456 



PiiovKitr.s 



negotiable at the butcher's an well aat tin- hakci'- ; 

 anil it i- in thin its numismatic ch.-uacier that the 

 Mac nee of the proverb lien. A w i-e nun's .-ay ing 

 may be ever so wise, pithy, mi.l |Miintc<l, but it 

 ii only hit saying, iiml nolxxly is bounil to take it 

 UN a Heltlrmrnt ill any ouestin. Tin' proverb, 

 on the other hand, has Ven mlii|itd tune out 



<>i iniiiil ami stamped liy coniiiini nscnt as tbe 



recognised expression iif public ojiinion. It !IIL 

 thus become by prescription a legal tender in con 

 troversy, while the other i- only the cheque of 

 :i presumably solvent capitalist. In thi- i.-pcct 

 proverlm and ballads are on precisely tin- same 

 tooting. They derive their autlioriiy t'lom |>pular 

 suffrage, and take their stand not ax the issue 

 <>l this or that man's brain, but ius the adopted 

 utterances of the jieople at large. Hut there is 

 this dill'erenee between tliein, that the ballad had 

 a maker, whoever lie may have lieen, but no man 

 ever yet made a proverb. He may have made the 

 original saying, but the forces that made it a 

 proverb were entiiely beyond hi- control. No man 

 i>y taking thought can add one proverb to bis 

 language any more than one cubit to his stature. 



It would lie a mistake, however, to fancy that 

 every proverb must have had its germ in some wise 

 or shrewd remark. Some are fable-- in little, or the 

 concentrated essence of fables ; and, as might be 

 expected, a large number of the proverlis of the 

 East, the birthplace of the fable, are of this sort. 

 Every oriental collection abounds in proverbs like 

 'The ant got wings to her destiuction,' ' They 

 came to shoe the Pasha's horses, and the beetle 

 held out his foot,' 'They asked the mule, "Who 

 is thy father?" "The horse," said he, "is my 

 maternal uncle."' liy purists, perhaps, these and 

 others of the same species, inctoding the familiar 

 'Pot and Kettle,' may lie denied a place among 

 the proverlie proper; but they fulfil all the func- 

 tions of the proverb, and they serve moreover to 

 how how near akin are these two venerable 

 vehicles of old -world wisdom, the fable and the 

 proverb. Nor is the proverb of necessity the u-it 

 of one. Sometimes it is the simplicity or naiveti 

 of one, and the wit lies in the application of it by 

 the many. The Viennese have a good specimen of 

 this kind. The late. Eui]>eror Ferdinand, driven 

 for shelter one day into a peasant's house, took a 

 fancy to some dumplings that had been just cooked 

 fortlie family supper. The court -physician, In-ing 

 responsible for the im|-rial digestion, remonstrated, 

 but his majesty's gracious answer was ' Kaiser bin 

 i', knodel muss i' hal>en ' ' Kmjieror I am, dump- 

 lings I'll have' which lieeame in course of time a 

 _ r nised comment in cases of pertinacity. Here 



we nave what is very rare, a proverb tra I to a 



definite source ; a few instances there are like 'A 

 bridge of silver for a Hying foe,' which was, ii is 

 said, a saving of the- Mo-eat Captain,' (ionsalvo 

 ile Cordova ; but as a rule the proverb is a scrap 

 of unfathered wit or wisdom that came into tin- 

 world nobody knows how. And here, too, we 

 have a proof that though many regard (be proverb 

 as a mere fossil, there is still vitality in it. No 

 doubt modem society has recourse to proverbs j tl 

 conversation much more sparingly than was usual 

 in the days of our forefathers, anil the reasons are 

 plain enough to see. To accept a proverb as an 

 answer implies deference to authority and is in 

 effect an acknowledgment of the wisdom of our 

 ancestors. There is necessarily an antagonism 

 between the proverb and individualism or sell 

 assertion or self-conceit, or whatever other name 

 we may choose to give it. The office of the proverb 

 is to hit the nail on the bead, to put the matter in 

 a nut-shell, to bring back discussion to the point at 

 issue, to check prolix argumentation. In all lan- 

 guages it condemns loquacity ami commends silence. 



