vili' is found in the Arabic: 'He learns cupping on the heads of orphans;' but perhaps this, on 'men professing long pedigree,' is more satirical than original, 'He was born with Noah in the ark.' On the whole the distinctive feature of this race, as seen in its proverbs, is selfishness. Save thyself,' says their adage, 'at the expense of thy nearest kindred or friends.' According to Moslem tradition, when the deluge came, and the rebel sons of Noah felt the water approach their ankles, they took their little children in their arms; when the water rose higher they placed them upon their shoulders, then upon their heads; but at last when the flood reached to their own mouths, they put the children under their feet, endeavouring to keep their own heads above the water.'

Reference has been already made to Captain Burton's 'Wit and Wisdom from West Africa,' and ample thanks are due to him for so fruitful an occupation of the dreary solitude of a rainy season in the tropics.' The Oji tongue provides us with some capital equivalents for our own household words. Instead, for instance, of 'The grapes are sour,' they say 'If you can't dance, you will say the drum is not agreeable,' and for Love me, love my dog,' 'If a person hates you, he will beat your animals.' Another West African tribe has perhaps as telling a variation of our oft-illustrated frying-pan and fire' proverb as could be cited, viz., He fled from the sword, and hid in the scabbard.' Yet this same proverb-coining race treasure up the truth which the lovers of affected brevity have much need to learn, Contraction of words conceals the sense.' It is to be hoped that Captain Burton did not approach the territory of the Oji-speakers unaccompanied, seeing that in their wise saw, He who travels alone tells lies,' there lurks a parallel to our own misgiving as to ‘travellers' tales.' Howbeit other of their adages are anything but respectful to home-keeping youths,' and one counsels us not to 'make friends by the way, lest you lose your knife.' Striking examples, these, of the co-ordination of proverbs often needed to express all that is meant. No one who examines this valuable addition to proverbial literature will doubt that a fair sprinkling of its contents betrays a Moslem origin, while many other wise sayings of the Oji, Accra, and Yoruba tongues are simply native renderings of texts taught by the missionaries. For instance, could the following, which might put the vengeful Italian to the blush, He that forgives gains the victory in dispute,' by any possibility have other than a Christian origin? But on the great mass of this interesting collection is stamped a sort of private mark, which shows its distinctive character; and the curious in proverb-lore may do worse than explore the

riches of the volume to which we refer, in connection with the 'Adagia' of civilised nations.

In turning, with the fondness of travellers nearing home and the end of a journey, to the parœmiology of our own country, in which we include Scotland and Ireland for the express purpose of sharing the prestige which attaches to the shrewd proverbs of the one, and the racy Ulsterisms and Munsterisms of the other, we are quite conscious that our speciality, in the proverb, is rather strong practical sense than fine wit or sharp-edged piquancy. But perhaps in this, as in other matters, we may fairly lay claim to some adaptive power, and to considerable readiness in turning to account all that is of worth in what we see or hear elsewhere. Proverb-mongers we have been since very early days. Proverb-collecting is as old in England as old John Heywood, whose 'Dialogue, containing the number in effecte of all the Proverbes in the English Tunge' bears the date of A.D. 1561, and as Tusser, who published his Five-hundred points of good husbandrie' in 1580. In later times (to club professed compilers of proverb-lore with other writers who make constant use of the proverb) the names of Camden, George Herbert, James Howell, Thomas Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor, to whom we may add Ray, are among the foremost of those entitled to rank as parœmiographers. But indeed it would be hard to say when the proverb was not in fashion with us, as perhaps might not unnaturally be expected in the case of a grave and sententious people. Not that we are unaware of the weighty dictum pronounced against the use of popular saws in good society by Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son. A man of fashion,' he wrote, 'never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms.' A fit saying for one who seems to have set manners above morals, and to have voted 'all that comes from the heart' indescribably low and vulgar. It is conceivable that his antipathy to proverbs arose from their homeliness, with which fashion has nothing in common. Doubtless a Sancho Panza would grow tedious in genteel society. Our renowned dramatist teaches their legitimate use in pages which are dear where Chesterfield's 'Letters to his Son' would be consigned to the topmost shelves. Take up any one of his plays, Hamlet, for example, and you light on such adages as 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all,' or 'Brevity is the soul of wit,' itself a justification of the use of proverbs. When Hotspur says to Lady Percy (Henry IV., Part Î, Act II. sc. iii.),—

'No lady closer-for I well believe

Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,
And so far I will trust thee, gentle Kate,'

he

he is but endorsing the Scottish saw, 'Women an' bairns lein (conceal) what they kenna.' Lady Macbeth, when she would shame her husband out of his irresolution, calls up the adage, 'The cat loves fish, but is loth to wet her feet':

'Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,”

Like the poor cat i' the adage.'

Macbeth, I. vii. 44.

From the Merchant of Venice comes 'The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose,' and in the same play, Shylock, quoting the proverb Fast bind, fast find,' characterises it as a proverb never stale to thrifty minds' (II. v. 53-4.). But such as have been diligent conners of proverbial lore will constantly detect proverbs inlaid, so to speak, in the Shakespearian dialogue. Our old and beautiful adage, 'The grace of God is gear enough,' peeps out in Launcelot Gobbo's words to Bassanio: The old proverb is very well parted between my master, Shylock, and you, Sir;-you have the grace of God, Sir, and he has enough.'—(M. of Venice, II. ii.) Gonzago, in the Tempest, comforts himself that the ship will be saved because the boatswain's complexion is perfect gallows,' and runs on with a string of facetiæ based on the adage, He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.' And we almost scruple to set on paper the truism that such titles of plays as 'All's well that ends well,' 'Love's labour 's lost,' &c., are all proverbial expressions.

