Corzxso.—-On a better Knowledge of the Maori Race. 109 
(as in the case of the New Zealanders) the nation has no literature, or, 
rather, no written records and books. It has been deliberately affirmed by 
a learned modern writer well acquainted with his subject, that there are 
20,000 proverbs among the nations of Europe alone. Many of these have 
been handed down from ancient times ; not a few from the Greeks, who also 
borrowed largely from the Eastern nations. Such proverbs were long con- 
fined to oral tradition (just like these of the New Zealanders) ; for, as it has 
been truly observed, ** Proverbs were before books." The most ancient, as 
well as the most refined and civilized of nations, have ever used them, and 
that effectively. We find them pervading all classes of literature—religious, 
moral, scientific, historical, domestic, social, and humorous; we find them 
made use of in the Old Testament from before the beginning of the Hebrew 
nation; we find their wisest king (with his wise men) compiling a book of 
Proverbs; we find the Great Teacher himself several times using them in his 
discourses, and after him Paul and Peter—as is recorded in the New 
Testament—borrowing them, too, from an alien people. And, in more 
modern times, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Swift, Walter Scott, and other 
British standard writers, have also used them to great advantage. We all 
know what was Lord Chesterfield's opinion concerning them, viz., ** Never 
to be used by a man of taste or fashion ;" and possibly that statement may 
have served to drive them out of polite conversation—in England, at least ; 
but such was not the Court belief in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and 
Charles. The Chinese, the Japanese, and the Hindoos abound in many 
wise and pithy sayings. The Italians and the Spaniards are still greatly 
addicted to the use of proverbs, especially the latter; witness Cervantes, 
the writer of ‘‘ Don Quixote.” How, indeed, could the famous Governor of 
Barataria have possibly succeeded without them? Proverbs of all nations 
in common use are not only ‘‘ the philosophy of the vulgar," but they con- 
tain fragments of wisdom, they are true to nature, and are suited to the 
people in general by whom they are used. They reveal to us their ancient 
ways of thinking, and consequently their manner of acting. I have little 
doubt that not a few of the mottoes of our old nobility may be well 
accounted for in this manner—something of note in act or word that 
originated with, or in the times of, the founder. 
To the ancient New Zealanders, however, the great value of their pro- 
verbs and proverbial sayings appeared in their oratory, of which they were 
passionately fond, and in which they excelled. At such times (as I myself 
have heard them with delight some 40—45 years ago !) their orators, by some 
well-chosen, some fitting proverb, carried everything before them, winning 
over their attentive auditory as if they were but one man! In which, no 
