Chapter V: Part 5

"The mice consult together how to take the cat, but they do not agree upon the matter" (Livonian). "Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, a man remarkable for strength of body and mind, acquired the popular name of Bell-the-Cat upon the following remarkable occasion:--When the Scottish nobility assembled to deliberate on putting the obnoxious favourites of James III. to death, Lord Grey told them the fable of the mice, who resolved that one of their number should put a bell round the neck of the cat, to warn them of its coming; but no one was so hardy as to attempt it. 'I understand the moral,' said Angus; 'I will bell the cat.' He bearded the king to purpose by hanging the favourites over the bridge of Lauder; Cochran, their chief, being elevated higher than the rest."--(_Note to Marmion._)

=Self-praise is no commendation.=

=Self-praise stinks.=

=Ye live beside ill neebours.=--_Scotch._

=Your trumpeter is dead.=

The last two are taunts addressed to persons who sound their own praises.

=A man may love his house weel, and no ride on the riggen
o't.=--_Scotch._

A man does not prove the depth and sincerity of his sentiments by an ostentatious display of them.

=Good wine needs no bush.=

=Gude ale needs nae wisp.=--_Scotch._

A bunch of twigs, or a wisp of hay or straw hung up at a roadside house, is a sign that drink is sold within. This custom, which still lingers in the cider-making counties of the west of England, and prevails more generally in France, is derived from the Romans, among whom a bunch of ivy, the plant sacred to Bacchus, was appropriately used as the sign of a wine-shop. They, too, used to say, "Vendible wine needs no ivy hung up."[674] "Good wine needs no crier" (Spanish).[675] "It sells itself" (Spanish).[676] "Bosky" is one of the innumerable euphemisms for "drunk." Probably the phrase, "he is bosky," originally conveyed an allusion to the symbolical use of the bush, with which all good fellows were familiar in the olden time.

FOOTNOTES:

[645] Apud Bactryanos vulgo usurpabant canem timidum vehementius latrare quam mordere.

[646] Was schadet das Hundes Bellen der nicht beisst?

[647] Cave tibi cane muto et aqua silente.

[648] Schweigender Hund beisst am ersten.

[649] Vive più il minacciato che l'impiccato.

[650] Mas son los amenazados que los acuchillados.

[651] Tambem os ameaçados comem paō.

[652] Ekks Davith Goliat med ordum drap.

[653] Van dreigen sterft men niet.

[654] Alle dreigers vechten niet.

[655] Tel menace qui a peur.

[656] Bande bider ei Öie ud, uden Næven fölger med.

[657] Schiaffo minacciato, mai ben dato. Bofetón amagado, nunca bien dado.

[658] Gato maullador nunca buen caçador.

[659] Wer droht, warnt.

[660] Quem ameaça, su ira gasta.

[661] El amenazador hace perder el lugar de venganza.

[662] Le minaccie son arme del minacciato.

[663] On ne prend pas le lèvre au tambour.

[664] Credi al vantatore come al mentitore.

[665] Grands vanteurs, petits faiseurs.

[666] Het hoen, dat het meest kakelt, geeft de meeste eijers niet.

[667] La lengua luenga es señal de mano corta.

[668] Du dire au fait il y a grand trait.

[669] Le parole son femmine, e i fatti son maschi.

[670] No son palabras para mi tia, que aun de las obras no se fia.

[671] A moro muerto gran lanzada.

[672] E facile far paura al toro dalla fenestra.

[673] Molli son bravi quando l'inimico frigge.

[674] Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non est opus.

[675] El vino bueno no ha menester pregonero.

[676] El buen vino la venta trae consigo.

SECRETS.

=No secrets but between two.=

"Where could you have heard that?" said a friend to Grattan. "Why, it is a profound secret." "I heard it," said Grattan, "where secrets are kept--in the street." Napoleon I. used to say, "Secrets travel fast in Paris."[677]

=Three may keep counsel if two be away.=

We are told in several languages "That the secret of two is God's secret--the secret of three is all the world's;"[678] and the Spaniards hold that "What three know every creature knows."[679] The surest plan is, of course, not to trust to anybody; and this was the plan pursued by Alva and by Q. Metellus Macedonicus, whose maxim, "If my tunic knew my secret I would burn it forthwith," has been turned by the French into a rhyming proverb of their own: "Let the shirt next your skin not know what's within."[680] The Chinese say, "What is whispered in the ear is often heard a hundred miles off." Truly "Nothing is so burdensome as a secret" (French).[681] The Livonians have this humorous hyperbole, "Confide a secret to a dumb man and it will make him speak." King Midas's barber scraped a hole in the earth, and, lying down, poured into it the tremendous secret that oppressed him; but the earth did not keep it close, for it sprouted up with the growing corn, which proclaimed with articulate rustlings, "King Midas hath the ears of an ass."

=Tom Noddy's secret.=

Or, "The secret of Polichinelle" (French);[682] that is to say, one which is known to everybody. This is what the Spaniards call "The secret of Anchuelos."[683] The town of that name lies in a gorge between two steep hills, on one of which a shepherd tended his flock, on the other a shepherdess. This pair kept up an amorous converse by bawling from hill to hill, but always with many mutual injunctions of secrecy.

