Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 — The Philosophy of Proverbs, part 2

The poets have been very busy with proverbs in all the languages of Europe: some appear to have been the favourite lines of some ancient poem: even in more refined times, many of the pointed verses of Boileau and Pope have become proverbial.

Many trivial and laconic proverbs bear the jingle of alliteration or rhyme, which assisted their circulation, and were probably struck off extempore; a manner which Swift practised, who was a ready coiner of such rhyming and ludicrous proverbs: delighting to startle a collector by his facetious or sarcastic humour, in the shape of an "old saying and true."

Some of these rhyming proverbs are, however, terse and elegant: we have Little strokes Fell great oaks.

The Italian-- _Chi duo lepri caccia Uno perde, e l'altro lascia.

_ Who hunts two hares, loses one and leaves the other.

The haughty Spaniard-- _El dar es honor, Y el pedir dolor.

_ To give is honour, to ask is grief.

And the French-- _Ami de table Est variable.

_ The friend of the table Is very variable.

The composers of these short proverbs were a numerous race of poets, who, probably, among the dreams of their immortality never suspected that they were to descend to posterity, themselves and their works unknown, while their extempore thoughts would be repeated by their own nation.

Proverbs were at length consigned to the people, when books were addressed to scholars; but the people did not find themselves so destitute of practical wisdom, by preserving their national proverbs, as some of those closet students who had ceased to repeat them.

The various humours of mankind, in the mutability of human affairs, had given birth to every species; and men were wise, or merry, or satirical, and mourned or rejoiced in proverbs.

Nations held an universal intercourse of proverbs, from the eastern to the western world; for we discover among those which appear strictly national, many which are common to them all.

Of our own familiar ones several may be tracked among the snows of the Latins and the Greeks, and have sometimes been drawn from "The Mines of the East:" like decayed families which remain in obscurity, they may boast of a high lineal descent whenever they recover their lost title-deeds.

The vulgar proverb, "To carry coals to Newcastle," local and idiomatic as it appears, however, has been borrowed and applied by ourselves; it may be found among the Persians: in the "Bustan" of Sadi we have _Infers piper in Hindostan_; "To carry pepper to Hindostan;"

among the Hebrews, "To carry oil to the City of Olives;" a similar proverb occurs in Greek; and in Galland's "Maxims of the East" we may discover how many of the most common proverbs among us, as well as some of Joe Miller's jests, are of oriental origin.

The resemblance of certain proverbs in different nations, must, however, be often ascribed to the identity of human nature; similar situations and similar objects have unquestionably made men think and act and express themselves alike.

All nations are parallels of each other!

Hence all paroemiographers, or collectors of proverbs, complain of the difficulty of separating their own national proverbs from those which have crept into the language from others, particularly when nations have held much intercourse together.

We have a copious collection of Scottish proverbs by Kelly, but this learned man was mortified at discovering that many which he had long believed to have been genuine Scottish, were not only English, but French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek ones;

many of his Scottish proverbs are almost literally expressed among the fragments of remote antiquity.

It would have surprised him further had he been aware that his Greek originals were themselves but copies, and might have been found in D'Herbelot, Erpenius, and Golius, and in many Asiatic works, which have been more recently introduced to the enlarged knowledge of the European student, who formerly found his most extended researches limited by Hellenistic lore.

Perhaps it was owing to an accidental circumstance that the proverbs of the European nations have been preserved in the permanent form of volumes.

Erasmus is usually considered as the first modern collector, but he appears to have been preceded by Polydore Vergil, who bitterly reproaches Erasmus with envy and plagiarism, for passing by his collection without even a poor compliment for the inventor!

Polydore was a vain, superficial writer, who prided himself in leading the way on more topics than the present.

Erasmus, with his usual pleasantry, provokingly excuses himself, by acknowledging that he had forgotten his friend's book!

Few sympathise with the quarrels of authors; and since Erasmus has written a far better book than Polydore Vergil's, the original "_Adagia_" is left only to be commemorated in literary history as one of its curiosities.

[39] The "Adagia" of Erasmus contains a collection of about five thousand proverbs, gradually gathered from a constant study of the ancients.

Erasmus, blest with the genius which could enliven a folio, delighted himself and all Europe by the continued accessions he made to a volume which even now may be the companion of literary men for a winter day's fireside.

The successful example of Erasmus commanded the imitation of the learned in Europe, and drew their attention to their own national proverbs.

