Part 11

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._

FOOTNOTES:

[734] Das Amt lehrt den Mann.

[735] Wein Gott ein Amt giebt, dem giebt er auch Verstand.

[736] Celui gouverne bien mal le miel, qui n'en taste et ses doigts n'en lesche.

[737] Chi maneggia quel degli altri, non va a letto senza cena.

[738] Alle amten zijn smeerig.

[739] Hast du kein Geld? so wird ein Amtmann, sagte jeuer Hofnarr zu seinen Fürsten.

[740] Amt ohne Sold macht Diebe.

[741]

Buona via non può tenere Quel chi serve senz' avere.

[742] Il sangue dei soldati fa grande il capitano.

[743] Por falta de hombres buenos, á mi padre hicieron alcalde.

[744] Il vaut mieux avoir affaire à Dieu qu'à ses saints.

[745] Saints gélifs, saints vendangeurs.

LAW AND LAWYERS.

=Law-makers should not be law-breakers.=

Parliament has made it penal to pollute the air of towns with smoke, and the _Builder_ complains that more smoke issues from parliament's own chimneys than from any six factories in London.

=Abundance of law breaks no law.=

It is safer to exceed than to fall short of what the law requires.

=In a thousand pounds of law there is not an ounce of love.=

=A pennyweight of love is worth a pound weight of law.=

So much more cogent is the one than the other.

=Laws were made for rogues.=

"For the upright there are no laws" (German).[746] They are designed to control those to whom it may be said,--

=Ye wad do little for God if the deil were dead.=--_Scotch._

"The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip To keep the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honour grip, Let that be aye your border.

"Its slightest touches, instant pause, Debar a' side pretences, And resolutely keep its laws, Uncaring consequences."

=He that loves law will get his fill of it.=

=Agree, for the law is costly.=

=Law's costly; tak a pint and 'gree.=--_Scotch._

Lord Mansfield declared that if any man claimed a field from him he would give it up, provided the concession were kept secret, rather than engage in proceedings at law. Hesiod, in admonishing his brother always to prefer a friendly accommodation to a lawsuit, gave to the world the paradoxical proverb, "The half is more than the whole." Very often "A lean agreement is better than a fat lawsuit" (Italian).[747] "Lawyers' garments are lined with suitors' obstinacy" (Italian);[748] and "Their houses are built of fools' heads" (French).[749] Doctors and lawyers are notoriously shy of taking what they prescribe for others. "No good lawyer ever goes to law" (Italian).[750] Lord Chancellor Thurlow did so once, but in his case the exception approved the rule. A house had been built for him by contract, but he had made himself liable for more than the stipulated price by ordering some departures from the specification whilst the work was in progress. He refused to pay the additional charge; the builder brought an action and got a verdict against him, and surly Thurlow never afterwards set foot within the house which was the monument of his wrong-headedness and its chastisement.

=Refer my coat, and lose a sleeve.=--_Scotch._

Arbitrators generally make both parties abate something of their pretensions.

=Fair and softly, as lawyers go to heaven.=

The odds are great against their ever getting there, if it be true that "Unless hell is full never will a lawyer be saved" (French).[751] "The greater lawyer, the worse Christian" (Dutch).[752] "'Virtue in the middle,' said the devil as he sat between two attorneys" (Danish).[753]

FOOTNOTES:

[746] Für Gerechte giebt es keine Gesetze.

[747] E meglio un magro accordo che una grassa lite.

[748] Le vesti degli avvocati son fodrate dell' ostinazion dei litiganti.

[749] Les maisons des avocats sont faictes de la teste des folz.

[750] Nessun buon avvocato piatisce mai.

[751] Si enfer n'est plein, oncques n'y aura d'avocat sauvé.

[752] Hoe grooter jurist, hoe boozer Christ.

[753] Dyden i Midten, sagde Fanden, han sal imellem to Procuratoren.

PHYSIC. PHYSICIANS. MAXIMS RELATING TO HEALTH.

=If the doctor cures, the sun sees it; if he kills, the earth hides it.=

"The earth covers the mistakes of the physician" (Italian, Spanish).[754] "Bleed him and purge him; if he dies, bury him" (Spanish).[755] It is a melancholy truth that "The doctor is often more to be feared than the disease" (French).[756] "Throw physic to the dogs" is in effect the advice given by many eminent physicians, and by some of the greatest thinkers the world has seen. "Shun doctors and doctors' drugs if you wish to be well,"[757] was the seventh, last, and best rule of health laid down by the famous physician Hoffmann. Sir William Hamilton declared that "Medicine in the hands in which it is vulgarly dispensed is a curse to humanity rather than a blessing;" and Sir Astley Cooper did not scruple to avow that "The science of medicine was founded on conjecture and improved by murder." It is a remarkable fact that "The doctor seldom takes physic" (Italian).[758] He does not appear to have a very lively faith in his own art. As for his alleged cures, their reality does not pass unquestioned. It is true that "Dear physic always does good, if not to the patient, at least to the apothecary" (German);[759] but "It is God that cures, and the doctor gets the money" (Spanish).[760] Save your money, then, and "If you have a friend who is a doctor take off your hat to him, and send him to the house of your enemy" (Spanish).[761]

=The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman.=

=Every man at forty is either a fool or a physician.=

=A creaking gate hangs long on its hinges.=

Valetudinarians often outlive persons of robust constitution who take less care of themselves. A French saying to this purpose, which is too idiomatic to be translated, was neatly applied by Pozzo di Borgo in a conversation with Lady Holland. Her ladyship, exulting in the duration of the Whig government, notwithstanding the prevalent anticipations of their fall, said to him, "Vous voyez, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, que nous vivons toujours." "Oui, madame," he replied, "les petites santés durent quelquefois longtemps." "Creaking carts last longest" (Dutch).[762] "The flawed pots are the most lasting" (French).[763]

=A groaning wife and a grunting horse ne'er failed their master.=

=Seek your salve where ye got your sore.=--_Scotch._

=Take a hair of the dog that bit you.=

Advice given to persons suffering the after-pains of a carouse. The same stimulant which caused their nervous depression will also relieve it. The metaphor is derived from an old medical practice to which Seneca makes some allusion, and which is commended in a rhyming French adage to this effect, "With the hair of the beast that bit thee, or with its blood, thou wilt be cured."[764] Cervantes, in his tale of _La Gitanilla_, thus describes an old gipsy woman's manner of treating a person bitten by a dog:--"She took some of the dog's hairs, fried them in oil, and after washing with wine the two bites she found on the patients left leg, she put the hairs and the oil upon them, and over this dressing a little chewed green rosemary. She then bound the leg up carefully with clean bandages, made the sign of the cross over it, and said, 'Now go to sleep, friend, and with the help of God your hurts will not signify.'"

=One nail drives out another.=

This is the doctrine of homœopathy. "Poison quells poison" (Italian).[765]

"Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish. Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning: One desperate grief cures with another's languish. Take thou some new infection to thine eye, And the rank poison of the old will die."--_Romeo and Juliet._

=If the wind strike thee through a hole, Go make thy will and mend thy soul.=

"A blast from a window is a shot from a crossbow" (Italian).[766] "To a bull and a draught of air give way" (Spanish).[767]

=One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two hours after it.=

Ladies rightly call sleep before midnight "beauty sleep."

=Old young, and old long.=[768]

You must leave off the irregularities of youth be-times if you wish to enjoy a long and hale old age; for

=Young men's knocks old men feel.=

"The sins of our youth we atone for in our old age" (Latin).[769]

=Rub your sore eye with your elbow.=

He who laid down this rule of sound surgery was a man _qui ne se mouchait pas du talon_; he did not blow his nose with his heel. If a speck of dust enters your eye, close the lid gently, keep your fingers away from it, and leave the foreign body to be washed by the tears to the inner corner of the eye, whence it may be removed without difficulty.

FOOTNOTES:

[754] Gli errori del medico gli copre la terra. Los yerros del médico la tierra los cubre.

[755] Sungrarle y purgarle; si se muriere, enterrarle.

[756] Le médecin est souvent plus à craindre que la maladie.

[757] Fuge medicos ac medicamenta, si vis esse salvus.

[758] Di rado il medico piglia medicina.

[759] Theure Arznei hilft immer, wenn nicht dem Kranken doch dem Apotheker.

[760] Dios es el que sana, y el medico lleva la plata.

[761] Si tienes medico amigo, quitale la gorra, y envialo á casa de tu enemigo.

[762] Krakende wagens duirren het langst.

[763] Les pots fêtés sont ceux qui durent le plus.

[764]

Du poil de la bête qui te mordit, Ou de son sang, seras guéri.

[765] Il veleno si spegne col veleno.

[766] Aria di fenestra, colpodi balestra.

[767] Al toro y al aire darles calle.

[768] Mature fias senex, si diu velis esse senex.

[769] Quæ peccavimus juvenes, ea luimus senes.

CLERGY.

=It's kittle shooting at corbies and clergy.=--_Scotch._

Crows are very wary, and the clergy are vindictive; therefore it is ticklish work trying to get the better of either. "One must either not meddle with priests or else smite them dead," say the Germans;[770] and Huss, the Bohemian reformer, in denouncing the sins of the clergy in his day, has preserved for us a similar proverb of his countrymen: "If you have offended a clerk kill him, else you will never have peace with him."[771] "The bites of priests and wolves are hard to heal" (German).[772] "Priests and women never forget" (German).[773] "How dangerous it was," says Gross, "to injure the meanest retainer of a religious house is very ludicrously but justly expressed in the following old English adage, which I have somewhere met with:--

='Yf perchaunce one offend a freere's dogge, streight clameth the whole brotherhood, An heresy! An heresy!'"=

There is an old German proverb to the same purpose, which Eiserlein heard once from the lips of an aged lay servitor of a monastery in the Black Forest: "Offend one monk, and the lappets of all cowls will flutter as far as Rome."[774]

=What was good the friar never loved.=

Popular opinion attributes to the clergy, both secular and regular, a lively regard for the good things of this life, and a determination to have their full share of them. "No priest ever died of hunger" is a remark made by the Livonians; and they add, "Give the priests all thou hast, and thou wilt have given them nearly enough." "A priest's pocket is hard to fill,"[775] at least in Denmark; and the Italians say, that "Priests, monks, nuns, and poultry never have enough."[776] "Abbot of Carzuela," cries the Spaniard, "you eat up the stew, and you ask for the stewpan."[777] The worst testimony against the monastic order comes from the countries in which they most abound: "Where friars swarm, keep your eyes open" (Spanish).[778] "Have neither a good monk for a friend, nor a bad one for an enemy" (Spanish).[779] "As for friars, live with them, eat with them, walk with them, and then sell them, for thus they do themselves" (Spanish).[780] The propensity of churchmen to identify their own personal interests with the welfare of the church are glanced at in the following:--"The monk that begs for God's sake begs for two" (Spanish, French).[781] "'Oh, what we must suffer for the church of God!' cried the abbot, when the roast fowl burned his fingers" (German).[782]

=There's no mischief done in the world but there's a woman or a priest at the bottom of it.=

FOOTNOTES:

[770] Man muss mit Pfaffen nicht anfangen, oder sie todtschlagen.

[771] Malum proverbium contra nos confinxerunt, dicentes, "Si offenderis clericum, interfice eum; alias nunquam habebis pacem cum illo."

[772] Was Pfaffen beissen und Wölfe ist schwer zu heilen.

[773] Pfaffen und Weiber vergessen nie.

[774] Beleidigestu einen Münch, so knappe alle Kuttenzipfel bis nach Rom.

[775] Præstesæk er ond at fylde.

[776] Preti, frati, monache, e polli non si trovan mai satolli.

[777] Abad de Carçuela, comistes la olla, pedis la caçuela.

[778] Frailes sobrand', ojo alerte.

[779] Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo.

[780] Frailes, viver con ellos, y comer con ellos, y andar con ellos, y luego vender ellos, que asé hacen ellos.

[781] Fraile que pide por Dios, pide por dos. Moine qui demande pour Dieu, demande pour deux.

[782] O was müssen wir der Kirche Gottes halber leiden! rief der Abt, als ihm das gebratene Huhn die Finger versengt.

SEASONS. WEATHER.

=If the grass grow in Janiveer, It grows the worse for it all the year.=

"When gnats dance in January the husbandman becomes a beggar" (Dutch).[783] An exception to these rules is recorded by Ray, who says that "in the year 1667 the winter was so mild that the pastures were very green in January; yet was there scarcely ever known a more plentiful crop of hay than the summer following."

=February fill dike, be it black or be it white.=

=All the months in the year curse a fair Februeer.=

=The hind had as lief see his wife on the bier As that Candlemas day should be pleasant and clear.=

Candlemas day is the 2nd of February, when the Romish Church celebrates the purification of the Virgin Mary. On that day, also, the church candles are blessed for the whole year, and they are carried in procession in the hands of the faithful. Then the use of tapers at vespers and litanies, which prevails throughout the winter, ceases until the ensuing Allhallowmas: hence the proverb,--

=On Candlemas day Throw candle and candlestick away.=

Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," says there is a general tradition in most parts of Europe that inferreth the coldness of the succeeding winter from the shining of the sun on Candlemas day, according to the proverbial distich:--

_Si sol splendescat Marin purificante, Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante._

"If Candlemas day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight; If on Candlemas day there be shower and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again."

