In his collection of Scottish proverbs from literary texts
written before 1600 Bartlett Jere Whiting has laid a solid foundation
for the investigation of early Scottish proverbs and has
promised a survey of later collections. [1] The following
brief remarks are not intended to anticipate his survey but rather
to suggest the place of this particular collection in the historical
development and to point out the questions that it raises. Before
1600 men in Scotland had begun to make collections of proverbs. A
manuscript collection made by Archbishop James Beaton (1517-1603)
seems to have disappeared, but may survive in a form disguised
beyond all chance of recognition. Although editions of it published
in 1610, 1614, and "divers other Years" with "Mr. Fergusson's
Additions" have been reported, no copies of them have been found.
[2] "Mr. Fergusson" is no doubt David Fergusson (ca. 1525-1598),
whose _Scottish Proverbs_ was published at Edinburgh in 1641.
[3] This collection presumably includes the earlier gatherings
by Beaton and Fergusson, but is arranged in a rough alphabetical order
that makes it impossible to recognize its possible sources. According
to Beveridge, it contains 911 proverbs.[4] A new edition of
1659 and the subsequent editions down to and including that of 1716
announced themselves as _Nine hundred and fourty Scottish Proverbs_.
In the edition of 1667, according to Beveridge, "The proverbs are
numbered to 945; but no doubt there are omissions, as in ... 1692."
The edition of 1692 also runs to 945, "with 14 numbers omitted and
one number duplicated," making a total of 932, and in the edition of
1706 "a fifteenth number is omitted." [5] No information
about the editions of 1709 and 1716 is available. The edition of 1799
was reduced to 577 items.
Two manuscripts that were probably written in the first half of the
seventeenth century belong to the tradition represented by Fergusson's
collection but differ more or less widely from it in ways that
require further study. Beveridge, who prints one of these manuscripts
in its entirety, conjectures that it may "be a much extended version
founded upon a manuscript copy of [the edition of 1641], no doubt
made before the year 1598, when Fergusson's collection had presumably
been completed" (p. xvi). However this may be, it contains 1656
proverbs with repetitions and changes in alphabetization that make
it difficult to determine what has been added or perhaps omitted. In
preparing Beveridge's materials for publication, Bruce Dickins came
upon a second "roughly contemporary" manuscript containing an unspecified
number of proverbs (pp. 126-127). It contains some texts found in both
the first manuscript and the book of 1641 and some entirely new texts,
and agrees in one instance with the book against the manuscript and
in another with the manuscript against the book. Since only twelve
proverbs from this second manuscript are in print, any inferences about
relationships are risky.
The successful career of Fergusson's collection or the manuscripts
from which it was derived extended even farther than a share in the
collections already mentioned. In four collections which remain to
be discussed we can reckon with a close direct or indirect connection
with Fergusson's printed text. John Ray printed Fergusson's collection
in a partially anglicized form with minor changes and additions of
uncertain origin in _A Collection of English Proverbs_ (London,
1670). This book became, after several editions, the foundation of
the standard modern collections. Except for anglicization, "D" in Ray,
and Fergusson, 1641, agree exactly even to _tearm_ [term] in "Dead
and marriage make tearm-day." Variations not found in the edition of
1641 like _reply_ for _plie_ [plea] in "Na plie is best" and
_churn_ for _kirne_ in "Na man can seek his marrow in the kirne, sa weill
as hee that has been in it himself" suggest that Ray may have been
following a later edition than that of 1641. According to Beveridge
(p. xvi), Fergusson's collection also appears in _A Select Collection
of Scots Poems, Chiefly in the Broad Buchan Dialect_ (Edinburgh, 1777,
1785). The two editions are the same, except that that of 1777 has no
publisher's name and that of 1785 was issued by T. Ruddiman and Co. The
proverbs come at the end and are paged separately.
Finally, Fergusson's collection was the source of both this collection
bearing the mysterious name Pappity Stampoy and a derivative of it,
but again with some modifications. Since all the variations except
the Latin parallel texts that are, according to Beveridge (pp.
xxxvii-xxxix), characteristic of the edition of Fergusson published
in 1692 are present in Pappity Stampoy, these variations must have
been introduced into one or both of the editions of 1649 and 1659.
With such information as is at present available it is impossible to
determine whether Pappity Stampoy's rare additions were his own or
were also derived, as seems probable, from an edition of Fergusson.
Such proverbs as "Drunken wife gat ay the drunken penny" (Pappity Stampoy,
p. 17), "Eat and drink measurely, and defie the mediciners" (p. 18),
and "Put your hand into the creel, and you will get either an adder,
or an Eele" (p. 43) do not appear in the 1641 edition, but may be present
in a later one. In any event, _The Oxford Dictionary of English
Proverbs_ vouches for the currency of the last two proverbs in the
sixteenth century. Pappity Stampoy may have followed his source in
rejecting the "Proverbiale speeches" (Beveridge, pp. 46-50) or may
have discarded them on his own responsibility. As F. P. Wilson points
out, he showed ingenuity of a sort. "The thief jumbles the order of
the first 81 proverbs given in Fergusson under the letter A; then,
having put his reader off the scent, he gives the remaining proverbs
under this letter in Fergusson's order. Under another letter he may
give a run of proverbs in reverse order." [6]
Pappity Stampoy, who was scarcely an honorable man, soon got a Roland
for his Oliver. As Wilson says, the _Adagia Scotica or a Collection
of Scotch Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Collected by R. B. Very
Usefull and Delightfull_ (London: Nathaniel Brooke, 1668) "Turns
out to be a page-for-page reprint ... provided with a new title and
the initials of a new collector in order (is it unjust to say?) to
deceive customers."
Apart from its rarity, Pappity Stampoy's little book has both a curious
interest and a value of its own. Bibliographers have failed to decipher
the pseudonym, or to identify the printer. Some lucky chance may supply
the answers to these questions. The collection has some value to a
student of proverbs for a few scantily recorded texts that have
presumably been taken from the 1659 edition of Fergusson. Although they
do not appear in the old standard collections made by Bohn, Apperson,
and Hazlitt, Morris P. Tilley, who has used R. B.'s collection, has found
and pinned them down. More interesting and important than such details
about the recording of proverbs is the publication of Pappity Stampoy's
book in London. It is therefore an early instance of English interest in
Scottish proverbs. R. B.'s plagiarism of 1668 is in the same tradition,
and so also is John Bay's publication of Scottish proverbs in 1670. A
selection of 126 Scottish proverbs, which like the others appears to have
been derived from Fergusson, may be found in the anonymous _Select
Proverbs, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Scotish, British &c_.
(London, 1707), which is credited to John Mapletoft. It was reprinted
with a slight variation in title in 1710. F. P. Wilson notes an even better
example of English interest than these in "[James] Kelly's excellent
collection of 1721 [which] was published in London and was specially
designed for English readers."