The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1873-12-29
a :. Fenialar quotation"

soa'asore Iast s;,mrner a question was started
as TO Che origin or the familiar hnes:
Enough the mills Of God grind slowly, yet they
grind exceeding small. F,
Rocks were not at hand, and the question
vas nassed about with the result OF curl
ous diversity in the answers. One person at-
tributed the line to Mrs. Browning, anotneF
said & WA from the Greek, and still another
conra peously credited the sentiment, II not
the form, to the Old Testament. Stngulariy
enough. no one OF us kuew-what ~ouia
readily have been found if access could nave
been had to Bartlett's "Famlliar Quola-
tions THAT the line Is found in LongieiioW,
among certain "poctic aphorisms,' where IL
Is given as q translation from the !" Slnnge-
dicbte Of Friedrich "Von Logau," writer
of the seventeenth century. :,
Let it be remarked, In passing, tnat a,l
these people should have had Mr.. bart!etts
excellent book with them ut the sea.shore.
R,,t before examination was made IN Tue
" Familiar Quotations somebody here at
home had remembered where the. ilne DC
loneed: another had insisted, notwithstand-
ing Longfellow's authority, that 1t neVeltne-
less had its origin in the Greek, ana had pro-
duced in his support "Bohn's Dictionary Oh
Classical Quotations." in which the ioltew'
ing sentence, quoted in the original creek,
il given as q proverb: "The mill.stones lor
mlIs] of the gods grind late, but they gr1na
fine" IA
From what Greek author, however, DID
this proverb" come? Bonn gave no Qua
tiop. 1t was cheerful, therefore, on iooklnS
into Mr.. Bartlett's book not only to tnd the
reference to Longfellow, which was already
known, but also to see in note aGreck
bnvameter line from the "Oracula Sibylli-
m y book 8. line IA, which, being translated,
reads as follows:
lathe mills of God grind late their fine grist-
The Oracula Sibylliad is a stout volume
las found in the Athenaum), printed ut Am
sterdam in 1859. 1t is q collection IN tIrreh'
with Latin translation of what purpo,t ~
be the old Sibylline books Ihese "rlIlnss
had, in TACT, their origin, we are toiu, aunons
certs;r Cbr;s,ial,s of the second century.
Ther are contained in books of heNameter
verse. The eighth book, with very notice
able flavor of the Hebrew style, begins by
propos :ng to unfold the calamities that shall
hereafter come upon the nations-upon
Ecypt, Persia, Macedonia, Sc, and last upon
ROme-Rome shall grow great ana over
spread the world, but-and then comes the
line Mr.. Bartlett gives: "The mills OF Coo
grind late their tine grist."
Now, this line, it will be observed, is diff
feunt from the Greek proyerb quoted i'll
Bohn; the search, therefore, 1t was obvious,
must be continued further.
The Droyerb in Bonn was observed TO
make complete heXameter; the metre,
therefore, made it probably that it would not
be found in the tragedians. 1t was easy to
ascertain that they did not belong to Homer
or Pindar; and so, in detail, to make sure
that it was not in the tragedianS or the Greek
Anthology. At last it occurred to some one
to look into Plutarch's dialogue "Concern-
ing Such whom God is Slow to Punish"
and there light began to break. Olympi-
Gus, one of the iuterlocutors in this dia-
Iogte, j. lamenting the delay i'm the
divine judgments, whereby they seem
rather to resemble chance than providence;
so that" he adds, g I cannot conceive what
benefit there is in these millStones of the
gods which are said to grind so late, as there.
by celestial punishment is obscured and the
awe of evil-doing rendered vain and despl-
cable" We quote from Professor Goodwln's
edition of the translation Of Plutarch's
Morals, volume .iv., page 143. In note to
this passage the editor says: Referring to
the verse, the mills Of the gods grind late, but
then qrtnd fine" The Greek is quoted here
that given in Bobn. But here again we have
no clew to the original authority; Plutarch
merely uses the passage by way Of allusion
to it as something already familiar; and,
moreover, he does not give the last half Of it.
Recourse was now lad to the edition, by
Professors Hackett and Tyler, Of the original
Greek of this dialogue of Plntarch; and
there, in q note, these learned editors seemed
at last to bring us into port. "SeNtus EN-
piricus," they say, "has preserved to US a
line from an ancient unknown poet, which
contains the sentiment to which Olympicus
Objects; and then follows the Greek as it
stands in Bohn.
SaxtuS Empiricus was q Greek writer of
the third century, later than Plutarch by
hundred years aud more. He was physi-
clan, aud in his philosophy what is called a
"scep.ic." His books have been called ga
repository of doubts" The line referred to is
found in book /, chapter Is. of his trea-
tise Against Grammarians," I. e., against
the advocates Of literature in general. The
author is opposing the common opinion that
there is much to he gained from the fine ut
tcrances Of the poets and others to help in
the conduct Of life; it is not so, be says;
they contradict themselves and each other;
they say foolish and wicked things, and ut
their best they know no more than common
people; and then, referring to son ethng
which he had quoted from Euripides about |
the gods, even rude and unlettered per- |
sons, he says, are of the same opinion as
the poet; when Euripdes tells US that elf
any one persists in doing evil daily and sup |
poses that he escapes the notice Of the gods, |
be thinks amiss, for justice takes her iei-
sure THAT well-known saying which is |
common among the many is just as good
"he millstones Of the gods grind late, but
they grind tSae."
1t is popularity of this passage in Sextus |
Empiricus that it not only preserves and |
gives in full the lire for which this search |
was made, but that it also fixes the character |
Of it, as being popular proyerb; the whole |
point Of the passage from this author lies in
the fact that the sentence quoted is bit of
the common wisdom and is not the property !
of literature. 1t was therefore reasonably |
concluded by the persons engaged in this
search that they had now hunted the quota |
ton fairly down.
In the collection of Greek proverbs Cor |
pus Paremiographorum Gracorum) pub !
lished at Gottingen in 1889, and cited in Mr..
Bartlctt's book aproros of ether proverbs,
but not of the one in question, this line is |
found, with the reference to Plutarch, the !
Oracua Sibylina and Sextus Empiricus, and
also with reference to Origen contra GEL |
sum, viii, I'll. Origen was the contem-
porary of Sextus Empiricus. In the |
passage referred to he is contrasting
the Christian doctrine of punishment with |
that held by his adversary. Such, he says,
is our doctrine. "But let US see, on the
other hand, what is the response given on
this subject by the priest Of Jupiter or