=Murder will out.=

"And a man's child cannot be hid," adds Lancelot Gobbo. The English proverb is used jocosely, though derived from an awful sense of the fatality, as it were, with which bloody secrets are almost always brought to light. It seems to us as though the order of nature were inverted when the perpetrator of a murder escapes detection. This faith in Nemesis was expressed in the ancient Greek proverb, "The cranes of Ibycus," of which this is the story. The lyric poet Ibycus was murdered by robbers on his way to Corinth, and with his last breath committed the task of avenging him to a flock of cranes, the only living things in sight besides himself and his murderers. The latter, some time after, sitting in the theatre at Corinth, saw a flock of cranes overhead, and one of them said scoffingly, "Lo, there the avengers of Ibycus!" These words were caught up by some near them, for already the poet's disappearance had excited alarm. The men being questioned betrayed themselves, and were led to their doom, and "The cranes of Ibycus" passed into a proverb. This story may serve to show how

=Daylight will peep through a small hole.=

"Eggs are close things," say the Chinese, "but the chicks come out at last." "A secret fire is discovered by the smoke" (Catalan).[684]

=To let the cat out of the bag.=

To betray a secret inadvertently. I cannot tell what is the origin of this phrase. Can it be that it alludes to the practice of selling cats for hares? A fraudulent vendor, while pressing a customer "to buy a cat in a bag," (see p. 61,) might in an unguarded moment let him see enough to detect the imposition.

=When rogues fall out honest men come by their own.=

They peach upon each other. "Thieves quarrel, and thefts are discovered" (Spanish).[685] "Gossips fall out, and tell each other truths" (Spanish).[686] "When the cook and the butler fall out we shall know what is become of the butter" (Dutch).

=Tell your secret to your servant, and you make him your master=.

Juvenal notes the policy of the Greek adventurers in Rome to worm out the secrets of the house, and so make themselves feared. "To whom you tell your secret you surrender your freedom" (Spanish).[687] "Tell your friend your secret, and he will set his foot on your throat" (Spanish).[688]

=Walls have ears.=

"Hills see, walls hear" (Spanish).[689] "The forest has ears, the field has eyes" (German).[690]

=What soberness conceals drunkenness reveals.=

"What is in the heart of the sober man is on the tongue of the drunken man" (Latin).[691] "In wine is truth" (Latin).[692] "Wine wears no breeches" (Spanish).[693]

=When wine sinks, words swim.=[694]

=When the wine is in the wit is out.=

FOOTNOTES:

[677] Les confidences vont vite à Paris.

[678] Secret de deux, secret de Dieu; secret de trois, secret de tous.

[679] Lo que saben tres, sabe toda res.

[680] Que ta chemise ne sache ta guise.

[681] Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret.

[682] Le secret de Polichinelle.

[683] El secreto de Anchuelos.

[684] For secreto, lo fumo lo descovre.

[685] Pelean los ladrones, y descubriense los hurtos.

[686] Riñen las comadres, y duense las verdades.

[687] A quien dices tu puridad, á ese das tu libertad.

[688] Di á tu amigo tu secreto, y tenerte ha el pie en el pescuezo.

[689] Montes veen, paredes oyen.

[690] Der Wald hat Ohren, das Feld hat Augen.

[691] Quod est in corde sobrii est in ore ebrii.

[692] In vino veritas.

[693] El vino anda sin calças.

[694] This is in Herodotus: Ὄινου κατίοντοϛ ἔπιπλεουσιν ἐπῆ.

RETRIBUTION. PENAL JUSTICE.

=He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.=

=The water will ne'er waur the woodie.=--_Scotch._

That is, the water will never defraud the gallows of its due. Gonzago, in _The Tempest_, says of the boatswain, "I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged our case is miserable."

The Danes say, "He that is to be hanged will never be drowned, unless the water goes over the gallows."[695] Such punctilious accuracy in fixing the limits of the proposition considerably enhances its grim humour. There is a fine touch of ghastly horror in its Dutch equivalent, "What belongs to the raven does not drown."[696] The platform on which criminals were executed and gibbeted was called, in the picturesque language of the middle ages, the "ravenstone." "He that is to die by the gallows may dance on the river" (Italian).[697]

"He'll be hang'd yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'st to glut him."

=Give a thief rope enough and he'll hang himself.=

=Every fox must pay his own skin to the flayer.=

=Air day or late day, the tod's [fox's] hide finds aye the flaying
knife.=--_Scotch._

In spite of all his cunning the rogue will soon or late come to a bad end. "Foxes find themselves at last at the furrier's" (French).[698] "No mad dog runs seven years" (Dutch).[699]

=Hanging goes by hap.=

If a man is hanged it is a sign that he was pre-destined to that end. "The gallows was made for the unlucky" (Spanish).[700] It is not always a man's fault so much as his misfortune that he dies of a hempen fever. As Captain Macheath sings,--

"Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as in me,
I wonder we ha'n't better company
Upon Tyburn tree."

But "Money does not get hanged" (German).[701] It sits on the judgment-seat, and sends poor rogues to the hulks or to Jack Ketch. As it was in the days of Diogenes the cynic, so it is now: "Great thieves hang petty thieves" (French);[702] and, whilst "Petty thieves are hanged, people take off their hats to great ones" (German).[703]

=First hang and draw,
Then hear the cause by Lidford law.=

Ray informs us that "Lidford is a little and poor but ancient corporation in Devonshire, with very large privileges, where a Court of Stannaries was formerly kept." The same sort of expeditious justice was practised in Scotland and in Spain, as testified by proverbs of both countries. At Peralvillo the Holy Brotherhood used to execute in this manner robbers taken in the fact, or "red-hand," as the Scotch forcibly expressed it. Hence the Spanish saying, "Peralvillo justice: after the man is hanged try him."[704] The Scotch equivalent for this figures with dramatic effect in that scene of _The Fair Maid of Perth_ where Black Douglas has just discovered the murder of the Prince of Rothsay, and exclaims,--

"'Away with the murderers! hang them over the battlements!'

"'But, my lord, some trial may be fitting,' answered Balveny.

"'To what purpose?' answered Douglas. 'I have taken them red-hand; my authority will stretch to instant execution. Yet stay: have we not some Jedwood men in our troop?'

"'Plenty of Turnbulls, Rutherfords, Ainslies, and so forth,' said Balveny.