Passing from the Elizabethan drama to our humourists, what works have had greater popularity in their day than Sterne's? The Shandean humour, which found a welcome in fashionable circles, did not despise proverbs. All is not gain that is got into the purse' commences a chapter of Tristram Shandy, apropos of Mr. Shandy's odd reading involving him in odd distresses. 'Great wits jump' is applied to Dr. Slop on a memorable occasion: and it is pretty well established that our touching proverb, God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' though it may be traced in French up to a collection by Henry Stephens, published in 1594, occurs first in English guise in the mouth of Maria, in the Sentimental Journey. Dean Swift, too, is a dear lover of proverbs. With him they run into rhyme without effort. To his prose belongs the saying that 'Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few;' and, opening his poems haphazard, the first couplet we have lit upon (see Poem on the death of Dean Swift) is

'He shows, as sure as God's in Gloster,
That Moses was a grand impostor.'

The words in italics are a local proverb, said by Ray to have

arisen from the number and wealth of religious houses in Gloucestershire.

Again, we might appeal to the fastidious Pope for his verdict as regards proverbs. He coins them. He quotes them. From his Essay on Man' come numberless pithy lines and half lines, which were either proverbs before they found their way there, or have since taken rank as such. Witness the couplets associated in our minds with the 'Blood of the Howards,' and with 'leather and prunella.' 'Whatever is, is right,' Man never is, but always to be blest,' and the like, are samples merely of a rich abundance. Nor would it be hard, save in point of space, to prove that nine out of ten of our greatest writers have recognised, by use, the proverb's honourable connexion with the literature of our fatherland.

But unowned proverbs are often most characteristic and noticeable. Of these a rare modern collection has been made by Mr. W. B. Kelly, much to be recommended to such as would study the subject coherently and continuously. To it and to 'Notes and Queries' we are indebted for most of the specimens that follow. Allusion has been made to the shrewdness innate in Scotch adages. They are aye gude that are far awa' is an instance. The Spanish express the same thing in their Dine with your aunt, but not every day.' 'Measure twice, cut but once,' conveying a hint that what's done can't be undone,' and therefore should be done after due deliberation, is also Scotch, though claimed by the Russians. So is that border proverb of the Douglas, Better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep,' a shrewd saying, whether in its primary sense of woods and hills forming the best defences for border chiefs, or in the applied sense that high and dry sites are better than damp and low. From Ulster comes the rough and racy dissuasive against forecasting ills, 'Never yowl till you're hit,' and 'Don't throw out your dirty wather till you've got in your clane,' in other words, don't lose the substance while grasping at a shadow. In these the point is obvious. But many of our proverbs cling to the memory rather on account of their meaning being somewhat farther to seek. This common one, When you go to Rome, do as Rome does,' bespeaks some tale hanging by it. And inquiry brings us to the Latin of St. Augustin, for whose mother, Monica, St. Ambrose solved the case of conscience involved in holding the Sabbath a feast day in Milan, whereas it was a fast at their native place, Tagasta, by laying down a rule in corresponding Latin words to those of our proverb. Kelly tells a capital story of a captain's wife, whose husband the Kaffirs had killed and eaten, being consoled by her waiting-maid, Mais, Madame, que voulez-vous? chaque peuple a ses usages.' Again, 'Good wine needs no bush,' at first obscure

of

of meaning, acquires point by reference to the Roman custom of hanging out a branch of ivy, the emblem of Bacchus, at the doors of taverns. To this Kelly traces the slang word 'bosky,' i.q. drunk. It would be curious to be able to trace the sign of the 'Ivy-bush,' a noted hostelry at Caermarthen (the Roman Maridunum'), to this ancient custom. It is not hard to fathom the meaning of 'Between two stools somewhat comes to the ground,' as the proverb stands in a State paper of A.D. 1602,* or All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' though this last may well be consigned to oblivion, now that the state of things does not exist. Since the publication of "Tom Brown's Schooldays,' 'nous avons changé tout cela!' Another English proverb, 'The shoemaker's wife goes unshod,' applies admirably to any of the possible cases comparable to that of Tantalus. As a modern illustration of this, gentlefolks living on the banks of the Severn may see salmon caught and packed and sent off by mail or train, yet fail of being able to secure one for love or money to feast a friend. 'Great barkers are little biters' has an obvious application; but it is not every one who knows what precious comfort for his countrymen Horace Walpole drew from it, when, in 1792, he used it of English democrats who say everything and do nothing,' whereas the French revolutionist said nothing and did everything.' But most often a partial ambiguity enhances the impression. Thus we say a thing must be done by hook or by crook,' and say it from habit, without thinking much what the words mean. They are clearly referable to the immemorial right of firewood,' the hook being used to cut the green wood, and the crooked pole for breaking off the dry. The story of the rival lawyers, Hooke and Crooke, is a post hoc, non propter hoc.' A Roland for an Oliver' is said of 'giving as good as you get.' The names, it is said, belonged to two paladins of Charlemagne; and some see in Charles the Second's nickname, Old Rowley, an allusion to the proverb, he being the Rowland who was in his way a match for the vaunted Oliver. When a man is said to show the white feather,' it does not always strike us that the phrase arises from the fact that white feathers in gamecocks indicate impurity of breed. Raining cats and dogs' is a common expression for an uncommon phenomenon. Some of Livy's portents distance it in strangeness, even if taken literally. It is ingeniously traced to the French 'catadoupe,' a waterfall, in Notes and Queries.' The phrase 'not worth an old song' has, like the above instances, been largely discussed in 'Notes and Queries,' but nothing has come out to give it a more

* See Notes and Queries,' Ser. II. xi. 27.

definite