He's a whole team, a horse extra, and a dog under the wagon! Another ingenious gentleman, arriving in England in September, describes himself shortly afterwards, as going out with

'A two shooting scatter gun and a smell dog!'

Not enough to make soup for a sick grasshopper,

Smaller than the fine end of nothing.

are tolerable instances of the figure hyperbole: while I incline to think that the following example of advertising, out-does all that even has been attempted by English enterprise. Up to a very recent date, this was to be seen inscribed in large white letters upon the fencing of a New York Burying Ground.

Use Jones' bottled ale if you would keep out of here! It must had been another of the same family who, when his rival had daubed the rocks all the way up the Hudson with the appeal

'Use Smith's soap!'

supplemented it, whenever practicable, with the following addition

'If you cant get Jones'!'

I conclude with a proverb, which while throughly English in itself, has the additional curious characteristic of being found in perhaps the only letter ever addressed by a hangman to the leading journal.

Mr. Calcraft, in the exercise of his profession, having been made very angry about something by some one or other, made the following remark respecting his adversary in a letter to the Times.

"Ive lived too near a wood all my life to be afraid of an owl!"

HISTORICAL.

I mean by Historical proverbs, such as carry a history along with them, so that, to the educated ear two words suffice to tell the tale, and apply it.

There are some sayings that have an Iliad in a nut shell.

One of the oldest of all is perhaps that about Abel. "They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel: and so they ended the matter."

2 Sam. xx, 18.

The

we have not the key to this, but "ask at Abel," was the wise woman's prevailing plea with Joab. people of that city had been accustomed to be consulted by others. Now they consulted well for themselves. And ended by throwing over their city wall the head of the traitor.

Gold for brass.

Is a Greek saying, founded on the remembrance of Glaucus' sorry bargain. That impulsive Trojan prince, when about to swear eternal friendship with Diomedes, exchanged his brilliant suit of gold armour for the plain suit of brass which was possessed by the other. An Agricultural proverb gives a warning of the same kind.

Don't stop the plough to catch a mouse.

The French say, where such waste of power is

apparent,

any

Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.

The game is not worth the candle that lights it.

Ex pede Herculem

is a latin adage; from a gigantic footstep you augur a giant. Professor Owen is said to be able to go much further, and from any bone, you like to give him, to be able to supply a full history of the once owner.

Optat ephippia bos.

The ox desires horse trappings.

suggests how everybody thinks everybody else's load lighter; there seems to be a reference to some fable of the kind once current. We have, as an answer to this,

The wearer knows best whereabouts the shoe pinches. and the Scotch add.

Every man can tont best on his ain horn.

Dont meddle with Camarina.

will be recognised by scholars as another pregnant saying. The men of Camarina, were great sanitary reformers, and insisted upon draining a lake, which, up to that time, like the waters now round Mantua, had been, upon one side, the chief defence of the city. The consequence was, in the autumn they had a pestilence, and in the following spring, the city was stormed on the side left unprotected.

Let sleeping dogs lie,

is the English and Italian version,

Surtout point de zèle,

was Talleyrand's advice to young Diplomatists; while Lord Melbourne has immortalised

Cant you let it alone!

The Greek is especially strong in these suggestive sentences,

F

"The cranes of Ibycus'

has the same meaning as 'Murder will out;' how it did so, is well told by Mr. Kelly in his Proverbs of all Nations, a book to which I am anxious to express my obligations. The lyric poet Ibycus was murdered by robbers when on his way to Corinth. With his dying breath he committed the task of avenging him to a flock of cranes, the only living creatures in sight beside himself and his murderers. The latter, shortly after, when sitting in the theatre of Corinth, saw a flock of cranes passing over. 'Lo there,' said one scoffingly, 'go the avengers of Ibycus!' The words were overheard and caught up, for already the poet's disappearance was exciting suspicion. The men were seized, questioned, and, having in their confusion betrayed themselves, were forthwith led off to their well merited doom!

There's many a slip
Between cup and lip,

is a saying that has also an ancient extraction. It is said to have originated with a slave of a king of Samos, who had been so cruelly overworked in his master's vineyard, that he gave way to an expression hoping that the king would never drink the wine of it. When the vintage was complete, the king sent for him to see the first goblet drained. The slave replied with something corresponding to this cuplet. At that very moment the cry of 'wild boar' is heard; the king set down the goblet, rushes out to repel the invader, is brought home slain by the infuriate animal, and the wine remains in the cup still untasted.

The Prussians have a saying that

'Nothing is certain except death and the Black Eagle.'

an order which was at one time, somewhat lavishly

distributed.

In England, which has never been incommoded in this manner, the usual saying is Except death and the tax gatherer.

'Give a dog a bad name'

is another of these suggestive adages, and then, You may just as well 'hang him' at once.

Everything will be laid at his door, exactly as, in some households 'the cat' is found most destructive. 'I'll not beat thee, nor abuse thee,'

said the benevolent Quaker to the dog who bit him, 'But I'll give thee a bad name!'

so he called out

'Mad dog!'

and then the neighbours came and killed it. This introduces making a 'cat's paw;' which is getting other people to do our dirty work, or work which we do not quite fancy the idea originating with an intelligent monkey, who used his friend the cat's paw to get off the bar the roasting chestnuts.

:

tells its own tale.

'Job's comforters'

we may place by the side of this

When a dog is drowning every one offers him water. When the child is christened you may have godfathers enough. Virgil's,

Sic vos non vobis,

applied where one does the work, and another take the pay, has also a story of its own that is worth telling. It seems he had complimented Augustus with an epigram to the effect that rain at night, and in the morning the Public Games, shewed the empire of the world divided between Jupiter and Cæsar.