"'Call me an inquest of these together; they are all good men and true, save a little shifting for their living. Do you see to the execution of these felons, while I hold a court in the great hall, and we'll try whether the jury or the provost-martial shall do their work first: we will have

=Jedwood justice--hang in haste, and try at leisure.'"=

=He that invented the "maiden" first hanselled it.=--_Scotch._

This was the Regent Morton, who was the first man beheaded by an instrument of his own invention, called the "maiden." His enemies thought it was

"Sport
To see the engineer hoist by his own petard;"

and even those who pitied him felt that "no law was juster than that the artificers of death should perish by their own art."[705]

=If he has no gear to tine, he has shins to pine.=--_Scotch._

That is, if he has not wealth to lose, or means to pay a fine, he must be clapped in the stocks or in fetters. "He that has no money must pay with his skin" (German).[706] "Where there is no money there is no forgiveness of sins" (German).[707]

FOOTNOTES:

[695] Han drukner ikke som henge skal, uden Vandet gaaer over Galgen.

[696] Wat den raven toebehoort verdrinkt niet.

[697] Chi ha da morir di forca, può ballar sul fiume.

[698] Enfin les renards se trouvent chez le pelletier.

[699] Er liep geen dolle hond zeven jaar.

[700] Para los desdichados se hizo la horca.

[701] Geld wird nicht gehenkt.

[702] Les grands voleurs font pendre les petits.

[703] Kleine Diebe henkt man, vor grossen zieht man den Hut ab.

[704] La justicia de Peralvillo, que ahorcado el hombre le hace la perquisa.

[705]

Nec lex est justior ulla
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.

[706] Wer kein Geld hat, mussmit der Haut bezahlen.

[707] Wo kein Geld ist, da ist auch keine Vergebung der Sünden.

WEALTH. POVERTY. PLENTY. WANT.

=Happy is the son whose father went to the devil.=

On the other hand, the Portuguese say, "Alas for the son whose father goes to heaven!"[708] the presumption being that a man does not go that way whilst amassing great wealth; for "He that is afraid of the devil does not grow rich" (Italian).[709] "To do so one has only to turn one's back on God" (French).[710] Audley, a noted lawyer and usurer in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was asked what might be the value of his newly-obtained office in the Court of Wards. He replied, "It may be worth some thousands of pounds to him who after his death would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows how much to him who would adventure to go to hell." Audley's biographer hints that he did adventure that way for the four hundred thousand pounds he left behind him at his departure. "The river does not become swollen with clear water" (Italian).[711] According to a Latin proverb, quoted with approval by St. Jerome, "A rich man is either a rogue or a rogue's heir."[712] "To be rich one must have a relation at home with the devil" (Italian).[713] "Gold goes to the Moor;" _i. e._, to the man without a conscience (Portuguese).[714]

"The poets feign," says Bacon, "that when Plutus, which is riches, is sent from Jupiter, he limps and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto he runs and is swift of foot; meaning that riches gotten by good means and just labour pace slowly, but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man. But it might be applied likewise to Pluto, taking him for the devil; for when riches come from the devil (as by fraud and oppression and unjust means) they come upon speed. The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul."

"He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent" (Proverbs xxviii. 22). "Who would be rich in a year gets hanged in half a year" (Spanish).[715]

=Plenty makes dainty.=[716]

=As the sow fills the draught sours.=

=Hunger is the best sauce.=

"Hunger makes raw beans sweet" (German). "Hunger is the best cook" (German). "The full stomach loatheth the honeycomb, but to the hungry every bitter thing is sweet" (Proverbs). "Brackish water is sweet in a dry land" (Portuguese).[717]

=A hungry horse makes a clean manger.=

=Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings.=

=A hungry man sees far.=

"A hungry man discovers more than a hundred lawyers" (Spanish).[718] Want sharpens industry and invention. "He thinks of everything who wants bread" (French).[719] "A poor man is all schemes" (Spanish).[720]

"Lorgitor artium, ingeniique magister
Venter."

"Poverty and hunger have many learned disciples" (German).[721] "Poverty is the sixth sense."[722] "It is cunning: it catches even a fox" (German).[723]

=Need makes the old wife trot.=[724]

=Need makes the naked man run.=

=Need makes the naked quean spin.=

"Hunger sets the dog a-hunting" (Italian).[725] "Hunger drives the wolf out of the wood" (Italian).[726]

=Hunger will break through stone walls.=

"A hungry dog fears not the stick" (Italian);[727] whereas "The full-fed sheep is frightened at her own tail" (Spanish).[728]

=Poverty parteth good fellowship.=

An old Scotch song says:--

"When I hae saxpence under my thumb,
Then I get credit in ilka town;
But when I hae naethin they bid me gang by:
Hech! poverty parts gude company."

=Poverty is no crime.=

Some say it is worse. "Poverty is no vice, but it is a sort of leprosy" (French).[729]

FOOTNOTES:

[708] Guay do filho que o pai vai a paraiso.

[709] Chi ha paura del diavolo non fa roba.

[710] Il ne faut que tourner le dos à Dieu pour devenir riche.

[711] Il fiume non s'ingrossa d'acqua chiara.

[712] Dives aut iniquus aut iniqui hæres.

[713] Por esser riceo bisogna avere un parente a casa al diavolo.

[714] Vaise o ouro ao mouro.

[715] Quien en un año quiere ser rico, al medio le ahorcan.

[716] Abondance engendre fâcherie.

[717] Agoa salobra na terra seca he doce.

[718] Mas descubre un hambriento que cien letrados.

[719] De tout s'avise à qui pain faut.

[720] Hombre pobre todo es trazas.

[721] Armuth und Hunger haben viel gelehrte Jünger.

[722] Armuth ist der sechste Sinn.

[723] Armuth ist listig, sie fängt auch einen Fuchs.

[724] The same in Italian, Bisogna fa trottar la vecchia; and in French, Besoin fait vieille trotter.

[725] Fa forame il can per fame.

[726] La fame caccia il lupo fuor del bosco.

[727] Can affamato non ha paura del bastone.

