330 PROVERBS. 



their immense popularity at the, time, were not, with one exception, reproduced 

 by the printers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They are, however, 

 original proverbs, which owe nothing to the writers of Greece or of Rome, and 

 which bear the Gallic stamp of our ancestors. The oldest of these collections 

 is entitled, " Vulgar and Moral Proverbs." It is satisfactory to find that 

 the six hundred proverbs which an unknown hand put together five or six 

 centuries ago still display, notwithstanding the change which has taken place 

 in manners, ideas, and even in language, a clear and plain text which, with 

 the exception of a few differences in spelling, might be understood by the 

 general body of modern readers. Some of these proverbs are : " Mieux vaut 

 un tien que deux tu 1'auras " (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush) ; 

 " Ki donne tost il donne deux fois " (Bis dat, qui cito dat) ; " Ki plus a plus 

 convoite " (The more one has the more one wants) ; " Qui petit a petit perd " 

 (He who possesses little can lose little) ; " II fait mal esveiller le chien qui 

 dort " (It is well to let a sleeping dog lie) ; " On oblie plus tost le mal que le 

 bien " (An evil action is remembered longer than a good one). 



The second selection, which must have been contemporary with the above, 

 seems to have contained more homely proverbs, expressed in blunter terms. 

 This piece, entitled " Proverbes aux Vilains," is divided into unequal stanzas 

 of six, eight, or nine lines of rhyme, and some stanzas comprise several pro- 

 verbs, others only one. This collection forms a pell-mell of old saws which 

 the people were very fond of repeating, and which enlivened them amidst 

 their sorrows and labours. In order fully to understand the meaning of these 

 proverbs, the tone of which is a mixture of grave and gay, it is necessary 

 first to understand the proper meaning of the word villein, which was, as a 

 rule, taken in bad part, as synonymous with coward, poltroon, full of envy, 

 do-nothing, &c. The villein was the man of the people in the worst acceptation 

 of the term, as the subjoined proverb will show : 



" Oignez villain, il vous poindra. 

 Poignez villain, il vous oindra . . . 

 Villain affame demy enrage . . . 

 Villain enrichy ne connoist pas d'amis." 



The third collection does not date so far back as the two previous ones, 

 though it consists of ancient proverbs in prose, with the title, " Common 

 Proverbs," of which there are about seven hundred and fifty, arranged in 



