If he had eaten quietly what he had obtained; if he had not boasted of his good fortune, before he was completely in possession of it, he might have enjoyed it unmolested; but by proclaiming it he has stirred up rivals for the situation, with whom he will find it difficult to contend, and who may probably supplant him. The idea is taken from the fable of the stag who had escaped the hunters and eluded their search by concealing himself among the vines, but thinking himself safe, he began to browse upon the leaves; the hunters, led to the place by the noise and by the motion of the boughs, took and killed him. Or from the crow, who, overcome by the flattery of the fox, attempting to sing, let fall the cheese that he held in his mouth, which the fox seized upon and devoured. Can't you fare well, we say, without crying roast meat?

Blinder than a mole. The ancients thought moles had no eyes, but they have two small eyes, affording them so mush sight, as to enable them to know when they have emerged through the earth, and they no sooner perceive the light, than they return into their burrows, where alone they can be safe. This proverb is applied to persons who are exceedingly slow in conceiving, or understanding what is said to them; also to persons searching for what lays immediately before them. "If it was a bear," we say, "it would bite you." To the same purport is "Leberide caecior." By the leberis, the Latins meant the dry and cast skin of a serpent, or of any other animal, accustomed to change its coat, in which the apertures for the eyes only remain. With us, it is usual, in censuring the same defect, to say, "He is as blind as a beetle." "We are all of us used to be Argus's abroad, but moles at home," but how much better would it be to correct an error in ourselves, than to find an hundred in our neighbours.

The subject is as familiar and as well known to me, as are my fingers; to be perfectly conversant with a business, or to have it, as we say, "at our fingers' ends."

He is as proud of the transaction, as if he had despoiled a Grecian warrior of his shield. The Greeks and Romans defended their shields with the greatest pertinacity, it being held in the highest degree dishonourable to suffer them to be taken from them. The adage was used to be applied to persons boasting of some insignificant exploit, and magnifying it, as if they had saved a friend, or their country from destruction.

It is a subject I am as well acquainted with, as I am with my own name, or with my fingers, was used to be said to persons repeating any well known story or circumstance.

«Totis diebus, Afer, hæc mihi narras,
Et teneo melius ista, quam meum nomen».

You are perpetually teasing me with a repetition of this story, which is as familiar to me as my own name.

He is like a cork, nothing will depress or sink him, was used to be said of persons who had passed through great trials, or escaped from imminent danger without mischief. Of such men we say, like a cat he has nine lives, or throw him as you will he will be sure to alight upon his feet, give a man luck and throw him into the sea.

"Who has been used to carry a calf, may in time carry an ox." The adage is said to have taken its rise from the story of a woman who took delight in nursig and carrying about with her a calf, and as the animal grew, her strength so increased, that she was able to carry it when it became an ox. Or, as Erasmus conjectures, from the story of Milo the Crotonian, who was said, with great ease to take up an ox, and carry it on his shoulders; but who perished miserably, "Wedged in the oak which he strove to rend." It may be used to shew the force of habit or custom, and its influence both on our mental and bodily powers, which may by use be increased to an almost incredible degree. Also to shew the necessity of checking and eradicating the first germs of vice in children, as, if they be suffered to fix themselves, they will in time become too powerful to be subdued.

Not having sufficient for your own support, do you pretend to keep dogs? This was used to be applied to persons whose income, insufficient to supply them with necessaries, was laid out in superfluities; in keeping servants and horses, or in an ostentatious use of gaudy clothes, furniture, or other articles of luxury, unbecoming their circumstances. "Los que cabras no tienen, y cabritos venden, de donde lo vienen?" those who, having no goats, yet sell kids, whence do they get them? is said by the Spaniards, of persons who, having no estates, or known income, yet contrive to live at a great expense.

Which cannot be better exemplified than by the following lines:

–––– «Time lays his hand
On pyramids of brass, and ruins quite
What all the fond artificers did think
Immortal workmanship. He sends his worms
To books, to old records, and they devour
Th' inscriptions; he loves ingratitude,
For he destroys the memory of man».

Time brings all things to light. Truth has therefore been called the daughter of Time, or as the Spaniards say, of God, "la verdad es hija de Dios"; the wicked man hence knows no peace, but lives in perpetual fear that time, the great revealer of secrets, should tear off the veil that hides his crimes and shew him in his true colours. But time also overturns and destroys every thing, and takes away even the memory of them.