[728] Carnero harto de su rabo se espanta.

[729] Pauvreté n'est pas vice, mais c'est une espèce de laiderie.

BEGINNING AND END.

=A good beginning makes a good ending.=

=Well begun is half done.=

Tersely translated from the Latin, _Dimidium facti qui bene cœpit habet_. "A beard lathered is half shaved," say the Spaniards.[730] In an article on the "Philosophy of Proverbs" the author of the "Curiosities of Literature" gives an example from the Italian, which he deems of peculiar interest, "for it is perpetuated by Dante, and is connected with the character of Milton." Besides these distinctions it has a third (not surmised by Disraeli), as a linguistic curiosity; for though it consists of but four words, and those among the commonest in the language, its literal meaning is undetermined, and diametrically opposite interpretations have been given of it even by native authorities. _Cosa fatta capo ha_ is the proverb in question, which some understand as signifying, "A deed done has an end;" or, as the Scotch say, "A thing done is no to do." It is thus rendered by Torriano in 1666; whilst Giusti, in 1853, explains it as meaning, "A deed done has a beginning;" or, in other words, if you would accomplish anything, you must not content yourself with pondering over it for ever, but must proceed to action. Such another instance of divided opinion respecting the import of four familiar words in a simply-constructed sentence is probably not to be found in the history of modern languages.

This proverb is the "bad word" to which tradition ascribes the origin of the civil wars that long desolated Tuscany. When Buondelmonte broke his engagement with a lady of the Amadei family, and married another, the kinsmen of the injured lady assembled to consider how they should deal with the offender. They inclined to pass sentence of death upon him; but their fear of the evils that might ensue from that decision long held them in suspense. At last Mosca Lamberti cried out that "those who talk of many things effect nothing," quoting, says Macchiavelli, "that trite and common adage, _Cosa fatta capo ha_." This decided the question. Buondelmonte was murdered; and the deed immediately involved Florence in those miserable conflicts of Guelphs and Ghibellines, from which she had stood aloof until then. The "bad word" uttered by Mosca has been immortalised by Dante (_Inferno_, xxviii.), and variously rendered by his English translators. Cary presents the passage thus:--

"Then one
Maim'd of each hand uplifted in the gloom
The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots
Sullied his face, and cried, 'Remember thee
Of Mosca too--I who, alas! exclaim'd,
The deed once done, there is an end--that proved
A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.'"

Wright's version is,--

"Then one deprived of both his hands, who stood
Lifting the bleeding stumps amid the dim
Dense air, so that his face was stain'd with blood,
Cried, 'In thy mind let Mosca bear a place,
Who said, alas! Deed done is well begun--
Words fraught with evil to the Tuscan race.'"

Disraeli adopts Cary's interpretation of the proverb, and does not seem to suspect that it can have any other. Milton appears to have used it in the same sense. "When deeply engaged," says Disraeli, "in writing 'The Defence of the People,' and warned that it might terminate in his blindness, he resolutely concluded his work, exclaiming with great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished, _Cosa fatta capo ha!_ Did this proverb also influence his decision on that great national event, when the most honest-minded fluctuated between doubts and fears?"

=The first blow is half the battle.=

It is as good as two according to the Italians.

=The hardest step is over the threshold.=

"The first step is all the difficulty" (French).[731] It is well known that after St. Denis was decapitated he picked up his head, and walked a league with it in his hand to the spot where his church was afterwards erected. Recounting this miracle one day in a private circle, Cardinal de Polignac laid great stress on the length of the way traversed in that manner by the martyred saint; whereupon Madame du Deffaut remarked that this was not the most surprising part of the miracle, for in such cases "the first step was all the difficulty."

=Everything has a beginning.=

=A child must creep ere it can go.=

"Every beginning is feeble" (Latin).[732] "'Every beginning is hard,' as the thief said when he began by stealing an anvil" (German).[733]

=Rome was not built in a day.=

FOOTNOTES:

[730] Barba remojada, medio rapada.

[731] Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte.

[732] Omne principium est debile.

[733] Aller Anfang ist schwer, sprach der Dieb, und stahl zuerst einen Ambos.

OFFICE.

=The office shows the man.=

='Tis the place shows the man.=

It tries his capacity, and shows what stuff he is made of. But it also forms the man; it teaches him (German)[734] if he has the faculty to be taught, so that it may be said with some truth, "To whom God gives an office he gives understanding also" (German).[735] "A great place strangely qualifies," saith Selden. "John Read was groom of the chamber to my lord of Kent. Attorney-General Roy being dead, some were saying, how would the king do for a fit man? 'Why, any man,' says John Read, 'may execute the place.' 'I warrant,' says my lord, 'thou thinkest thou understand'st enough to perform it.' 'Yes,' quoth John; 'let the king make me attorney, and I would fain see that man that durst tell me there's anything I understand not.'" The proverb at the head of this paragraph is literally translated from a Greek maxim, attributed by Sophocles to Solon, and to Bias by Aristotle.

=He is a poor cook that cannot lick his own fingers.=

And "He is a bad manager of honey" who does not help himself in the same way (French).[736] The rule applies to all who have the fingering of good things, whether in a public or a private capacity. "He who manages other people's wealth does not go supperless to bed" (Italian).[737] "All offices are greasy" (Dutch).[738] Something sticks to them. Wheels are greased to make them run smoothly, and in some countries it is found that what the Dutch call smear money may be applied to official palms with advantage to the operator. The French call this _Graisser la patte à quelqu'un_. "'Hast thou no money? then turn placeman,' said the court fool to his sovereign'" (German).[739] King James, we are told by L'Estrange, was once complaining of the leanness of his hunting horse. Archie, his fool, standing by, said to him, "If that be all, take no care; I'll teach your Majesty a way to raise his flesh presently; and if he be not as fat as ever he can wallow, you shall ride me." "I prithee, fool, how?" said the king. "Why, do but make him a bishop, and I'll warrant you," says Archie.