Some of the most learned men, and some not sufficiently so, were now occupied in this new study.

In Spain, Fernandez Nunes, a Greek professor, and the Marquis of Santellana, a grandee, published collections of their _Refranes_, or Proverbs, a term derived A REFERENDO, because it is often repeated.

The "Refranes o Proverbios Castellanos," par Caesar Oudin, 1624, translated into French, is a valuable compilation.

In Cervantes and Quevedo, the best practical illustrators, they are sown with no sparing hand.

There is an ample collection of Italian proverbs, by Florio, who was an Englishman, of Italian origin, and who published "Il Giardino di Ricreatione" at London, so early as in 1591, exceeding six thousand proverbs; but they are unexplained, and are often obscure.

Another Italian in England, Torriano, in 1649, published an interesting collection in the diminutive form of a twenty-fours.

It was subsequent to these publications in England, that in Italy, Angelus Monozini, in 1604, published his collection; and Julius Varini, in 1642, produced his _Scuola del Vulgo_.

In France, Oudin, after others had preceded him, published a collection of French proverbs, under the title of _Curiosites Francoises_.

Fleury de Bellingen's _Explication de Proverbes Francois_, on comparing it with _Les Illustres Proverbes Historiques_, a subsequent publication, I discovered to be the same work.

It is the first attempt to render the study of proverbs somewhat amusing.

The plan consists of a dialogue between a philosopher and a Sancho Panca, who blurts out his proverbs with more delight than understanding.

The philosopher takes that opportunity of explaining them by the events in which they originated, which, however, are not always to be depended on.

A work of high merit on French proverbs is the unfinished one of the Abbe Tuet, sensible and learned.

A collection of Danish proverbs, accompanied by a French translation, was printed at Copenhagen, in a quarto volume, 1761. England may boast of no inferior paroemiographers.

The grave and judicious Camden, the religious Herbert, the entertaining Howell, the facetious Fuller, and the laborious Ray, with others, have preserved our national sayings.

The Scottish have been largely collected and explained by the learned Kelly.

An excellent anonymous collection, not uncommon, in various languages, 1707; the collector and translator was Dr. J.

Mapletoft.

It must be acknowledged, that although no nation exceeds our own in sterling sense, we rarely rival the delicacy, the wit, and the felicity of expression of the Spanish and the Italian, and the poignancy of some of the French proverbs.

The interest we may derive from the study of proverbs is not confined to their universal truths, nor to their poignant pleasantry; a philosophical mind will discover in proverbs a great variety of the most curious knowledge.

The manners of a people are painted after life in their domestic proverbs; and it would not be advancing too much to assert, that the genius of the age might be often detected in its prevalent ones.

The learned Selden tells us, that the proverbs of several nations were much studied by Bishop Andrews: the reason assigned was, because "by them he knew the minds of several nations, which," said he, "is a brave thing, as we count him wise who knows the minds and the insides of men, which is done by knowing what is habitual to them."

Lord Bacon condensed a wide circuit of philosophical thought, when he observed that "the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs."

Proverbs peculiarly national, while they convey to us the modes of thinking, will consequently indicate the modes of acting among a people.

The Romans had a proverbial expression for their last stake in play, _Rem ad triarios venisse_, "the reserve are engaged!"

a proverbial expression, from which the military habits of the people might be inferred; the _triarii_ being their reserve.

A proverb has preserved a curious custom of ancient coxcombry, which originally came from the Greeks.

To men of effeminate manners in their dress, they applied the proverb of _Unico digitulo scalpit caput_.

Scratching the head with a single finger was, it seems, done by the critically nice youths in Rome, that they might not discompose the economy of their hair.

The Arab, whose unsettled existence makes him miserable and interested, says, "Vinegar given is better than honey bought."

Everything of high esteem with him who is so often parched in the desert is described as _milk_--"How large his flow of milk!"

is a proverbial expression with the Arab to distinguish the most copious eloquence.

To express a state of perfect repose, the Arabian proverb is, "I throw the rein over my back;" an allusion to the loosening of the cords of the camels, which are thrown over their backs when they are sent to pasture.

We discover the rustic manners of our ancient Britons in the Cambrian proverbs; many relate to the _hedge_.

"The cleanly Briton is seen in the _hedge_: the horse looks not on the _hedge_ but the corn: the bad husband's _hedge_ is full of gaps."

