origin, or to accept the hypothesis of an universal wisdom manifesting itself variously in the pithy sayings of all nations, barbarous and civilized. Few who have not specially studied the subject can possibly appreciate the richness of the proverb-literature of ancient Greece, or estimate the debt which modern Europe owes to it. The loan indeed has not been contracted through principals, and the Latin language has generally acted as a * Παροιμία, from παρὰ and οἶμος. go-between go-between. Let it be remembered how far back the age of the Seven Sages takes us; how deep we must dive into the past to reach the fabulist Æsop, whose epimyths are all proverbs in their way; and how rich in celebria dicta' is the prince of poets, Homer, and it will be admitted that, until classical literature has been ransacked, and its proverbial sayings made publici juris' to the unlettered and the learned, we are not in a position to speak certainly of the antiquity of proverbs, or to compute the interest of a debt contracted we know not when nor where. It was a favourite suggestion of the lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis that something should be done to make English readers acquainted with Greek and Latin paromiology; and though, in the limits of an article, we can only do scant justice to so wide a subject, yet it may be that more profit may accrue from giving special and primary attention to the proverbs of antiquity than to those of modern nations, which are not only more accessible, but more familiarly known. In illustrating the old proverbs, there will be incidental notice of the new; and while making antiquity our vantage-ground, we shall hope to do justice, as far as space permits, to the cream of modern proverbial literature. But, it may be urged, is classical literature to be the sole mine from which we are to dig ancient proverbs? What becomes then of the Old Testament? of its short sentences, which have passed into proverbs; of its express proverbs, such as that in 1 Sam. xxiv. 13, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked'? and, above all, of the Book of Proverbs, compiled, it would seem, partly by Solomon, whose home and foreign intercourse gave him abundance of materials, partly by some transcriber of the saws of Lemuel and Agur, and partly by the men of Hezekiah, who are recorded to have copied out a sort of appendix in four chapters? Yet though it is possible that Greek and Latin proverbs may owe a debt, which we have no means of estimating, to anterior sources, sacred and profane, it is still not so much to Solomon, or to sacred sources, as to classical writers, that we must look for satisfaction in tracing up the genealogy of modern proverbs. From the establishment of the Macedonian empire the Greek language was the key to all international relations; and so this well-nigh universal tongue has naturally preserved a far larger proportion of proverbs than the Egyptian, Persian, Indian, or even Hebrew. Seeing, too, that this tongue was the appointed vehicle through which the Scriptures of the New Testament were to be transmitted to the Gentiles, what wonder if from its store of proverbs, rather than from other ancient sources, are drawn those sayings of this kind which St. Paul quotes in his epistles, |