A good deal of surreptitious finger-licking and fattening would be prevented if this truth were clearly understood, that "Office without pay [or with inadequate pay] makes thieves" (German).[740] "He cannot keep a good course who serves without reward" (Italian).[741]

=A man gets little thanks for losing his own.=

An excuse for taking the perquisites of office, however extortionate they may be.

=It is the clerk that makes the justice.=

The magistrate would often be wrong in his law if he were not kept right by the clerk. "The blood of the soldier makes the captain great" (Italian).[742]

=For faut o' wise men fules sit on binks [benches].=--_Scotch._

"For want of good men they made my father alcalde" (Spanish).[743] We do not always see the right man in the right place.

=Never deal with the man when you can deal with the master.=

"It is better to have to do with God than with his saints"[744] is a French proverb, which Voltaire has fitted with a droll story. A king of Spain, he tells us, had promised to bestow relief upon the people of the country round Burgos, who had been ruined by war. They flocked to the palace, but the doorkeepers would not let them in except on condition of having part of what they should get. Having consented to this, the countrymen entered the royal hall, where their leader knelt at the monarch's feet and said, "I beseech your Royal Highness to command that every man of us here shall receive a hundred lashes." "An odd petition truly!" said the king. "Why do you ask for such a thing?" "Because," said the peasant, "your people insist on having the half of whatever you give us."

M. Quitard believes that the saints referred to in the French proverb are the "frost" or "vintage saints,"[745] so called because their festivals, which occur in April, are noted in the popular calendar as days on which frost is injurious to the young green crops and to vines. The husbandmen, whose fields and vineyards were injured by the inclemency of the weather, used to hold these saints responsible for the damage they ought to have prevented, and the reproaches addressed to them might very naturally take the form perpetuated in the proverb. This is the more probable as it is recorded in the ecclesiastical annals of Cahors and Rhodez that the angry agriculturists were in the habit of flogging the images of the frost saints, defacing their pictures, and otherwise maltreating them. Rabelais asserts, with mock gravity, that, in order to put an end to these scandalous irregularities, a bishop of Auxerre proposed to transfer the festivals of the frost saints to the dog days, and make the month of August change place with April.

=A king's cheese goes half away in parings.=

His revenues are half eaten up before they enter his coffers. Before Sully took the French finances in hand such was the system of plunder established by the farmers of the revenue, that the state realised only one-fifth of the gross amount of taxes imposed on the subjects; the other four-fifths were consumed by the financiers. Under such a wasteful system as this, or one in any degree like it, one might well say that

=Kings' chaff is worth other men's corn.=

The perquisites belonging to the king's service are better than the wages earned elsewhere.

=The clerk wishes the priest to have a fat dish.=--_Gaelic._

FOOTNOTES:

[734] Das Amt lehrt den Mann.

[735] Wein Gott ein Amt giebt, dem giebt er auch Verstand.

[736] Celui gouverne bien mal le miel, qui n'en taste et ses doigts n'en lesche.

[737] Chi maneggia quel degli altri, non va a letto senza cena.

[738] Alle amten zijn smeerig.

[739] Hast du kein Geld? so wird ein Amtmann, sagte jeuer Hofnarr zu seinen Fürsten.

[740] Amt ohne Sold macht Diebe.

[741]

Buona via non può tenere
Quel chi serve senz' avere.

[742] Il sangue dei soldati fa grande il capitano.

[743] Por falta de hombres buenos, á mi padre hicieron alcalde.

[744] Il vaut mieux avoir affaire à Dieu qu'à ses saints.

[745] Saints gélifs, saints vendangeurs.

LAW AND LAWYERS.

=Law-makers should not be law-breakers.=

Parliament has made it penal to pollute the air of towns with smoke, and the _Builder_ complains that more smoke issues from parliament's own chimneys than from any six factories in London.

=Abundance of law breaks no law.=

It is safer to exceed than to fall short of what the law requires.

=In a thousand pounds of law there is not an ounce of love.=

=A pennyweight of love is worth a pound weight of law.=

So much more cogent is the one than the other.

=Laws were made for rogues.=

"For the upright there are no laws" (German).[746] They are designed to control those to whom it may be said,--

=Ye wad do little for God if the deil were dead.=--_Scotch._

"The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip
To keep the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that be aye your border.

"Its slightest touches, instant pause,
Debar a' side pretences,
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences."

=He that loves law will get his fill of it.=

=Agree, for the law is costly.=

=Law's costly; tak a pint and 'gree.=--_Scotch._

Lord Mansfield declared that if any man claimed a field from him he would give it up, provided the concession were kept secret, rather than engage in proceedings at law. Hesiod, in admonishing his brother always to prefer a friendly accommodation to a lawsuit, gave to the world the paradoxical proverb, "The half is more than the whole." Very often "A lean agreement is better than a fat lawsuit" (Italian).[747] "Lawyers' garments are lined with suitors' obstinacy" (Italian);[748] and "Their houses are built of fools' heads" (French).[749] Doctors and lawyers are notoriously shy of taking what they prescribe for others. "No good lawyer ever goes to law" (Italian).[750] Lord Chancellor Thurlow did so once, but in his case the exception approved the rule. A house had been built for him by contract, but he had made himself liable for more than the stipulated price by ordering some departures from the specification whilst the work was in progress. He refused to pay the additional charge; the builder brought an action and got a verdict against him, and surly Thurlow never afterwards set foot within the house which was the monument of his wrong-headedness and its chastisement.

=Refer my coat, and lose a sleeve.=--_Scotch._

Arbitrators generally make both parties abate something of their pretensions.

=Fair and softly, as lawyers go to heaven.=

The odds are great against their ever getting there, if it be true that "Unless hell is full never will a lawyer be saved" (French).[751] "The greater lawyer, the worse Christian" (Dutch).[752] "'Virtue in the middle,' said the devil as he sat between two attorneys" (Danish).[753]

FOOTNOTES:

[746] Für Gerechte giebt es keine Gesetze.

