Perhaps the following extract from a volume entitled _The Relics of
Literature_, published by Boys and Co., Ludgate Hill, 1820, may prove
interesting, as further illustrating the so frequently disputed passage
which forms the subject matter of your first article in No. 12.:--
"Few popular quotations have more engaged the pens of critics
than the following:--
'For he that fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.'
"These lines are almost universally supposed to form a part of
_Hudibras_; and, so confident have even scholars been on the
subject, that in 1784 a wager was made at Bootle's, of twenty to
one, that they were to be found in that inimitable poem. Dodsley
was referred to as the arbitrator, when he ridiculed the idea of
consulting him on the subject, saying, 'Every fool knows they
are in _Hudibras_.' George Selwyn, who was present, said to
Dodsley, 'Pray, sir, will you be good enough, then, to inform an
old fool, who is at the same time your wise worship's very
humble servant, in what canto they are to be found?' Dodsley
took down the volume, but he could not find the passage; the
next day came, with no better success; and the sage bibliopole
was obliged to confess, 'that a man might be ignorant of the
author of this well-known couplet without being absolutely a
fool.'"
I have also the following memorandum in a common-place book of mine, but
I do not remember from what source I transcribed it many years past:--
"The couplet, thus erroneously ascribed to the author of
_Hudibras_, occurs in a small volume of Miscellaneous Poems, by
Sir John Mennis, written in the reign of Charles the Second,
which has now become extremely scarce. The original of the
couplet may, however, be traced to much higher authority, even
to Demosthenes, who has the following expression:-- {211}
'[Greek: Anaer ho pheugon kai palin machaesetai]',
of which the lines are almost a literal translation."
While on the subject of quotations, let me ask whether any of your
correspondents can tell me where the passage, "Providence tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb," is to be found?
Among a few of the many floating quotable passages universally known,
without any trace of the authors, among general readers and writers, are
the following:--
"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
DRYDEN's _Conquest of Grenada_.
"And whistled as he went for want of thought."
DRYDEN's _Cymon and Iphigenia_.
"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
DRYDEN's _Absalom and Achitophel_, st. i. I. 163.
"The tenth transmitter of a foolish face."