The state of an agricultural people appears in such proverbs as "You must not count your yearlings till May-day:" and their proverbial sentence for old age is, "An old man's end is to keep sheep?"

Turn from the vagrant Arab and the agricultural Briton to a nation existing in a high state of artificial civilization: the Chinese proverbs frequently allude to magnificent buildings.

Affecting a more solemn exterior than all other nations, a favourite proverb with them is, "A grave and majestic outside is, as it were, the _palace_ of the soul."

Their notion of a government is quite architectural.

They say, "A sovereign may be compared to a _hall_; his officers to the steps that lead to it; the people to the ground on which they stand."

What should we think of a people who had a proverb, that "He who gives blows is a master, he who gives none is a dog?"

We should instantly decide on the mean and servile spirit of those who could repeat it; and such we find to have been that of the Bengalese, to whom the degrading proverb belongs, derived from the treatment they were used to receive from their Mogul rulers, who answered the claims of their creditors by a vigorous application of the whip!

In some of the Hebrew proverbs we are struck by the frequent allusions of that fugitive people to their own history.

The cruel oppression exercised by the ruling power, and the confidence in their hope of change in the day of retribution, was delivered in this Hebrew proverb--"When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes!"

The fond idolatry of their devotion to their ceremonial law, and to everything connected with their sublime Theocracy, in their magnificent Temple, is finely expressed by this proverb--"None ever took a stone out of the Temple, but the dust did fly into his eyes."

The Hebrew proverb that "A fast for a dream, is as fire for stubble," which it kindles, could only have been invented by a people whose superstitions attached a holy mystery to fasts and dreams.

They imagined that a religious fast was propitious to a religious dream; or to obtain the interpretation of one which had troubled their imagination.

Peyssonel, who long resided among the Turks, observes that their proverbs are full of sense, ingenuity, and elegance, the surest test of the intellectual abilities of any nation.

He said this to correct the volatile opinion of De Tott, who, to convey an idea of their stupid pride, quotes one of their favourite adages, of which the truth and candour are admirable; "Riches in the Indies, wit in Europe, and pomp among the Ottomans."

The Spaniards may appeal to their proverbs to show that they were a high-minded and independent race.

A Whiggish jealousy of the monarchical power stamped itself on this ancient one, _Va el rey hasta do peude, y no hasta do quiere_: "The king goes as far as he is able, not as far as he desires."

It must have been at a later period, when the national genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his own roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, _Con el rey y la inquisicion, chiton!

_ "With the king and the Inquisition, hush!"

The gravity and taciturnity of the nation have been ascribed to the effects of this proverb.

Their popular but suppressed feelings on taxation, and on a variety of dues exacted by their clergy, were murmured in proverbs--_Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco!

_ "What Christ takes not, the exchequer carries away!"

They have a number of sarcastic proverbs on the tenacious gripe of the "abad avariento," the avaricious priest, who, "having eaten the olio offered, claims the dish!"

A

striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic decency, and epicurean comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb, _La muger y la salsa a la mano de la lanca_: "The wife and the sauce by the hand of the lance;" to honour the dame, and to have the sauce near.

The Italian proverbs have taken a tinge from their deep and politic genius, and their wisdom seems wholly concentrated in their personal interests.

I think every tenth proverb, in an Italian collection, is some cynical or some selfish maxim: a book of the world for worldlings!

The Venetian proverb, _Pria Veneziana, poi Christiane_: "First Venetian, and then Christian!"

condenses the whole spirit of their ancient Republic into the smallest space possible.

Their political proverbs no doubt arose from the extraordinary state of a people sometimes distracted among republics, and sometimes servile in petty courts.

The Italian says, _I popoli s'ammazzano, ed i principi s'abbracciano_: "The people murder one another, and princes embrace one another."

_Chi prattica co' grandi, l'ultimo a tavola, e'l primo a strapazzi_: "Who dangles after the great is the last at table, and the first at blows."

_Chi non sa adulare, non sa regnare_: "Who knows not to flatter, knows not to reign."

_Chi serve in corte muore sul' pagliato_: "Who serves at court, dies on straw."

Wary cunning in domestic life is perpetually impressed.

An Italian proverb, which is immortalised in our language, for it enters into the history of Milton, was that by which the elegant Wotton counselled the young poetic traveller to have--_Il viso sciolto, ed i pensieri stretti_, "An open countenance, but close thoughts."