[747] E meglio un magro accordo che una grassa lite.

[748] Le vesti degli avvocati son fodrate dell' ostinazion dei litiganti.

[749] Les maisons des avocats sont faictes de la teste des folz.

[750] Nessun buon avvocato piatisce mai.

[751] Si enfer n'est plein, oncques n'y aura d'avocat sauvé.

[752] Hoe grooter jurist, hoe boozer Christ.

[753] Dyden i Midten, sagde Fanden, han sal imellem to Procuratoren.

PHYSIC. PHYSICIANS. MAXIMS RELATING TO HEALTH.

=If the doctor cures, the sun sees it; if he kills, the earth hides it.=

"The earth covers the mistakes of the physician" (Italian, Spanish).[754] "Bleed him and purge him; if he dies, bury him" (Spanish).[755] It is a melancholy truth that "The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease" (French).[756] "Throw physic to the dogs" is in effect the advice given by many eminent physicians, and by some of the greatest thinkers the world has seen. "Shun doctors and doctors' drugs if you wish to be well,"[757] was the seventh, last, and best rule of health laid down by the famous physician Hoffmann. Sir William Hamilton declared that "Medicine in the hands in which it is vulgarly dispensed is a curse to humanity rather than a blessing;" and Sir Astley Cooper did not scruple to avow that "The science of medicine was founded on conjecture and improved by murder." It is a remarkable fact that "The doctor seldom takes physic" (Italian).[758] He does not appear to have a very lively faith in his own art. As for his alleged cures, their reality does not pass unquestioned. It is true that "Dear physic always does good, if not to the patient, at least to the apothecary" (German);[759] but "It is God that cures, and the doctor gets the money" (Spanish).[760] Save your money, then, and "If you have a friend who is a doctor take off your hat to him, and send him to the house of your enemy" (Spanish).[761]

=The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman.=

=Every man at forty is either a fool or a physician.=

=A creaking gate hangs long on its hinges.=

Valetudinarians often outlive persons of robust constitution who take less care of themselves. A French saying to this purpose, which is too idiomatic to be translated, was neatly applied by Pozzo di Borgo in a conversation with Lady Holland. Her ladyship, exulting in the duration of the Whig government, notwithstanding the prevalent anticipations of their fall, said to him, "Vous voyez, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, que nous vivons toujours." "Oui, madame," he replied, "les petites santés durent quelquefois longtemps." "Creaking carts last longest" (Dutch).[762] "The flawed pots are the most lasting" (French).[763]

=A groaning wife and a grunting horse ne'er failed their master.=

=Seek your salve where ye got your sore.=--_Scotch._

=Take a hair of the dog that bit you.=

Advice given to persons suffering the after-pains of a carouse. The same stimulant which caused their nervous depression will also relieve it. The metaphor is derived from an old medical practice to which Seneca makes some allusion, and which is commended in a rhyming French adage to this effect, "With the hair of the beast that bit thee, or with its blood, thou wilt be cured."[764] Cervantes, in his tale of _La Gitanilla_, thus describes an old gipsy woman's manner of treating a person bitten by a dog:--"She took some of the dog's hairs, fried them in oil, and after washing with wine the two bites she found on the patients left leg, she put the hairs and the oil upon them, and over this dressing a little chewed green rosemary. She then bound the leg up carefully with clean bandages, made the sign of the cross over it, and said, 'Now go to sleep, friend, and with the help of God your hurts will not signify.'"

=One nail drives out another.=

This is the doctrine of homœopathy. "Poison quells poison" (Italian).[765]

"Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning:
One desperate grief cures with another's languish.
Take thou some new infection to thine eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die."--_Romeo and Juliet._

=If the wind strike thee through a hole,
Go make thy will and mend thy soul.=

"A blast from a window is a shot from a crossbow" (Italian).[766] "To a bull and a draught of air give way" (Spanish).[767]

=One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two hours after it.=

Ladies rightly call sleep before midnight "beauty sleep."

=Old young, and old long.=[768]

You must leave off the irregularities of youth be-times if you wish to enjoy a long and hale old age; for

=Young men's knocks old men feel.=

"The sins of our youth we atone for in our old age" (Latin).[769]

=Rub your sore eye with your elbow.=

He who laid down this rule of sound surgery was a man _qui ne se mouchait pas du talon_; he did not blow his nose with his heel. If a speck of dust enters your eye, close the lid gently, keep your fingers away from it, and leave the foreign body to be washed by the tears to the inner corner of the eye, whence it may be removed without difficulty.

FOOTNOTES:

[754] Gli errori del medico gli copre la terra. Los yerros del médico la tierra los cubre.

[755] Sungrarle y purgarle; si se muriere, enterrarle.

[756] Le médecin est souvent plus à craindre que la maladie.

[757] Fuge medicos ac medicamenta, si vis esse salvus.

[758] Di rado il medico piglia medicina.

[759] Theure Arznei hilft immer, wenn nicht dem Kranken doch dem Apotheker.

[760] Dios es el que sana, y el medico lleva la plata.

[761] Si tienes medico amigo, quitale la gorra, y envialo á casa de tu enemigo.

[762] Krakende wagens duirren het langst.

[763] Les pots fêtés sont ceux qui durent le plus.

[764]

Du poil de la bête qui te mordit,
Ou de son sang, seras guéri.

[765] Il veleno si spegne col veleno.

[766] Aria di fenestra, colpodi balestra.

[767] Al toro y al aire darles calle.

[768] Mature fias senex, si diu velis esse senex.

[769] Quæ peccavimus juvenes, ea luimus senes.

CLERGY.

