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under the name of Poor Richard, furnished some that still live among us. A few others sentences which have dropped from our public men-have taken their place among proverbial sayings. They are more frequently fragments and phrases than complete proverbs. Davy Crockett's "Be sure you are right and then go ahead," would be a very good one, but unfortunately many quote only the last two words. It has been noticed as a characteristic national difference, that when a train of cars is about to start in England, the conductor calls out, "All right!" whereas the cry in our country is, "Go ahead!" If the two signals were combined they would form a saying equally excellent for all nations. The phrase of Mr. Van Buren, "the sober second thought," and that of Mr. Calhoun, "masterly inactivity," (an expression to be found in a state paper by Mr. Dickinson, of New-Jersey, previous to the Revolution,) and that of Patrick Henry, "Liberty or death," have fixed themselves immovably in the public mind. The noble sentiment of Mr. Clay, "I had rather be right than President;" the toast of General Jackson, "The Union, it must be preserved;" the sentiment, new-coined, we believe, by Samuel Adams, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty;" and the last words of Mr. Webster's greatest speech," Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," all circulate through the land as characteristic national and patriotic pro verbs. The dying words of our great statesmen, Mr. Adams and Mr. Webster, are becoming consecrated as religious proverbs; the one," This is the last of Earth," to express the nothingness of the present life, and the other, "I still live!" to intimate the immortality and conscious life of the spirit in another sphere.

The fact that we have and employ few proverbs is very characteristic and suggestive. When our national life began, we bade "Good-by!" to the past, and raised a loud "All hail!" to the future. We had acquired the habit of looking, for rules to guide us, into our own reason and judgment. We had learned to distrust the political wisdom of the past, and through that distrust to be incredulous of all its wisdom. At the same ime, living in the midst of continual change and progress, proverbs, the slow growth of long experience and observation,

had not time to form. These crystallizations of thought form in the public mind only when it is in repose. These stalactites do not appear in the crypts and on the foundation arches of the national edifice, until they have stood for centuries. Our proverbs are yet to come. We stand with our back to the past and our face to the future. Our lack of proverbial wisdom is the inevitable result of those peculiarities of our national character and position, which are our pride and honor. Our national edifice is scarcely yet completed and consolidated; and therefore it is not to be expected that the old ivy of national sentiment, the growth of centuries, should clothe its buttresses and festoon its windows; and that the rooks and owls of ancestral wisdom should caw and hoot around its venerable towers. We can not yet abound in "wise saws," because we are still occupied in originating and testing "modern instances." It is interesting to observe that the moral tone of the proverbs of all nations is, for the most part, good. It is a striking testimony to the fact that goodness is the highest wisdom and the highest weal. Whatever a nation may be in its character, its proverbs are a constant testimony against its evil practice. They are the voice of its innermost consciousness. It is true that there are many coarse proverbs which have come down to us from rude and plain-spoken periods. They are, however, not always immoral in meaning, when indelicate in form. Proverbs may be used by selfishness which originated in just moral perceptions. For instance, the proverb, "He has made his bed, and now he must lie upon it," may be used by the selfish, when they refuse to save others from the consequences of guilt or folly; whereas it was probably constructed to save men from [the commission of folly. "Honesty is the best policy," is a saying which may commend the right because it is profitable; but as it does not place the right exclusively on the ground of interest, it is not immoral. Many of the proverbs of Solomon are of this character. Nor are those which merely announce the existence of selfishness, and warn us to be on our guard against it, to be branded as evil. Such is this Russian proverb, "The burden is light on the shoulders of another;" and this French one, "One has always strength enough to bear the misfortunes of other people," and this shrewd English one, "When a

dog is drowning every one offers him drink." They proclaim and they satirize, but they do not vindicate the selfishness of man. Yet, though it be true that the main current of proverbial philosophy is pure, it must be admitted that there are many filthy little rills running into it. Here is a mean little English proverb: "The wholesomest meat is at another man's cost." Another which implies that a poor man can scarce be honest, must have done much to realize its truth: "It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright." The Spanish caution, (the fable of the monkey using the cat's paw to pull out hot chestnuts, put into a proverb,) "Draw the snake from its hole by another man's hand," is detestable. These "scoundrel maxims" are not numerous in the English tongue. If we would find those that are openly and revoltingly atrocious, we must resort to Italy. A nation's life must have become profoundly debased when its proverbs commend guilt and inculcate revenge. The elder Disraeli observes "that the Italian proverbs have taken a tinge from their deep and politic genius; and their wisdom seems wholly concentrated in their personal interests. I think every tenth proverb in an Italian collection is some cynical or some selfish maxim." Artifice and cunning are frequently commended as the only guides of life; and revenge as the mark of truest manhood. Here are sentiments which make an Anglo-Saxon shudder with disgust: "Revenge of an hundred years old hath still its sucking teeth." "Wait time and place to act thy revenge, for it is never well done in a hurry." "Revenge is a morsel for God." It is the boast of Ireland that no venomous snakes can live upon her soil. It may be our just boast that no such viper maxims can live in the English tongue.

It is pleasant to turn to more wholesome sentiments. They abound in the proverbs of all nations. The great and undying instinct of retribution, the certain fearful-looking for of judg ment against transgressions, receive the most emphatic attestation. How strikingly the Turks express it in these words: "Curses, like chickens, always come home to roost." The Arabic proverb is no less beautiful: "Ashes always fly back in the face of him that throws them." The Spaniards express the same thought well: "Who sows thorns let him not go unshod." There is a French proverb which has in it a true religious sublimity. It ex

presses man's unconsciousness of the just government of God, because of being absorbed in present interests. "The noise is so great one can not hear God thunder." This sounds like Luther. With such sentences he enforced his simple and fervent preaching.

There is also a large class of proverbs the tendency of which is to commend that which is just, benevolent, and manly. How many poor people would hasten to admit the truth of this sentence: "He gives twice that gives in a trice." There is a whole discourse on charitable judgments in these words: "No one is a fool always; every one sometimes." An exceedingly touching and impressive sentence is this from the Spanish: "The old man's staff is a rapper at death's door." Similar and equally beautiful is this: "Gray hairs are death's blossoms." There is a pathethic deprecation, not wantonly to break up the habits of the aged, in these words: "Remove an old tree and it will die." The history of human life could not be better written than in these words: "I wept when I was born, and every day shows why." A whole volume of religious resignation and philosophy would be only an expansion of this simple phrase: "One may see day through a little hole." However dark it may be around us for the present, there will be some little opening through which we can perceive that there is light without, which we may ultimately gain. The Italian proverb, "There is no worse robber than a bad book," is one which is not likely to be hung over a modern book-store, but which it would be well for us to put in golden capitals over our library shelves. Here is a noble German utterance: "Charity giveth itself rich; covetousness hoards itself poor." Here are manly proverbs, which are more than merely prudential. They inculcate the necessity of exertion, and a firm dependence upon the sure working of moral laws. "No pains, no gains." sweat, no sweet." "No mill, no meal." "When one door shuts another opens." "A stone that is fit for the wall is not left in the way." He who firmly believed, and energetically practised, these manly truths, could not easy be kept down in life.

"No

But though proverbs are not destitute of moral lessons, their favorite sphere is the prudential. They utter wise and shrewd teachings in reference to the conduct of life. They often re

veal, by a single flash of wit, man's deepest self-deceptions. They are applicable alike to great and small affairs-to family and national events. Like the tent described in the Arabian Nights, they may be folded in the hands, or they may cover whole armies. They serve alike the purposes of Sancho Panza and of Philip II.-of Hudibras and of Cromwell. The prudential wisdom and wit of ages is compressed into them. The precious grains of truth and sage experience, which are dispersed through a nation, and a generation, like golden sands in the Californian and Australian fields, are thus evolved, sifted, melted, minted, and stamped with a national image and superscription.

In the selection of proverbs of this kind, we shall endeavor to quote those which are least familiar. It will thus be seen that there are as precious argosies still upon the ocean as those that have reached and emptied their treasures upon the shores.

No nation is so rich in what may be called advisory and hortatory proverbs as the Spanish. They have a very practical and droll way of giving good advice. "Be not a baker if your head is made of butter." How could a man be better counselled not to enter upon any employment for which he was manifestly unfitted, and which would soon ruin him? "When all men say you are an ass it is time to begin to bray." That is, take the judgment of all men as to what you and your capabilities are, rather than your own, and conform your conduct

to it.

It is a striking fact that the nations who are most under the dominion of the priesthood—the Italians and Spaniards—treat it with the least respect in their proverbs. It is the same spirit of hatred and contempt which led the architects of the middle ages to depict, even on the doors of the cathedrals, ludicrous pictures of monks, with heads of swine and dogs; and as undergoing ignominious punishments from the hands of Satan and his fiends. The following from the Spanish, shows the estimation in which monks were held, where they most abound and best are known: "Take heed of an ox before, an ass behind, and a monk on all sides."

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Prudential declaratory proverbs-the sage saws of experience -are no less instructive, and more numerous than those which

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