In the same spirit, _Chi parla semina, chi tace raccoglie_: "The talker sows, the silent reaps;" as well as, _Fatti di miele, e ti mangieran le mosche_: "Make yourself all honey, and the flies will devour you."

There are some which display a deep knowledge of human nature: _A Lucca ti vidi, a Pisa ti connobbi!

_ "I saw you at Lucca, I knew you at Pisa!"

_Guardati d'aceto di vin dolce_: "Beware of vinegar made of sweet wine;"

provoke not the rage of a patient man!

Among a people who had often witnessed their fine country devastated by petty warfare, their notion of the military character was not usually heroic.

_Il soldato per far male e ben pagato_: "The soldier is well paid for doing mischief."

_Soldato, acqua, e fuoco, presto si fan luoco_: "A soldier, fire, and water soon make room for themselves."

But in a poetical people, endowed with great sensibility, their proverbs would sometimes be tender and fanciful.

They paint the activity of friendship, _Chi ha l'amor nel petto, ha lo sprone a i fianchi_: "Who feels love in the breast, feels a spur in his limbs:" or its generous passion, _Gli amici legono la borsa con un filo di ragnatelo_: "Friends tie their purse with a cobweb's thread."

They characterised the universal lover by an elegant proverb--_Appicare il Maio ad ogn' uscio_: "To hang every door with May;" alluding to the bough which in the nights of May the country people are accustomed to plant before the door of their mistress.

If we turn to the French, we discover that the military genius of France dictated the proverb _Maille a maille se fait le haubergeon_: "Link by link is made the coat of mail;" and, _Tel coup de langue est pire qu'un coup de lance_; "The tongue strikes deeper than the lance;" and _Ce qui vient du tambour s'en retourne a la flute_;

"What comes by the tabor goes back with the pipe."

_Point d'argent point de Suisse_ has become proverbial, observes an Edinburgh Reviewer; a striking expression, which, while French or Austrian gold predominated, was justly used to characterise the illiberal and selfish policy of the cantonal and federal governments of Switzerland, when it began to degenerate from its moral patriotism.

The ancient, perhaps the extinct, spirit of Englishmen was once expressed by our proverb, "Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion;" _i.

e. _, the first of the yeomanry rather than the last of the gentry.

A foreign philosopher might have discovered our own ancient skill in archery among our proverbs; for none but true toxophilites could have had such a proverb as, "I will either make a shaft or a bolt of it!"

signifying, says the author of _Ivanhoe_, a determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken of: the bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that of the long-bow was called a shaft.

These instances sufficiently demonstrate that the characteristic circumstances and feelings of a people are discovered in their popular notions, and stamped on their familiar proverbs.

It is also evident that the peculiar, and often idiomatic, humour of a people is best preserved in their proverbs.

There is a shrewdness, although deficient in delicacy, in the Scottish proverbs; they are idiomatic, facetious, and strike home.

Kelly, who has collected three thousand, informs us, that, in 1725, the Scotch were a great proverbial nation; for that few among the better sort will converse any considerable time, but will confirm every assertion and observation with a Scottish proverb.

The speculative Scotch of our own times have probably degenerated in prudential lore, and deem themselves much wiser than their proverbs.

They may reply by a Scotch proverb on proverbs, made by a great man in Scotland, who, having given a splendid entertainment, was harshly told, that "Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them;" but he readily answered, "Wise men make proverbs, and fools repeat them!"

National humour, frequently local and idiomatical, depends on the artificial habits of mankind, so opposite to each other; but there is a natural vein, which the populace, always true to nature, preserve, even among the gravest people.

The Arabian proverb, "The barber learns his art on the orphan's face;" the Chinese, "In a field of melons do not pull up your shoe; under a plum-tree do not adjust your cap;"--to impress caution in our conduct under circumstances of suspicion;--and the Hebrew one, "He that hath had one of his family hanged may not say to his neighbour, _hang_ up this fish!"

are all instances of this sort of humour.

The Spaniards are a grave people, but no nation has equalled them in their peculiar humour.

The genius of Cervantes partook largely of that of his country; that mantle of gravity, which almost conceals its latent facetiousness, and with which he has imbued his style and manner with such untranslatable idiomatic raciness, may be traced to the proverbial erudition of his nation.

"To steal a sheep, and give away the trotters for God's sake!"

is Cervantic nature!