=It's kittle shooting at corbies and clergy.=--_Scotch._

Crows are very wary, and the clergy are vindictive; therefore it is ticklish work trying to get the better of either. "One must either not meddle with priests or else smite them dead," say the Germans;[770] and Huss, the Bohemian reformer, in denouncing the sins of the clergy in his day, has preserved for us a similar proverb of his countrymen: "If you have offended a clerk kill him, else you will never have peace with him."[771] "The bites of priests and wolves are hard to heal" (German).[772] "Priests and women never forget" (German).[773] "How dangerous it was," says Gross, "to injure the meanest retainer of a religious house is very ludicrously but justly expressed in the following old English adage, which I have somewhere met with:--

='Yf perchaunce one offend a freere's dogge, streight clameth the
whole brotherhood, An heresy! An heresy!'"=

There is an old German proverb to the same purpose, which Eiserlein heard once from the lips of an aged lay servitor of a monastery in the Black Forest: "Offend one monk, and the lappets of all cowls will flutter as far as Rome."[774]

=What was good the friar never loved.=

Popular opinion attributes to the clergy, both secular and regular, a lively regard for the good things of this life, and a determination to have their full share of them. "No priest ever died of hunger" is a remark made by the Livonians; and they add, "Give the priests all thou hast, and thou wilt have given them nearly enough." "A priest's pocket is hard to fill,"[775] at least in Denmark; and the Italians say, that "Priests, monks, nuns, and poultry never have enough."[776] "Abbot of Carzuela," cries the Spaniard, "you eat up the stew, and you ask for the stewpan."[777] The worst testimony against the monastic order comes from the countries in which they most abound: "Where friars swarm, keep your eyes open" (Spanish).[778] "Have neither a good monk for a friend, nor a bad one for an enemy" (Spanish).[779] "As for friars, live with them, eat with them, walk with them, and then sell them, for thus they do themselves" (Spanish).[780] The propensity of churchmen to identify their own personal interests with the welfare of the church are glanced at in the following:--"The monk that begs for God's sake begs for two" (Spanish, French).[781] "'Oh, what we must suffer for the church of God!' cried the abbot, when the roast fowl burned his fingers" (German).[782]

=There's no mischief done in the world but there's a woman or a priest
at the bottom of it.=

FOOTNOTES:

[770] Man muss mit Pfaffen nicht anfangen, oder sie todtschlagen.

[771] Malum proverbium contra nos confinxerunt, dicentes, "Si offenderis clericum, interfice eum; alias nunquam habebis pacem cum illo."

[772] Was Pfaffen beissen und Wölfe ist schwer zu heilen.

[773] Pfaffen und Weiber vergessen nie.

[774] Beleidigestu einen Münch, so knappe alle Kuttenzipfel bis nach Rom.

[775] Præstesæk er ond at fylde.

[776] Preti, frati, monache, e polli non si trovan mai satolli.

[777] Abad de Carçuela, comistes la olla, pedis la caçuela.

[778] Frailes sobrand', ojo alerte.

[779] Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo.

[780] Frailes, viver con ellos, y comer con ellos, y andar con ellos, y luego vender ellos, que asé hacen ellos.

[781] Fraile que pide por Dios, pide por dos. Moine qui demande pour Dieu, demande pour deux.

[782] O was müssen wir der Kirche Gottes halber leiden! rief der Abt, als ihm das gebratene Huhn die Finger versengt.

SEASONS. WEATHER.

=If the grass grow in Janiveer,
It grows the worse for it all the year.=

"When gnats dance in January the husbandman becomes a beggar" (Dutch).[783] An exception to these rules is recorded by Ray, who says that "in the year 1667 the winter was so mild that the pastures were very green in January; yet was there scarcely ever known a more plentiful crop of hay than the summer following."

=February fill dike, be it black or be it white.=

=All the months in the year curse a fair Februeer.=

=The hind had as lief see his wife on the bier
As that Candlemas day should be pleasant and clear.=

Candlemas day is the 2nd of February, when the Romish Church celebrates the purification of the Virgin Mary. On that day, also, the church candles are blessed for the whole year, and they are carried in procession in the hands of the faithful. Then the use of tapers at vespers and litanies, which prevails throughout the winter, ceases until the ensuing Allhallowmas: hence the proverb,--

=On Candlemas day
Throw candle and candlestick away.=

Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," says there is a general tradition in most parts of Europe that inferreth the coldness of the succeeding winter from the shining of the sun on Candlemas day, according to the proverbial distich:--

_Si sol splendescat Marin purificante,
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante._

"If Candlemas day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight;
If on Candlemas day there be shower and rain,
Winter is gone and will not come again."

Another version of this proverb current in the north of England is,--

"If Candlemas day be dry and fair,
The half of winter's to come and mair;
If Candlemas day be wet and foul [pronounce _fool_],
The half of winter's gone to Yule."

=March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.=

=March comes in with adder heads and goes out with peacock
tails.=--_Scotch._

=A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.=

=A dry March never begs its bread.=

=A peck of March dust and a shower in May=
=Make the corn green and the fields gay.=

=March winds and April showers=
=Bring forth May flowers.=

=March wind and May sun=
=Make clothes white and maids dun.=

=So many mists in March you see,=
=So many frosts in May will be.=

=March grass never did good.=

"When gnats dance in March it brings death to sheep" (Dutch).[784]

=When April blows his horn it's good both for hay and corn.=

"That is," says Ray, "when it thunders in April, for thunder is usually accompanied with rain."

=A cold April the barn will fill.=

=April and May are the keys of the year.=

=A May flood never did good.=

This applies to England. In Spain and Italy they say, "Water in May is bread for all the year."[785]

=To wed in May is to wed poverty.=

There were fewer marriages in Scotland in May, 1857, than in any other month of the year: it is an "unlucky month." The proverb is recorded by Washington Irving.