It is in fact a piimilive form of closure.' If an 

 Arab 01 Peisiaii orator waxes fervid on the theme of 

 equality and lioinhatds his bearers with pompous 

 platitudes aliont Nature's, law, some graylieanl will 

 ask, ' Hath (!IM! made the live lingers of thy baud all 

 equal?' and .nilreiiliir risu tnlmlir. In tin- nature 

 of things, thelefole, it is impossible that the pio- 

 verb should be popular among tin- woi-hipper- of 

 lent speech. The Celtic races, it may U- ob- 

 served, never greatly favoured proveilis. |!ui for 

 all that proverlw are very far from living the dry 

 liones they are sometimes supposed to !-. If any 

 one took the trouble to registei carefully all the 



Inoveibs or references to proverbs that came under 

 iis notice in the course ot a day, making a note of 

 allusions in his newspaper, whether in lea. 



pallia ntary, law or |dice reports, letters Horn 



correspondent*, critiques, or pulling advntise- 

 merits ; jotting down those lie oveilicai- in the 

 railway carriage or tramcar, those dropped in busi- 

 ness conversation, in chat at the club, in table talk 

 at and after dinner ; and in fact from breakfast to 

 bedtime keeping his ears open for proverbs, he 

 would find probably that they cuter into our daily 

 speech to a much greater extent than he bad sus- 

 peeled. We are apt to use proverlw automatically. 

 So completely have they engrafted themselves that 

 we talk of gift horses, and half loaves, and a bird 

 in the band, and sauce for the goose mechanically 

 and without any thought of speaking proverbi- 

 ally. There is no family perhaps that lias not 

 proverlis or rudimentary proverbs of its own, 

 founded on some adventure or drollery or blun- 

 der of one of its members, and used proverbially 

 by all, often to the perplexity of the uninitiated 

 visitor; and what is true of the family is true 

 of the community on a more extensive scale. It 

 has its own current sayings, allusions, compari- 

 son-, similitudes, incomprehensible to the outsider, 

 but full of meaning to all who are to the manner 

 bom. Of these there will be now ami then one 

 more generally applicable and neiMiiiabli- t| l;l ii the 

 rest, with more of the true proverb metal and ring 

 in it, which in time will pass the bounds of the 

 community and become the property of the nation. 

 A man sees another bolting out of hi- bouse, and 

 a-ks what he has been about there. ' You 'II see 

 when the eggs come to lie fried. 'says the other, 

 making oil'; which i* explained when ii i- time to 

 fry the eggs and it is found out that tin- fry ing nan 

 has been stolen. It will be lirst a family joke; 

 then a parish joke; then a stock saving in the 

 market-place 'very good: time will tell; you'll 

 see when the egg- come to be fried : then a saying 

 in many marketplaces; and go at last a proverb. 

 This is the actual story of one enshrined in Don 

 Quixote AI frrir t/e lux luin;,x. 



As they pass from the family and the community to 



the nation, so they pass fr one nation to another. 



The purely national proverbs form only a portion 

 of the proverbs ill any language. It almost seems 

 a- I bough there had been from time immemorial a 

 kind of proverb exchange through which any ser- 

 viceable proverb in one language passed into any 

 other thai stood in need of it ; and this makes it a 

 matter of difficulty, or lather impossibility, to 

 settle the nationality of many of the best and most 

 familiar. We are not. bow ever, to jump at once 

 to the conclusion that proverbs which are identical 

 or nearly so must lie in every instance merely ver- 

 sion- or variants of one common original. To lake 



an extn-t -a-e. our old friend (he swallow that 



makes no summer is current now in sixty or seventy 

 versions, and was current more than 2000 years 

 ago, a date which allows ample time for it to have 

 penetrated into the remotest corners of Europe. 

 l!ut it does not by any means follow that none of 

 these came into existence independently. The 



