Part 2

The mixon is the heap of manure in the farmyard. The proverb means that it is better not to go far from home in search of a wife--advice as old as the Greek poet Hesiod, who has a line to this effect: "Marry, in preference to all other women, one who dwells near thee." But a more specific meaning has been assigned to the English proverb by Fuller, and after him by Ray and Disraeli. They explain it as being a maxim peculiar to Cheshire, and intended to dissuade candidates for matrimony from taking the road to London, which lies over the moorland of Staffordshire. "This local proverb," says Disraeli, "is a curious instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of that county to form intermarriages, to prolong their own ancient families and perpetuate ancient friendships between them." This is a mistake, for the proverb is not peculiar to Cheshire, or to any part of England. Scotland has it in this shape:--

=Better woo o'er midden nor o'er moss.=

And in Germany they give the same advice, and also assign a reason for it, saying, "Marry over the mixon, and you will know who and what she is."[76] The same principle is expressed in different forms in other languages, _e.g._, "Your wife and your nag get from a neighbour" (Italian).[77] "He that goes far to marry goes to be deceived or to deceive" (Spanish).[78] The politic Lord Burleigh seems to have regarded this "going far to deceive" as a very proper thing to be done for the advancement of a man's fortune. In his "Advice to his Son" he says, "If thy estate be good, match near home and at leisure; if weak, far off and quickly." There is an ugly cunning in that word _quickly_. Burleigh's advice is quite in the spirit of the French fortune hunter's adage, "In marriage cheat who can."[79]

=He that loseth his wife and sixpence hath lost a tester.=

"He that loseth his wife and a farthing hath a great loss of his farthing" (Italian).[80] In Italy also, and in Portugal, it is said that "Grief for a dead wife lasts to the door;"[81] and even in Provence, the land of the troubadours, they have a rhyme to this effect:--

"Two good days for a man in this life: When he weds and when he buries his wife."[82]

Nor do the wives of Provence appear to be delighted with their conjugal lot. Having lost their youthful plumpness through the cares and toils of wedlock, they oddly declare that "If a stockfish became a widow it would fatten."[83] A Spanish woman's opinion of matrimony is thus expressed: "'Mother, what sort of a thing is marriage?' 'Daughter, it is spinning, bearing children, and weeping.'"[84]

=Better a tocher [dower] in her than wi' her.=--_Scotch._

=A man's best fortune or his worst is his wife.=

"The day you marry you kill or cure yourself" (Spanish).[85] "Use great prudence and circumspection," says Lord Burleigh to his son, "in choosing thy wife, for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once."

=The gude or ill hap o' a gude or ill life Is the gude or ill choice o' a gude or ill wife.=--_Scotch._

There is a Spanish rhyme much to the same effect:--

"Him that has a good wife no evil in life that may not be borne, can befall. Him that has a bad wife no good thing in life can chance to, that good you may call."[86]

=Put your hand in the creel, and take out either an adder or an eel.=

That's matrimony. "In buying horses and taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to God" (Italian).[87] "Marriages are not as they are made, but as they turn out" (Italian).[88]

=There's but ae gude wife in the country, and ilka man thinks he's got her.=--_Scotch._

It is a pleasant delusion while it lasts, and it is not incurable. Instances of complete recovery from it are not rare.

=A man may woo where he will, but must wed where he's weird.=--_Scotch._

That is, where he is fated to wed. This is exactly equivalent to the English saying,--

=Marriages are made in heaven=,

the meaning of which Dean Trench appears to me to mistake, when he speaks with admiration of its "religious depth and beauty." I cannot find in it a shadow of religious sentiment. It simply implies that it is not forethought, inclination, or mutual fitness that has the largest share in bringing man and wife together. More efficient than all these is the force of circumstances, or what people vaguely call chance, fate, fortune, and so forth. In the French version of the adage, "Marriages are _written_ in heaven,"[89] we find the special formula of Oriental fatalism; and fatalism is everywhere the popular creed respecting marriage. Hence, as Shakspeare says,--

"The ancient saying is no heresy-- Hanging and wiving go by destiny."