To one who is seeking an opportunity to quarrel with another, their proverb runs, _Si quieres dar palos a sur muger pidele al sol a bever_, "Hast thou a mind to quarrel with thy wife, bid her bring water to thee in the sunshine!"

--a very fair quarrel may be picked up about the motes in the clearest water!

On the judges in Gallicia, who, like our former justices of peace, "for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," _A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos_: "To the judges of Gallicia go with feet in hand;" a droll allusion to a present of poultry, usually held by the legs.

To describe persons who live high without visible means, _Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de donde los vienen?

_ "They that sell kids, and have no goats, how came they by them?"

_El vino no trae bragas_, "Wine wears no breeches;" for men in wine expose their most secret thoughts.

_Vino di un oreja_, "Wine of one ear!"

is good wine; for at bad, shaking our heads, both our ears are visible; but at good the Spaniard, by a natural gesticulation lowering on one side, shows a single ear.

Proverbs abounding in sarcastic humour, and found among every people, are those which are pointed at rival countries.

Among ourselves, hardly has a county escaped from some popular quip; even neighbouring towns have their sarcasms, usually pickled in some unlucky rhyme.

The egotism of man eagerly seizes on whatever serves to depreciate or to ridicule his neighbour: nations proverb each other; counties flout counties;

obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves--the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt.

They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred.

In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, _Mieux vaut bon repas que bel habit_; "Better a good dinner than a fine coat."

These good people are great gormandizers, but shabby dressers; they are commonly said to have "bowels of silk and velvet;" this is, all their silk and velvet goes for their bowels!

Thus Picardy is famous for "hot heads;" and the Norman for _son dit et son dedit_, "his saying and his unsaying!"

In Italy the numerous rival cities pelt one another with proverbs: _Chi ha a fare con Tosco non convien esser losco_, "He who deals with a Tuscan must not have his eyes shut."

_A Venetia chi vi nasce mal vi si pasce_, "Whom Venice breeds, she poorly feeds."

There is another source of national characteristics, frequently producing strange or whimsical combinations; a people, from a very natural circumstance, have drawn their proverbs from local objects, or from allusions to peculiar customs.

The influence of manners and customs over the ideas and language of a people would form a subject of extensive and curious research.

There is a Japanese proverb, that "A fog cannot be dispelled with a fan!"

Had we not known the origin of this proverb, it would be evident that it could only have occurred to a people who had constantly before them fogs and fans; and the fact appears that fogs are frequent on the coast of Japan, and that from the age of five years both sexes of the Japanese carry fans.

The Spaniards have an odd proverb to describe those who tease and vex a person before they do him the very benefit which they are about to confer--acting kindly, but speaking roughly; _Mostrar primero la horca que le lugar_, "To show the gallows before they show the town;" a circumstance alluding to their small towns, which have a gallows placed on an eminence, so that the gallows breaks on the eye of the traveller before he gets a view of the town itself.

The Cheshire proverb on marriage, "Better wed over the mixon than over the moor," that is, at home or in its vicinity; mixon alludes to the dung, &c. , in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is over the moorland in Staffordshire: this local proverb is a curious instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of that county to form intermarriages; to prolong their own ancient families, and perpetuate ancient friendships between them.

In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indicates the object constantly occupying the minds of the inhabitants.

The two Deemsters or judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will render justice between man and man "as equally as the herring bone lies between the two sides:" an image which could not have occurred to any people unaccustomed to the herring-fishery.

There is a Cornish proverb, "Those who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock"--the strands of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not fail to impress on the imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects from whence they drew this salutary proverb against obstinate wrongheads.

When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which affected both nations: If Skiddaw hath a cap, Scruffel wots full well of that.

These are two high hills, one in Scotland and one in England; so near, that what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other.

If a fog lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other; the mutual sympathies of the two countries were hence deduced in a copious dissertation, by Oswald Dyke, on what was called "The Union-proverb," which _local proverbs_ of our country Fuller has interspersed in his "Worthies," and Ray and Grose have collected separately.

I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in an opposition paper, where it appears that "Ministers pretend to make their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering the pressure, without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the Italian proverb, _Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada_, 'To fit the load on the journey:'" it is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers, who, placing their packages at first but awkwardly on the backs of their poor beasts, and seeing them ready to sink, cry out, "Never mind!

we must fit them better on the road!"

I was gratified to discover, by the present and some other modern instances, that the taste for proverbs was reviving, and that we were returning to those sober times, when the aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to the verbosity of politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals!