Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1889-10-19
ABOUT PROVERBS.
OBSCURE or ORIGIN, BUT AcCt Pr-
ED FROM INTRINSIC MERIT.

A
Quotations from Chauoer. Burns and
Others.
10 begin at the beginning, what Is q
prcverbr Lord John Russelfs definition
was; 1.-THE wit of one, the wisdom Of
many" In a quaint old book, ''The
Worthless of England, written by Thomas
Fuller, an English divine and author.
published in 1850, proverb is defined to
be "Much matter decocted into few
words" Francis Bacon, the well known
philosophic author and lawyer, ma.le
lord chancellor of England by James
and dismissed, disgraced and fined To-
receiving brides rom stlitors, was char
acterized in Pope's satire in this coupleU
If parts allure thee think how Bacon shined.
The wisest. brightest. meanest OF mankind
VARIOUS DEFINITIONS.
Bacon, however, went very near the
truth when he wrote: THE genius, wit
and spirit of IL nation are discovered by
their proverbs"
Fleming says: Proverbs embody the
current and practical philosophy of an
age OF nation" Brande tells us that
Proverbs are, for the most part, rules
Of moral or still more properly of prudia
conduct" DR.. johnson said that they
were "short sentences, frequently re-
peated by the people" Cervantes, au
thor of "Don Quixote," who may be said
to have peppered the conversation Of
Sancho Panza with proverbs, declares
4
long experiences. In this the immortal
peasant squire resembled Hudibras, Of
whom Butler wrote;
For rhetoric he could not ope
His mouth but out there flew trope.
1t is calculated that there are now in
use, among European nations and the
English speaking people of the United
States, not fewer than 10000 proverbs,
by far the largest proportion of which
are Spanish. They enter very extern
sively into the ordinary conversation OF
Spaniards. Hence the propriety on Ger
vantes part of making Sancho Panza
Ignorant and vulgar, as peasant of the
time and place would have been, but also
shrewd and practicaD speak very much
ia proverbs, the language OF his practical
good sense.
For tho most part, though proverbs are
to be found In all languages and in the
history OF all nations, generally in their
early stages, there is no record of their
birth nor of their paternity. They have
been accepted, not as resting on the au-
thority Of reyered name, but from their
inherent truth or semblance of truth. In
fullness of time, which means in or near
the last three or four centuries, men
made collections of them. The publica-
ton in the year 1900 of volume by
Erasmus, which he called "Adagia," first
set the learned men of Europe on the
track of proverb collecting. He was the
first in that line, st least the first who
had travelled far upda 1t. Since then the
publication of proverbs has been very
general, and a heavy harvest of this sort
has been gathered in from the ordinary
speech as well as the written works of
Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Eng
and. There are now at least from
thirty to forty different collections OF
English proverbs. 1t was in Asia, SAIL
to have been tho birthplace and cradle
of the human race, that proverbs found
their way into the popular speech of Pal
estine and Babylonia.
sOLOMoN's WISDOM.
In the book of Proverbs in the Bible.
there is wisdom in them, but not parti
sic of wit. Its opening words, 1.-The prov
CRIBS of Solomon, the son of David, the
king Of Israel" give us its current He
brew title. 1t has also been called in the
Talmud, and by more than one very early
Christian writer, THE Book of Wisdom
Generally, by Jews and Christians it L.
designated "The Proverbs of Solomon
and, representing tho wisdom of which
the Hebrews thought so much, stands at
the head Of the whole class of booke
known as the Sapiental The Bible cred
its Solomon with the authorship of 5000
proverbs and 1,005 songs Much of the
former remain; few of the latter. Most
probably Solomon collected short anc'
telling phrases then used in conversation,
adding many thoughts of his own. The
Oldest proverb on record is, "Wickednesa
proceedeth from the wicked" which Gn
Samuel xiv, 1O David declared to be
''the proverb of the ancient"
quently much older than any composed
by his son Solomon.
Those of the east are grave and simple
of Greece, intellectual; of Rome, more
worldly; of Spain, stately and thought
tul; of Italy, poetic yet gross of Ger
many, subtle and shrewd; of England
very practical. Many of these last,
which are our own, indeed, are taken
from the poets, Chaucer, the father Of
English poetry, who is supposed to have
been born early in the reign of Edward
IIl--the date on his tombstone is 1928
and who died about the year 400, wrote
much Of this proverbial philosophy In
the prologue TO the Testament of Love"
he has, Habit maketh no monk, nor
wearing of gilt spurs maketh no knight.
Henry Scogan, a contemporary of Chau
Ger, thought so well of this idea that he
put into his own poem, "A Moral Balade,'
these words:
lie is gentle; though he rich seem,
All wear he mitre, crown or diadem.
Sir Thomas Elyot put the same idea in
"The Governor" published in 1881 1--WE
have in this realm coins which he called
mobiles. AS long as they seem to be gold,
they be SO called; but if they be counter
feited and madein brass, copper or other
vile metal, who, + II the print only, call
eth them mobiles? Whereby it appeareth
that the estimation is the metal and not
in the print or figure" 1t is most prob
able that Robert Burns never read Chau-
Ger, never heard of Scogan or Elyot; yet
the intuition of his genius seized their
thought and so condensed it that wenow
have:
The rank is but the gIinea's stamp
Thu mans the gold for a that
-Thom.,o j Bowditch in yroy Times
A French Purist.