"But now consider the old proverbs to be true y saieth: that marriage is destinie."--_Hall's Chronicles._

=If marriages be made in heaven some had few friends there.=--_Scotch._

=Ne'er seek a wife till ye hae a house and a fire burning.=--_Scotch._

=More belongs to a bed than four bare legs.=

=Marriage is honourable, but housekeeping is a shrew.=

=Sweetheart and honey-bird keeps no house.=

"Marry, marry, and what about the housekeeping?" (Portuguese).[90] "Remember," said a French lady to her son, who was about to make an imprudent match, "remember that in wedded life there is only one thing which continues every day the same, and that is the necessity of making the pot boil." "He that marries for love has good nights and bad days" (French).[91] "Before you marry have where to tarry," (Italian);[92] and remember that

=A wee house has a wide throat.=

It costs something to support a family, however small; and "It is easier to build two hearths than always to have a fire on one" (German).[93]

='Tis hard to wive and thrive both in a year.=

=Who weds ere he be wise shall die ere he thrive.=

=Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing.=

This is so far true as it discommends long engagements.

='Tis time to yoke when the cart comes to the capples [i.e., horses].=--_Cheshire._

That is, it is time to marry when the woman wooes the man. This provincial word "capple" is Irish also, and is allied to, but not derived from, the Latin _caballus_. It is probably one of the few words of the ancient Celtic tongue of Britain which were adopted into the language of the Saxon conquerors.

=Husbands are in heaven whose wives chide not.=

Whether or not that heaven is ever found on earth is a question which each man must decide from his own experience. "He that has a wife has strife,"[94] say the French, and the Italian proverb-mongers take an unhandsome advantage of the fact that in their language the words "wife" and "woes" differ only by a letter.[95] St. Jerome declares that "Whoever is free from wrangling is a bachelor."[96]

=A smoky chimney and a scolding wife are two bad companions.=

The Scotch couple together "A leaky house and a scolding wife," in which they follow Solomon: "A continual dropping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."[97] "It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house."[98]

=A house wi' a reek and a wife wi' a reerd [scolding noise] will sune mak a man run to the door.=--_Scotch._

Of the continental versions of this proverb the Spanish[99] seems to me the best, and next to it the Dutch.[100]

=It's a sair reek where the gude wife dings the gude man.=--_Scotch._

"A man in my country," says James Kelly, "coming out of his house with tears on his cheeks, was asked the occasion. He said 'there was a sair reek in the house;' but, upon further inquiry, it was found that his wife had beaten him." "It is a sad house where the hen crows and the cock is mute" (Spanish).[101] Though we have not this proverb in English, we have its spirit embodied in one word, HENPECKED, which is peculiar to ourselves.

=The grey mare is the better horse.=

The wife wears the breeches. "A hawk's marriage: the hen is the better bird" (French).[102]

=Marry above your match and you get a master.=

"In the rich woman's house she commands always, and he never" (Spanish).[103] "Who takes a wife for her dower turns his back on freedom" (French).[104] But every married man is in this plight, for

"He that has a wife has a master."[105]

"He that's not sensible of the truth of this proverb," says James Kelly, "may blot it out or pass it over."

"As the good man saith, so say we; But as the good woman saith, so it must be."

=Wedding and ill wintering tame both man and beast.=

"You will marry and grow tame" (Spanish).[106]

=He that marries a widow and two daughters marries three stark thieves.=

=He that marries a widow and two daughters has three back doors to his house.=

And "The back door is the one that robs the house" (Italian).[107]

=Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged.=

Else the burden of an old Scotch song, "Ye'll never be like mine auld gudeman," will be dinned in your ears day and night.

=He that marries a widow will have a dead man's head cast in his dish.=

=Happy is the wife who is married to a motherless son.=

"Uno animo omnes socrus oderunt nurus," says Terence; and this is the common testimony of experience in all ages and countries. "The husband's mother is the wife's devil" (German, Dutch).[108] "As long as I was a daughter-in-law I never had a good mother-in-law, and as long as I was a mother-in-law I never had a good daughter-in-law" (Spanish).[109] "The mother-in-law forgets that she was a daughter-in-law" (Spanish).[110] "She is well married who has neither mother-in-law nor sister-in-law" (Spanish).[111] Men, too, do not always regard their wives' mothers with tender affection, and some of the many bitter sayings against mothers-in-law seem to be common to both sexes. Such is this queer Ulster rhyme:--

"Of all the ould women that ever I saw, Sweet bad luck to my mother in-law."

Also these Low German:--"There is no good mother-in-law but she that wears a green gown;"[112] _i.e._, that is covered with the turf of the churchyard;--"The best mother-in-law is she on whose gown the geese feed;"[113] and this Portuguese, "If my mother-in-law dies, I will fetch somebody to flay her."[114]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A gli uomini ogni peccato mortale è veniale, alle donne ogni veniale è mortale.

[2] Se la donna fosse piccola come è buona, la minima foglia la farebbe una veste e una corona.

[3] Jedes Weib will lieber schön als fromm sein.

[4] Es giebt nur zwei gute Weiber auf der Welt: die Eine ist gestorben, die Andere nicht zu finden.

[5] Un homme de paille vaut une femme d'or.

[6] De la mala muger te guarda, y de la buena no fies nada.

[7]

Nux, asinus, mulier simili sunt lege ligata, Hæc tria nil recte faciunt si verbera cessant.

[8] Donne, asini, e noci voglion le mani atroci.

[9] Prends le premier conseil d'une femme, et non le second.

[10] La donna savia è all' impensata, alla pensata è matta.

[11] Sommersaat und Weiberrath geräth alle sieben Jahre einmal.

[12] El consejo de la muger es poco, y quien no le toma es loco.

[13] Femme rit quand elle peut, et pleure quand elle veut.

[14] Donna si lagna, donna si duole, donna s'ammala quando la vuole.

[15] Lagrime di donna, fontana di malizia.

[16] Weiber sind veränderlich wie Aprilwetter.

[17] Muger, viento, y ventura presto se muda.

[18] Tre oche e tre donne fann' un mercato.

[19] Les femmes sont faites de langue, comme les renards de queue.

[20] Alle Quinder ere gode Lutherske, de predike heller end de höre Messe.

[21] Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut.

[22] Se la donna vuol, tutto la puol.

[23] Le donne sanno un punto più del diavolo.

[24] Ein Sack voll Flöhe ist leichter zu hüten wie ein Weib.

[25] A la muger y a la picaza loque dirias en la plaza.

[26] Ein Frauenhaar zieht mehr als ein Glockenseil.

[27] Chi nasce belle, nasce maritata.

[28] Si quieres hembra, escoge la el sabado, y no el domingo.

[29] Compuesta no hay muger fea.

[30] Baza compuesta la blanca denuesta.

[31] Belle hôtesse, c'est un mal pour la bourse.

[32] Ist die Wirthin schön, ist auch der Wein schön.

[33] Nocte latent mendæ.

[34] Λυχνοῦ ἀρθέντωϛ πᾶσα γυνὴ ἡ αὐτὴ.

[35] Ne gioia, ne donna, ne tela al lume de candela.

[36] À la chandelle la chèvre semble demoiselle.

[37] Niemands lief is lelijk.

[38] Il n'est point de belles prisons ni de laides amours.

[39] Non è bello quel che è bello, ma quel che piace.

[40] Wessen Huldin schielt, der sagt sie liebaugele.

[41] "Roth ist die Farbe der Liebe," sagte der Buhler zu seinem fuchs farbenen Schatz.

[42] Piensan los enamorados que tienen los otros los ojos quebrados.

[43] El hombre es el fuego, la muger la estopa; viene el diablo y sopla.

[44] Bella donna e veste tagliazzata sempre s'imbatte in qualche uncino.

[45] Belle fille et méchante robe trouvent toujours qui les accroche.

[46] Qui non zelat non amat.

[47] Amour chasse jalousie.

[48] Amor vuol fede, e fede vuol fermezza.

[49] Amor dà per mercede gelosia e rotta fede.

[50] Meglio è aver il marito senza amore che con gelosia.

[51] Amar y saber, no puede ser.

[52] Aimer et savoir n'ont même manoir. [For this last word some modern collections substitute _manière_, which makes nonsense.]

[53] Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus.

[54] Sans pain, sans vin, amour n'est rien.

[55] On revient toujours à ses premières amours.

[56] Amor vero non diventa mai canuto.

[57] Amour, toux, et fumée en secret ne font demeurée.

[58] Armod og Kiærlighed ere onde at dolge.

[59] Liebe und Singen lässt sich nicht zwingen.

[60] Chi vuol esser amato, convien ch'il ami.

[61] Amor è il vero prezio, per che si compra amor.

[62] Amor non conosce misura.

[63] Scalda più amore che mills fuochi.

[64] Chi ha l'amor nel petto, ha lo sprone a' franchi.

[65] Amor regge senza legge.

[66] Amor regge il suo regno senza spada.

[67] Amor non conosce travaglio.

[68] Di tutte le arti maestro è amore.

[69] Amour et mort, rien n'est plus fort.

[70] Amour soumet tout hormis cœur de félon.

[71] Chi si marita in fretta, stenta adagio.

[72] Fiançailles vont en selle, et repentailles en croupe.

[73] Black care sits behind the horseman.

[74] Nul ne se marie qui ne s'en repente.

[75] El tocino de paraiso para el casado no arrepiso.

[76] Heirathe über den Mist, so weisst du wer sie ist.

[77] La moglie e il ronzino piglia dal vicino.

[78] Quien lejos se va á casar, o va engañado, o va á engañar.

[79] En mariage trompe qui peut.

[80] Chi perde la moglie e un quattrino, ha gran perdita del quattrino.

[81] Doglia di moglie morta dura fino alla porta. Dôr de mulher morta, dura até a porta.

[82]

Dous bouns jours à l'home sur terro: Quand pren mouilho, e quand l'enterro.

[83] Se uno marlusse venie veouso, serie grasso.

[84] Madre, que cosa es casar? Hija, hilar, parir y llorar.

[85] El dia que te casas, o te matas o te sanas.

[86]

A quien tiene buena muger, ningun mal le puede venir, que no sea de sufrir. A quien tiene mala muger, ningun bien le puede venir, que bien se puede decir.

[87] Comprar cavalli e tor moglie, serra gli occhi e raccomandati a Dio.

[88] I matrimoni sono, non come si fanno, ma come riescono.

[89] Les mariages sont écrits dans le ciel.

[90] Casar, casar, e que do governo?

[91] Qui se marie par amours, a bonnes nuits et mauvais jours.

[92] Innanzi al maritare, habbi l'habitare.

[93] Es ist leichter zwei Herde bauen, als auf einem immer Feuer haben.

[94] Qui femme a, noise a.

[95] Chi ha moglie, ha doglie.

[96] Qui non litigat cœlebs est.

[97] Prov. xxvii. 15.

[98] Prov. xxi. 19.

[99] Humo y gotera, y la muger parlera, echan el hombre de su casa fuera.

[100] Rook, stank, en kwaade wijven zijn die de mans uit de huizen drijven.

[101] Triste es la casa donde la gallina canta y el gallo calla.

[102] Mariage d'épervier: la femelle vaut mieux que le mâle.

[103] En la casa de muger rica, ella manda siempre, y el nunca.

[104] Qui prend une femme pour sa dot a la liberté tourne le dos.

[105] In French, Qui prend femme, prend maître.

[106] Casaras y amansaras.

[107] La porta di dietro è quella che ruba la casa.

[108] Des Mannes Mutter ist der Frau Teufel. Een mans moer is de duivel op den vloer.

[109] En quanto fue nuera, nunca tuve buena suegra, y en quanto fue suegra, nunca tuve buena nuera.

[110] No se acuerda la suegra que fue nuera.

[111] Aquella es bien casada, que no tiene suegra ni cuñada.

[112] Es ist keine gut Swigar, danne die einen grünen Rok an hat.

[113] Die beste Swigar ist die auf deren Rok die Gänse waiden.

[114] Se minha sogra more, buscare quem a estolle.

PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

=Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.=

"Little children and headaches--great children and heartaches" (Italian).[115] Nevertheless, "He knows not what love is that has not children" (Italian).[116]

=It is a wise child that knows his own father.=

Happily, as a French sage remarks, "One is always somebody's child, and that is a comfort."[117] "The child names the father; the mother knows him" (Livonian).

=The mother knows best if the child be like the father.=

=The mither's breath is aye sweet.=--_Scotch._

This proverb, which belongs exclusively to Scotland, appears to me even more "exquisitely graceful and tender" than that German and French proverb so justly admired by Dean Trench, "Mother's truth keeps constant youth."[118] "There is no mother like the mother that bore us" (Spanish).[119] "The child that gets a stepmother gets a stepfather also" (Danish).[120]

=The crow thinks her own bird the fairest.=

"Every mother's child is handsome" (German).[121] "No ape but swears he has the finest children" (German).[122] "If our child squints, our neighbour's child has a cast in both eyes" (Livonian).

=As the old cock crows so crows the young=; _or_, =As the old cock crows the young cock learns=.

=If the mare have a bald face the filly will have a blaze.=

=Trot feyther, trot mither, how can foal amble?=--_Scotch._

Children generally follow the example of their parents, but imitate their faults more surely than their virtues. Thus,--

=A light-heeled mother makes a heavy-heeled daughter.=

Unless the mother transfers a part of her household cares to the daughter, the latter will grow up in sloth and ignorance of good housewifery. "A tender-hearted mother rears a scabby daughter" (French, Italian).[123]

=A child may have too much of its mother's blessing.=

Her foolish fondness may spoil it.

=The worst store is a maid unbestowed.=--_Welsh._

"A house full of daughters is a cellar full of sour beer" (Dutch).[124] Chaucer says,--

"He that hath more smocks than shirts in a bucking Had need be a man of good forelooking."

"Marry your son when you will, and your daughter when you can" (Spanish).[125]

=My son is my son till he's got him a wife;= =My daughter's my daughter all the days of her life.=

This is a woman's calculation. She knows that a son-in-law will submit to her sway more tamely than a daughter-in-law.

=Little pitchers have long ears.=

"What the child hears at the fire is soon known at the minster" (French).[126]

=Children and fools tell truth.=

And tell it when it were better left untold. "These terrible children!" (French.)[127]

=Children and fools have merry lives.=

They quickly forget past sorrows, and are careless of the future.

=Children suck the mother when they are young, and the father when they are old.=

FOOTNOTES:

[115] Fanciulli piccioli, dolor di testa; fanciulli grandi, dolor di cuore.

[116] Chi non ha figliuoli non sa che cosa sia amore.

[117] On est toujours le fils de quelqu'un; cela console.

[118] Muttertreu wird täglich neu. Tendresse maternelle toujours se renouvelle.

[119] No hay tal madre como la que pare.

[120] Det Barn der faaer Stivmoder, faaer ogsaa Stifvader.

[121] Jeder Mutter Kind ist schön.

[122] Kein Aff', er schwört, er habe die schönsten Kinder.

[123] Mère piteuse fait sa fille rogneuse. La madre pietosa fa la figliuola tignosa.

[124] Een huis vol dochters is een kelder vol zuur bier.

[125] Casa el hijo quando quisieres, y la hija quando pudieres.

[126] Ce que l'enfant oit au foyer, est bientost connu jusqu'au monstier.

[127] Ces enfants terribles!

YOUTH AND AGE.

=A ragged colt may make a good horse.=[128]

An untoward boy may grow up into a proper man. This may be understood either in a physical or a moral sense. "There is no colt but breaks some halter" (Italian),[129] otherwise it is good for nothing (French).[130] "Youth comes back from far" (French).[131] Do not despair of it as lost, though it runs a mad gallop; something of the sort is to be expected of all but those preternaturally sedate youths who are born, as the author of "Eothen" says, with a Chifney bit in their mouths from their mother's womb.

=A man at five may be a fool at fifteen.=

In the days when cock-fighting was a fashionable pastime, game chickens that crowed too soon or too often were condemned to the spit as of no promise or ability. "A lad," says Archbishop Whateley, "who has to a degree that excites wonder and admiration the character and demeanour of an intelligent man of mature years, will probably be that and nothing more all his life, and will cease accordingly to be anything remarkable, because it was the precocity alone that ever made him so. It is remarked by greyhound fanciers that a well-formed, compact-shaped puppy never makes a fleet dog. They see more promise in the loose-jointed, awkward, and clumsy ones. And even so there is a kind of crudity and unsettledness in the minds of those young persons who turn out ultimately the most eminent."

=Soon ripe soon rotten.=

"Late fruit keeps well" (German).[132]

=It is better to knit than to blossom.=

Orchard trees may blossom fairly, yet bear no fruit.

=It early pricks that will be a thorn.=

Some indications of future character may be seen even in infancy. The child is father of the man.

=Soon crooks the tree that good gambrel will be.=

A gambrel (from the Italian _gamba_, a leg) is a crooked piece of wood, on which butchers hang the carcasses of beasts by the legs.

=As the twig is bent the tree's inclined.=

=Best to bend while it is a twig.=

=It is not easy to straighten in the oak the crook that grew in the sapling.=--_Gaelic._

"What the colt learns in youth he continues in old age" (French).[133] "What youth learns, age does not forget" (Danish).[134]

=Reckless youth maks ruefu' eild.=--_Scotch._

"If youth knew! if age could!" (French).[135]

FOOTNOTES:

[128] Spanish: De potro sarnoso buen caballo hermoso. German: Ans klattrigen Fohlen werden die schönsten Hengste.

[129] Non c'è polledro che non rompa qualche cavezza.

[130] Rien ne vaut poulain s'il ne rompt son lien.

[131] Jeunesse revient de loin.

[132] Spät Obst liegt lange.

[133] Ce que poulain prend en jeunesse, il le continue en vieillesse.

[134] Det Ung nemmer, Gammel ei glemmer.

[135] Si jeunesse savait! si vieillesse pouvait!

NATURAL CHARACTER.

=What's bred in the bone will never be out of the flesh.=