426 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[24 S. No 22., May 31. °56. 
All the likeness affirmed would be lost by the 
substitution of wrack, a heap of solid materials: 
the double purpose required, and justly required, 
by Mr. Hickson would not be fulfilled ; — that 
valued contributor to “ N. & Q.” (who has so in- 
considerately stigmatised the authority of Tooke’s 
“admirable observations,” as no better than a 
showy authority,) is so unversed in the empty re- 
sults, which are usually all we gain from the dispu- 
tations of verbal criticism, as to imagine it to be 
in his power “to settle (the question) at once and 
for ever.” 
This is amusing enough’; and I more than sus- 
pect that the philosophic grammarian of Wimble- 
don was too “old a soldier” to indulge in so vain 
a fancy. Neither do I, —though I think I have 
brought the whole question more fully before the 
readers of “N. & Q.” than it has hitherto ap- 
peared in the pages of that “ curious miscellany.” 
I subjoin a few lines quoted by Mr. Singer 
(previously by Steevens), from the Darius of 
Lord Sterline (1603), containing “evidence of 
the same train of thought with Shakespeare,” and 
which, I submit, plead strongly against himself: 
“ Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, 
With furniture superfluously fair, 
Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls, 
Evanish like the vapours of the air.” 
Talso subjoin two examples of the use of the 
verb “to rack or reek,” from Mr. Nares’s Glossary, 
strangely misunderstood by him : 
“ The rivers in their shores do run, 
The clouds rack clear before the sun, 
The rudest winds obey the calmest air.” 
B. Jonson. Underwoods. Yo Hierome. 
Lord Weston. 
“ Cup. Stay, clouds, ye rack too fast; bright Phoebus 
see.” — Beaumont § Fletcher (our Plays in One), p. 642. 
I will not prolong this article by quoting in- 
stances of the use of the word rack, as that which 
is reeked. The reader can consult the common 
books referred to by Mr. Singer, Tooke’s Diver- 
sions of Purley, and the Dictionaries of Richard- 
son and Jamieson. ¢ Q; 
Bloomsbury. 
A SHEAF OF PROVERBS. 
I do not send the following as unregistered 
proverbs: they are, many of them, well known ones. 
My object in taking note of them is twofold, first, 
for the variations many of them present; secondly, 
to assist in tracing their origin. W. Denton. 
“(Q4 Pandarus.) Thou hast a full great care 
Lest the chorle may fall out of the moone.” 
Chaucer, Ist Book of Troilus. 
anything remarkable in the rack, what more likely than 
an exclamation, “ What a rack?” 
“ He may say with our parish priest, 
Do as I say, but not as I do.” 
Ib. Prologue to Remedy of Love. 
“ While men gon after a leche the body is buried.” — 
Ib. Testament of Love, book iii, = 
“Habit maketh no monke, ne wearing of guilt spurs 
maketh no knight.’’* — Zod. ib., book ii. 
“ Stedfast way maketh stedfast heart.” — Ib. ib., 
book ii. § 5. 
“To eke an old proverb, ‘ He that is still, seemeth as 
he graunted,’ ” 7. e. silence gives consent. — Ib. ib., book i. 
“ For an old proverbe it is ledged, ‘he that heweth to 
hie, with chips he may lose his sight.’ ” — Zo. ib. 
“Tf thou dread such janglers thy voyage to make; 
ee well, that he that dreadeth any raine to sow 
cornes he shall have thin bernes; also he that is 
afearde of his clothes let him daunce naked: who no- 
thing undertaketh nothing atcheveth: after great stormes 
the weather is often merry and smooth: after much 
clattering, there is mokell rowning: thus after jangling 
wordes cometh huisht peace and be still.” — Ld. ab. 
“ When bale is greatest, then is bote a nie bore.” — 
Ib, book ii. 
“ Eke wonder last but ix deies never in town.”—Troilus, 
book iv. 
“He that prayeth for other for himself travayleth.” — 
Ib. Testament of Love, book: iii. 
“ He counted not three strees 
Of nought that fortune coude do.” 
The Dream of Chaucer. 
“Three may keep a counsel if twain be away.” — The 
Ten Commandments of Love. 
“ As digne as water in a diche.” — Reve’s Tale in init. 
So 
“ Dygne as dich-water.” — P, Ploughman’s Creed, 747. 
© Dead as a dore-tree.” — Jb, Vision, 833. 
“ Naked as a needle.” — Jb. ib., 11. 482. 
“Friends fail fleers.”— Sir Thos. More’s Lng. Works, 
p- 55. 
“ As full of reason as an egge full of mustarde.” — 76. 
p. 582. 
“ Pride, as the proverb is, must needs have a shame,”— 
Ib. 256. 
“He should as he list be able to prove the moon made 
of greene cheese.” — Ib. 256, 
* “He is not gentill though he rich seme; 
All weare he mitre, crowne, or diademe.” 
Henry Scogan. 
“What veray nobilitie is, and whereof it toke first that 
denomination. Rar old ih 
“We have in this realme coynes whiche be called 
nobles; as longe as they bee sene to be golde, they be so 
called: but if they be counterfayted, and made in brasse, 
copper, or other vyle mettall, who for the print only calleth 
theim nobles? Whereby it appereth, that the estimation 
is the mettall, and not in the printe or fygure. epbad 
“«. . . . ThusI conclude, that nobylitie is not after 
the vulgare opynyon of menne, but is onely the prayse 
and surname of vertue,”— Sir Thomas Elyot, The Gou- 
vernor, book ii. ¢. 4. 
“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp ; 
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.” 
Burns. 
