In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long
disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness
which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found
the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material
itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among
those modern inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put
together with unseasoned wood, are apt to warp and fly into pieces when
brought into use. We have found how strength consists in the selection
of materials, and that, whenever the substitute is not better than the
original, we are losing something in that test of experience, which all
things derive from duration.
Be this as it may! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our
novelties to retrograde into massive greatness, although I cannot avoid
reminding them how often they revive the forgotten things of past times!
It is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our
ancestors! In the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of
antique furniture which I collect, not merely for their antiquity, but
for the sound condition in which I still find them, and the compactness
which they still show. Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity! and
the utility and delightfulness which they still afford make them look as
fresh and as ingenious as any of our patent inventions.
By the title of the present article the reader has anticipated the
nature of the old furniture to which I allude. I propose to give what,
in the style of our times, may be called the Philosophy of Proverbs--a
topic which seems virgin. The art of reading proverbs has not, indeed,
always been acquired even by some of their admirers; but my
observations, like their subject, must be versatile and unconnected; and
I must bespeak indulgence for an attempt to illustrate a very curious
branch of literature, rather not understood than quite forgotten.
Proverbs have long been in disuse. "A man of fashion," observes Lord
Chesterfield, "never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms;"
and, since the time his lordship so solemnly interdicted their use, they
appear to have withered away under the ban of his anathema. His lordship
was little conversant with the history of proverbs, and would
unquestionably have smiled on those "men of fashion" of another stamp,
who, in the days of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, were great collectors
of them; would appeal to them in their conversations, and enforce them
in their learned or their statesmanlike correspondence. Few, perhaps,
even now, suspect that these neglected fragments of wisdom, which exist
among all nations, still offer many interesting objects for the studies
of the philosopher and the historian; and for men of the world still
open an extensive school of human life and manners.
The home-spun adages, and the rusty "sayed-saws," which remain in the
mouths of the people, are adapted to their capacities and their humours.
Easily remembered, and readily applied, these are the philosophy of the
vulgar, and often more sound than that of their masters! whoever would
learn what the people think, and how they feel, must not reject even
these as insignificant. The proverbs of the street and of the market,
true to nature, and lasting only because they are true, are records that
the populace at Athens and at Rome were the same people as at Paris and
at London, and as they had before been in the city of Jerusalem!
Proverbs existed before books. The Spaniards date the origin of their
_refranes que dicen las viejas tras el fuego_, "sayings of old wives by
their firesides," before the existence of any writings in their
language, from the circumstance that these are in the old romance or
rudest vulgar idiom. The most ancient poem in the Edda, "the sublime
speech of Odin," abounds with ancient proverbs, strikingly descriptive
of the ancient Scandinavians. Undoubtedly proverbs in the earliest ages
long served as the unwritten language of morality, and even of the
useful arts; like the oral traditions of the Jews, they floated down
from age to age on the lips of successive generations. The name of the
first sage who sanctioned the saying would in time be forgotten, while
the opinion, the metaphor, or the expression, remained, consecrated into
a proverb! Such was the origin of those memorable sentences by which men
learnt to think and to speak appositely; they were precepts which no man
could contradict, at a time when authority was valued more than opinion,
and experience preferred to novelty. The proverbs of a father became the
inheritance of a son; the mistress of a family perpetuated hers through
her household; the workman condensed some traditional secret of his
craft into a proverbial expression. When countries are not yet populous,
and property has not yet produced great inequalities in its ranks, every
day will show them how "the drunkard and the glutton come to poverty,
and drowsiness clothes a man with rags." At such a period he who gave
counsel gave wealth.
It might therefore have been decided, _a priori_, that the most homely
proverbs would abound in the most ancient writers--and such we find in
Hesiod; a poet whose learning was not drawn from books. It could only
have been in the agricultural state that this venerable bard could have
indicated a state of repose by this rustic proverb:--
[Greek: Pedalion men uper kapnou katadeio]
Hang your plough-beam o'er the hearth!
The envy of rival workmen is as justly described by a reference to the
humble manufacturers of earthenware as by the elevated jealousies of the
literati and the artists of a more polished age. The famous proverbial
verse in Hesiod's Works and Days--
[Greek: Kai kerameus keramei koteei],
is literally, "The potter is hostile to the potter!"
The admonition of the poet to his brother, to prefer a friendly
accommodation to a litigious lawsuit, has fixed a paradoxical proverb
often applied,--
[Greek: Pleon emisu pantos],
The half is better than the whole!
In the progress of time, the stock of popular proverbs received
accessions from the highest sources of human intelligence; as the
philosophers of antiquity formed their collections, they increased in
"weight and number." Erasmus has pointed out some of these sources, in
the responses of oracles; the allegorical symbols of Pythagoras; the
verses of the poets; allusions to historical incidents; mythology and
apologue; and other recondite origins. Such dissimilar matters, coming
from all quarters, were melted down into this vast body of aphoristic
knowledge. Those "WORDS OF THE WISE and their DARK SAYINGS," as they are
distinguished in that large collection which bears the name of the great
Hebrew monarch, at length seem to have required commentaries; for what
else can we infer of the enigmatic wisdom of the sages, when the royal
paroemiographer classes among their studies, that of "_understanding a
proverb and the interpretation_?" This elevated notion of "the dark
sayings of the wise" accords with the bold conjecture of their origin
which the Stagyrite has thrown out, who considered them as the wrecks of
an ancient philosophy which had been lost to mankind by the fatal
revolutions of all human things, and that those had been saved from the
general ruin by their pithy elegance and their diminutive form; like
those marine shells found on the tops of mountains, the relics of the
Deluge! Even at a later period, the sage of Cheronea prized them among
the most solemn mysteries; and Plutarch has described them in a manner
which proverbs may even still merit: "Under the veil of these curious
sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy
have afterwards developed into so many volumes."
At the highest period of Grecian genius, the tragic and the comic poets
introduced into their dramas the proverbial style. St. Paul quotes a
line which still remains among the first exercises of our school-pens:--
Evil communications corrupt good manners.
It is a verse found in a fragment of Menander the comic poet:
[Greek: Phtheirousin hethe chresth' homiliai kakai].
As this verse is a proverb, and the apostle, and indeed the highest
authority, Jesus himself, consecrates the use of proverbs by their
occasional application, it is uncertain whether St. Paul quotes the
Grecian poet, or only repeats some popular adage. Proverbs were bright
shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers; and when Bentley, by a league of
superficial wits, was accused of pedantry for his use of some ancient
proverbs, the sturdy critic vindicated his taste by showing that Cicero
constantly introduced Greek proverbs into his writings,--that Scaliger
and Erasmus loved them, and had formed collections drawn from the stores
of antiquity.
Some difficulty has occurred in the definition. Proverbs must be
distinguished from proverbial phrases, and from sententious maxims; but
as proverbs have many faces, from their miscellaneous nature, the class
itself scarcely admits of any definition. When Johnson defined a proverb
to be "a short sentence frequently repeated by the people," this
definition would not include the most curious ones, which have not
always circulated among the populace, nor even belong to them; nor does
it designate the vital qualities of a proverb. The pithy quaintness of
old Howell has admirably described the ingredients of an exquisite
proverb to be _sense, shortness, and salt_. A proverb is distinguished
from a maxim or an apophthegm by that brevity which condenses a thought
or a metaphor, where one thing is said and another is to be applied.
This often produces wit, and that quick pungency which excites surprise,
but strikes with conviction; this gives it an epigrammatic turn. George
Herbert entitled the small collection which he formed "Jacula
Prudentium," Darts or Javelins! something hurled and striking deeply; a
characteristic of a proverb which possibly Herbert may have borrowed
from a remarkable passage in Plato's dialogue of "Protagoras or the
Sophists."
The influence of proverbs over the minds and conversations of a whole
people is strikingly illustrated by this philosopher's explanation of
the term _to laconise_,--the mode of speech peculiar to the
Lacedaemonians. This people affected to appear _unlearned_, and seemed
only emulous to excel the rest of the Greeks in fortitude and in
military skill. According to Plato's notion, this was really a political
artifice, with a view to conceal their pre-eminent wisdom. With the
jealousy of a petty state, they attempted to confine their renowned
sagacity within themselves, and under their military to hide their
contemplative character! The philosopher assures those who in other
cities imagined they _laconised_, merely by imitating the severe
exercises and the other warlike manners of the Lacedaemonians, that they
were grossly deceived; and thus curiously describes the sort of wisdom
which this singular people practised.
"If any one wish to converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he
will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in
conversation; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself,
this same mean person, like a _skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence_,
worthy of attention, _short and contorted_; so that he who converses
with him will appear to be in no respect superior to a boy! That _to
laconise_, therefore, consists much more in philosophising than in the
love of exercise, is understood by some of the present age, and was
known to the ancients, they being persuaded that the ability of
_uttering such sentences_ as these is the province of a man perfectly
learned. The seven sages were emulators, lovers, and disciples of the
_Lacedaemonian erudition_. Their wisdom was a thing of this kind, viz.
_short sentences uttered by each, and worthy to be remembered_. These
men, assembling together, consecrated to Apollo the first fruits of
their wisdom; writing in the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi, those
sentences which are celebrated by all men, viz. _Know thyself!_ and
_Nothing too much!_ But on what account do I mention these things? To
show that _the mode of philosophy among the ancients was a certain
laconic diction_."[29]
The "laconisms" of the Lacedaemonians evidently partook of the proverbial
style: they were, no doubt, often proverbs themselves. The very
instances which Plato supplies of this "laconising" are two most
venerable proverbs.
All this elevates the science of PROVERBS, and indicates that these
abridgments of knowledge convey great results, with a parsimony of words
prodigal of sense. They have, therefore, preserved many "a short
sentence, NOT repeated by the people."
It is evident, however, that the earliest writings of every people are
marked by their most homely, or domestic proverbs; for these were more
directly addressed to their wants. Franklin, who may be considered as
the founder of a people who were suddenly placed in a stage of civil
society which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the
philosophical cast of his genius, when he filled his almanacs with
proverbs, by the ingenious contrivance of framing them into a connected
discourse, delivered by an old man attending an auction. "These
proverbs," he tells us, "which contained the wisdom of many ages and
nations, when their scattered counsels were brought together, made a
great impression. They were reprinted in Britain, in a large sheet of
paper, and stuck up in houses: and were twice translated in France, and
distributed among their poor parishioners." The same occurrence had
happened with us ere we became a reading people. Sir Thomas Elyot, in
the reign of Henry the Eighth, describing the ornaments of a nobleman's
house, among his hangings, and plate, and pictures, notices the
engraving of proverbs "on his plate and vessels, which served the guests
with a most opportune counsel and comments." Later even than the reign
of Elizabeth our ancestors had proverbs always before them, on
everything that had room for a piece of advice on it; they had them
painted in their tapestries, stamped on the most ordinary utensils, on
the blades of their knives,[30] the borders of their plates,[31] and
"conned them out of goldsmiths' rings."[32] The usurer, in Robert
Greene's "Groat's worth of Wit," compressed all his philosophy into the
circle of his ring, having learned sufficient Latin to understand the
proverbial motto of "Tu tibi cura!" The husband was reminded of his
lordly authority when he only looked into his trencher, one of its
learned aphorisms having descended to us,--
The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives.
The English proverbs of the populace, most of which are still in
circulation, were collected by old John Heywood.[33] They are arranged by
Tusser for "the parlour--the guest's chamber--the hall--table-lessons,"
&c. Not a small portion of our ancient proverbs were adapted to rural
life, when our ancestors lived more than ourselves amidst the works of
God, and less among those of men.[34] At this time, one of our old
statesmen, in commending the art of compressing a tedious discourse into
a few significant phrases, suggested the use of proverbs in diplomatic
intercourse, convinced of the great benefit which would result to the
negotiators themselves, as well as to others! I give a literary curiosity
of this kind. A member of the House of Commons, in the reign of
Elizabeth, made a speech entirely composed of the most homely proverbs.
The subject was a bill against double payments of book-debts. Knavish
tradesmen were then in the habit of swelling out their book-debts with
those who took credit, particularly to their younger customers. One of
the members who began to speak "for very fear shook," and stood silent.
The nervous orator was followed by a blunt and true representative of the
famed governor of Barataria, delivering himself thus--"It is now my
chance to speak something, and that without humming or hawing. I think
this law is a good law. Even reckoning makes long friends. As far goes
the penny as the penny's master. _Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura
subveniunt._ Pay the reckoning overnight and ye shall not be troubled in
the morning. If ready money be _mensura publica_, let every one cut his
coat according to his cloth. When his old suit is in the wane, let him
stay till that his money bring a new suit in the increase."[35]
Another instance of the use of proverbs among our statesmen occurs in a
manuscript letter of Sir Dudley Carlton, written in 1632, on the
impeachment of Lord Middlesex, who, he says, is "this day to plead his
own cause in the Exchequer-chamber, about an account of four-score
thousand pounds laid to his charge. How his lordship sped I know not,
but do remember well the French proverb, _Qui mange de l'oy du Roy
chiera une plume quarante ans apres_. 'Who eats of the king's goose,
will void a feather forty years after!'"
This was the era of proverbs with us; for then they were _spoken_ by all
ranks of society. The free use of trivial proverbs got them into
disrepute; and as the abuse of a thing raises a just opposition to its
practice, a slender wit affecting "a cross humour," published a little
volume of "Crossing of Proverbs, Cross-answers, and Cross-humours." He
pretends to contradict the most popular ones; but he has not always the
genius to strike at amusing paradoxes.[36]
Proverbs were long the favourites of our neighbours; in the splendid and
refined court of Louis the Fourteenth they gave rise to an odd
invention. They plotted comedies and even fantastical ballets from their
subjects. In these Curiosities of Literature I cannot pass by such
eccentric inventions unnoticed.
A COMEDY _of proverbs_ is described by the Duke de la Valliere, which
was performed in 1634 with prodigious success. He considers that this
comedy ought to be ranked among farces; but it is gay, well-written, and
curious for containing the best proverbs, which are happily introduced
in the dialogue.
A more extraordinary attempt was a BALLET _of proverbs_. Before the
opera was established in France, the ancient ballets formed the chief
amusement of the court, and Louis the Fourteenth himself joined with the
performers. The singular attempt of forming a pantomimical dance out of
proverbs is quite French; we have a "ballet des proverbes, danse par le
Roi, in 1654." At every proverb the scene changed, and adapted itself to
the subject. I shall give two or three of the _entrees_ that we may form
some notion of these _capriccios_.