I see land, may be said by persons getting nearly to the end of a long and troublesome business, or concluding any great work or labour; more directly, and to this the adage owes its origin, by those who have been a long time time at sea, and perhaps been driven about by adverse winds, on first espying the shore, «Thank God, I once more see land!».

A snail's pace, he moves slower than a snail, or is fit to drive snails, are phrases applied to persons who are extremely sluggish. Vicistis cochleam tarditate.

Court incense. The splendid promises of courtiers, like the odoriferous vapour of frankincense, please the senses for a time, but they are both of them light and volatile, and leave ho beneficial effects behind them.

The mother of the coward does not weep, that is, does not often lament the untimely death of her son, or that he has met with any sinister accident, as he will be careful to keep out of the way of danger, which the brave and courageous is continually affronting, and so falls early.

Timid persons and such as are not possessed of personal courage, must not expect to be honoured with a triumph, which is only accorded to those who have by their valour obtained some signal victory. "Qui a peur de feuilles ne doit aller au bois," "he that is afraid of leaves, must not go into a wood". Persons of timid dispositions should not engage in hazardous undertakings, or attempt what can only be achieved by courage and prowess; "al hombre osado, la fortuna da la mano," "fortune favours the bold," "faint heart never won fair lady," and "none but the brave deserve the fair!"

As fearful as Plutus, the reputed god of riches. The poor having nothing to lose, have no dread of thieves, and accustomed to feed on coarse diet, they find little difficulty in getting what is necessary for their support. In utramque dormiant aurem, they can sleep on either ear, in any posture, or on the hardest couch. The rich, on the contrary, are full of care, trouble, and anxiety. «Non solum cruciantur libidine augendi ea quae habent, sed etiam timore amittendi ea», they are not only tormented with an incessant desire of increasing their wealth, but with the fear of losing that which they possess. They believe that all with whom they have any commerce, are contriving to rob, or cheat them. They are afraid of their friends, lest they should want to borrow of them; they think their servants are false, and that their wives and children are combining to deceive, and cozen them. Their fears increasing with their years, at length, though abounding with riches, they are distressed with apprehensions of impending poverty, imagining they shall become beggars or die in a workhouse. In hunc scopulum cadaverosi senes ut plurimum impingunt, on this rock cadaverous old men, men on the verge of the grave, are for the most part wrecked, and indeed it is not until they arrive at that period, when their wants might be supplied by the smallest income, that their fears make them imagine that their immense possessions will be exhausted, before their glass shall be completely run out, and they perish miserably by the very means that, properly used, would have preserved them in health and spirits.

Assist those who are willing to receive instruction, and aid those who endeavour, but bave not strength, to bear the load that is imposed on them. First put thy shoulder to the wheel, and should thy utmost exertions prove ineffectual, then call upon the Gods, and they will help thee. "But they're not wishings, or base womanish prayers Can draw their aid, but vigilance, counsel, action, Which they will be ashamed to forsake. Tis sloth they hate, and cowardice." " A quien madruga, Dios le ayouda,'" the Spaniards say, God assists those who rise early in the morning, that is, those who are industrious; and the French to the same purport " Aide toi et Dieu t'aidera," help yourself and God will help you. "Industry," we say, " is Fortune's right hand, and frugality her left."

"To shoot beyond the mark," to be entirely out in our conjecture, or opinion, on any business; to mistake the meaning of any passage in a work, or of what had been said; were typified by the ancients by this and similar phrases, meaning, You are as far from the right, as the east is from the west.

Like a top which is always turning round and changing its situation. The adage may be applied to persons of versatile dispositions, who have no fixed design, or intention, they will now be parsons, lawyers, soldiers; or as Andrew Borde describes our countrymen,

«I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind, what raiment I shall wear;
For now I will wear this, and now I will wear that,
And now I will wear, I cannot tell what».

Borde lived in the early part of the sixteenth century; we are now doubtless changed, and become more steady. There are many other apothegms censuring this mutability of disposition, from which the following only is taken.

When your neighbour's house is on fire, it is time to look to your own. When you hear your neighbour traduced, and his character blackened, you will defend him even from a regard to yourself, as you may expect the same liberty to be taken with yours, when you shall be absent. Turn the mischances of others to your own benefit; that is, learn from the failure and misfortunes of others, to attend to your own concerns, that you may not suffer the same disgrace.