=The office shows the man.=
='Tis the place shows the man.=
It tries his capacity, and shows what stuff he is made of. But it also
forms the man; it teaches him (German)[734] if he has the faculty to
be taught, so that it may be said with some truth, "To whom God gives
an office he gives understanding also" (German).[735] "A great place
strangely qualifies," saith Selden. "John Read was groom of the chamber
to my lord of Kent. Attorney-General Roy being dead, some were saying,
how would the king do for a fit man? 'Why, any man,' says John Read,
'may execute the place.' 'I warrant,' says my lord, 'thou thinkest thou
understand'st enough to perform it.' 'Yes,' quoth John; 'let the king
make me attorney, and I would fain see that man that durst tell me
there's anything I understand not.'" The proverb at the head of this
paragraph is literally translated from a Greek maxim, attributed by
Sophocles to Solon, and to Bias by Aristotle.
=He is a poor cook that cannot lick his own fingers.=
And "He is a bad manager of honey" who does not help himself in
the same way (French).[736] The rule applies to all who have the
fingering of good things, whether in a public or a private capacity.
"He who manages other people's wealth does not go supperless to bed"
(Italian).[737] "All offices are greasy" (Dutch).[738] Something
sticks to them. Wheels are greased to make them run smoothly, and in
some countries it is found that what the Dutch call smear money may be
applied to official palms with advantage to the operator. The French
call this _Graisser la patte à quelqu'un_. "'Hast thou no money? then
turn placeman,' said the court fool to his sovereign'" (German).[739]
King James, we are told by L'Estrange, was once complaining of the
leanness of his hunting horse. Archie, his fool, standing by, said
to him, "If that be all, take no care; I'll teach your Majesty a way
to raise his flesh presently; and if he be not as fat as ever he can
wallow, you shall ride me." "I prithee, fool, how?" said the king.
"Why, do but make him a bishop, and I'll warrant you," says Archie.
A good deal of surreptitious finger-licking and fattening would be
prevented if this truth were clearly understood, that "Office without
pay [or with inadequate pay] makes thieves" (German).[740] "He cannot
keep a good course who serves without reward" (Italian).[741]
=A man gets little thanks for losing his own.=
An excuse for taking the perquisites of office, however extortionate
they may be.
=It is the clerk that makes the justice.=
The magistrate would often be wrong in his law if he were not kept
right by the clerk. "The blood of the soldier makes the captain great"
(Italian).[742]
=For faut o' wise men fules sit on binks [benches].=--_Scotch._
"For want of good men they made my father alcalde" (Spanish).[743] We
do not always see the right man in the right place.
=Never deal with the man when you can deal with the master.=
"It is better to have to do with God than with his saints"[744] is a
French proverb, which Voltaire has fitted with a droll story. A king
of Spain, he tells us, had promised to bestow relief upon the people
of the country round Burgos, who had been ruined by war. They flocked
to the palace, but the doorkeepers would not let them in except on
condition of having part of what they should get. Having consented to
this, the countrymen entered the royal hall, where their leader knelt
at the monarch's feet and said, "I beseech your Royal Highness to
command that every man of us here shall receive a hundred lashes." "An
odd petition truly!" said the king. "Why do you ask for such a thing?"
"Because," said the peasant, "your people insist on having the half of
whatever you give us."
M. Quitard believes that the saints referred to in the French proverb
are the "frost" or "vintage saints,"[745] so called because their
festivals, which occur in April, are noted in the popular calendar
as days on which frost is injurious to the young green crops and to
vines. The husbandmen, whose fields and vineyards were injured by the
inclemency of the weather, used to hold these saints responsible for
the damage they ought to have prevented, and the reproaches addressed
to them might very naturally take the form perpetuated in the proverb.
This is the more probable as it is recorded in the ecclesiastical
annals of Cahors and Rhodez that the angry agriculturists were in
the habit of flogging the images of the frost saints, defacing
their pictures, and otherwise maltreating them. Rabelais asserts,
with mock gravity, that, in order to put an end to these scandalous
irregularities, a bishop of Auxerre proposed to transfer the festivals
of the frost saints to the dog days, and make the month of August
change place with April.
=A king's cheese goes half away in parings.=
His revenues are half eaten up before they enter his coffers. Before
Sully took the French finances in hand such was the system of plunder
established by the farmers of the revenue, that the state realised
only one-fifth of the gross amount of taxes imposed on the subjects;
the other four-fifths were consumed by the financiers. Under such a
wasteful system as this, or one in any degree like it, one might well
say that
=Kings' chaff is worth other men's corn.=
The perquisites belonging to the king's service are better than the
wages earned elsewhere.
=The clerk wishes the priest to have a fat dish.=--_Gaelic._