=A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,=
=A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon,=
=But a swarm in July is not worth a fly.=

=A shower in July, when the corn begins to fill,=
=Is worth a plough of oxen and all belongs theretill.=

=A dry summer never made a dear peck.=
=Drought never bred dearth in England.=

The same thing, and no more, is meant by the following enigmatical rhyme:--

"When the sand doth feed the clay,
England woe and well-a-day;
But when the clay doth feed the sand,
Then is it well with old England."

The first of these two contingencies occurs after a wet summer--the second after a dry one; and, as there is more clay than sand in England, there is a better harvest in the second case than in the first.

=Dry August and warm doth harvest no harm.=

They think differently on this point in the south of Europe. "A wet August never brings dearth" (Italian).[786] "When it rains in August it rains honey and wine" (Spanish).[787]

=September blow soft till the fruit's in the loft.
November take flail, let ships no more sail.=

=A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard.=

It is a popular notion that a mild winter is less healthy than a frosty one; but the Registrar-General's returns prove that it is quite the contrary. The mortality of the winter months is always in proportion to the intensity of the cold. The proverb, therefore, must be given up as a fallacy. There is some truth in this of the Germans, "A green Christmas, a white Easter." The probability is that a very mild winter will be followed by an inclement spring.

=A snow year, a rich year.=

=Under water, dearth; under snow, bread.=

=Winter's thunder and summer's flood=
=Never boded an Englishman good.=

FOOTNOTES:

[783] Als de muggen in Januar danssen, wordt de boer een bedelaar.

[784] Als de muggen in Maart danssen, dat doet het schaap den dood aan.

[785] Acqua di Maggio, pane per tutto l'anno.

[786] Agosto humido non mena mai carestia.

[787] Quando llueve en Agosto, llueve miel y mosto.

NATIONAL AND LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS. LOCAL ALLUSIONS.

=A right Englishman knows not when a thing is well.=

It would seem, too, that he does not know when a thing is ill; for the French say the English were beaten at Waterloo, but had not the wit to know it.

=A Scotsman is aye wise ahint the hand.=--_Scotch._

=A Scotsman aye taks his mark frae a mischief.=--_Scotch._

=Scotsmen reckon aye frae an ill hour.=--_Scotch._

That is, they always date from some untoward event. "A Scottish man," says James Kelly, "solicited the Prince of Orange to be made an ensign, for he had been a sergeant ever since his Highness ran away from Groll."

=The Englishman weeps, the Irishman sleeps, but the Scotsman gaes till
he gets it.=--_Scotch._

Such, according to Scotch report, is the conduct of the three when they want food.

=The Welshman keeps nothing till he has lost it.=--_Welsh._

=The older the Welshman, the more madman.=--_Welsh._

=As long as a Welsh pedigree.=

=The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.=--_Italian._[788]

This is the testimony of Italians. Of our country they say,--

=England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of purses, and the
hell of horses.=--_Italian._[789]

=War with all the world, and peace with England.=--_Spanish._[790]

=Beware of a white Spaniard and of a swarthy Englishman.=--_Dutch._[791]

Apparently because they are out of kind, and therefore presumed to be uncanny.

=He has more to do than the ovens of London at Christmas.=--_Italian._

=They agree like the clocks of London.=--_French_, _Italian_.

Which clocks disagree to this day. (See _Household Words_, No. 410.) "The city time measurers are so far behind each other that the last chime of eight has hardly fallen on the ear from the last church, when another sprightly clock is heard to begin the hour of nine. Each clock, however, governs, and is believed in by, its own immediate neighbourhood."

=Shake a bridle over a Yorkshireman's grave, and he will rise and
steal a horse.=

=He is Yorkshire.=

He is a keen blade. "He's of Spoleto" (_E Spoletino_), say the Italians.

=The devil will not come into Cornwall for fear of being put into a pie.=

Cornish housewives make pies of such unlikely materials as potatoes, pilchards, &c.

=By Tre, Pol, and Pen,=
=You shall know the Cornish men.=

Surnames beginning with these syllables--_e.g._, Trelawney, Polwhele, Penrose--are originally Cornish.

=A Scottish man and a Newcastle grindstone travel all the world
over.=

Newcastle grindstones were long reputed the best of their kind. Another version of the proverb associates them with rats and red herrings, things which are very widely diffused over the globe, but not more so than Scotchmen.

=Three great evils come out of the north--a cold wind, a cunning
knave, and a shrinking cloth.=

=He's an Aberdeen's man; he may take his word again.=--_Scotch._

=An Aberdeen's man ne'er stands to the word that hurts him.=--_Scotch._

The people of Normandy labour under the same imputation: "A Norman has his say and his unsay."[792] This proverb is said to have arisen out of the ancient custom of the province, according to which contracts did not become valid until twenty-four hours after they had been signed, and either party was at liberty to retract during that interval.

=Wise men of Gotham.=

Gotham is a village in Nottinghamshire, declared by universal consent, for reasons unknown, to be the head quarters of stupidity in this country, on whose inhabitants all sorts of ridiculous stories might be fathered. The convenience of having such a butt for sarcasm has been recognised by all nations. The ancient Greeks had their Bœotia, which was for them what Swabia is for the modern Germans. The Italians compare foolish people to those of Zago, "Who sowed needles that they might have a crop of crowbars, and dunged the steeple to make it grow."[793] The French say, "Ninety-nine sheep and a Champenese make a round hundred,"[794] the man being a stupid animal like the rest. The Abbé Tuet traces back the origin of this story to Cæsar's conquest of Gaul. Before that period the wealth of Champagne consisted in flocks of sheep, which paid a rate in kind to the public revenue. The conqueror, wishing to favour the staple of the province, exempted from taxation all flocks numbering less than a hundred head, and the consequence was that the Champenese always divided their sheep into flocks of ninety-nine. But Cæsar was soon even with them, for he ordered that in future the shepherd of every flock should be counted as a sheep, and pay as one.

=Tenterden steeple's the cause of the Goodwin Sands.=