Another version of this proverb current in the north of England is,--

"If Candlemas day be dry and fair, The half of winter's to come and mair; If Candlemas day be wet and foul [pronounce _fool_], The half of winter's gone to Yule."

=March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.=

=March comes in with adder heads and goes out with peacock tails.=--_Scotch._

=A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.=

=A dry March never begs its bread.=

=A peck of March dust and a shower in May= =Make the corn green and the fields gay.=

=March winds and April showers= =Bring forth May flowers.=

=March wind and May sun= =Make clothes white and maids dun.=

=So many mists in March you see,= =So many frosts in May will be.=

=March grass never did good.=

"When gnats dance in March it brings death to sheep" (Dutch).[784]

=When April blows his horn it's good both for hay and corn.=

"That is," says Ray, "when it thunders in April, for thunder is usually accompanied with rain."

=A cold April the barn will fill.=

=April and May are the keys of the year.=

=A May flood never did good.=

This applies to England. In Spain and Italy they say, "Water in May is bread for all the year."[785]

=To wed in May is to wed poverty.=

There were fewer marriages in Scotland in May, 1857, than in any other month of the year: it is an "unlucky month." The proverb is recorded by Washington Irving.

=A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,= =A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon,= =But a swarm in July is not worth a fly.=

=A shower in July, when the corn begins to fill,= =Is worth a plough of oxen and all belongs theretill.=

=A dry summer never made a dear peck.= =Drought never bred dearth in England.=

The same thing, and no more, is meant by the following enigmatical rhyme:--

"When the sand doth feed the clay, England woe and well-a-day; But when the clay doth feed the sand, Then is it well with old England."

The first of these two contingencies occurs after a wet summer--the second after a dry one; and, as there is more clay than sand in England, there is a better harvest in the second case than in the first.

=Dry August and warm doth harvest no harm.=

They think differently on this point in the south of Europe. "A wet August never brings dearth" (Italian).[786] "When it rains in August it rains honey and wine" (Spanish).[787]

=September blow soft till the fruit's in the loft. November take flail, let ships no more sail.=

=A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard.=

It is a popular notion that a mild winter is less healthy than a frosty one; but the Registrar-General's returns prove that it is quite the contrary. The mortality of the winter months is always in proportion to the intensity of the cold. The proverb, therefore, must be given up as a fallacy. There is some truth in this of the Germans, "A green Christmas, a white Easter." The probability is that a very mild winter will be followed by an inclement spring.

=A snow year, a rich year.=

=Under water, dearth; under snow, bread.=

=Winter's thunder and summer's flood= =Never boded an Englishman good.=

FOOTNOTES:

[783] Als de muggen in Januar danssen, wordt de boer een bedelaar.

[784] Als de muggen in Maart danssen, dat doet het schaap den dood aan.

[785] Acqua di Maggio, pane per tutto l'anno.

[786] Agosto humido non mena mai carestia.

[787] Quando llueve en Agosto, llueve miel y mosto.

NATIONAL AND LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS. LOCAL ALLUSIONS.

=A right Englishman knows not when a thing is well.=

It would seem, too, that he does not know when a thing is ill; for the French say the English were beaten at Waterloo, but had not the wit to know it.

=A Scotsman is aye wise ahint the hand.=--_Scotch._

=A Scotsman aye taks his mark frae a mischief.=--_Scotch._

=Scotsmen reckon aye frae an ill hour.=--_Scotch._

That is, they always date from some untoward event. "A Scottish man," says James Kelly, "solicited the Prince of Orange to be made an ensign, for he had been a sergeant ever since his Highness ran away from Groll."

=The Englishman weeps, the Irishman sleeps, but the Scotsman gaes till he gets it.=--_Scotch._

Such, according to Scotch report, is the conduct of the three when they want food.

=The Welshman keeps nothing till he has lost it.=--_Welsh._

=The older the Welshman, the more madman.=--_Welsh._

=As long as a Welsh pedigree.=

=The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.=--_Italian._[788]

This is the testimony of Italians. Of our country they say,--

=England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of purses, and the hell of horses.=--_Italian._[789]

=War with all the world, and peace with England.=--_Spanish._[790]

=Beware of a white Spaniard and of a swarthy Englishman.=--_Dutch._[791]