It is very likely that from some of us proverbs have never attracted the notice which I am persuaded they deserve; and from this it may follow that, when invited to bestow even a brief attention on them, we are in some doubt whether they will repay our pains. We think of them but as sayings on the lips of the multitude; not a few of them have been familiar to us as far back as we can remember; often employed by ourselves, or in our hearing, on slight and trivial occasions: and thus, from these and other causes, it may very well be, that, however sometimes one may have taken our fancy, we yet have remained blind in the main to the wit, wisdom, and imagination, of which they are full; and very little conscious of the amusement, instruction, insight, which they are capable of yielding. Unless too we have devoted a certain attention to the subject, we shall not be at all aware how little those more familiar ones, which are frequent on the lips of men, exhaust the treasure of our native proverbs; how many and what excellent ones remain behind, having now[2] for the most part fallen out of sight; or what riches in like kind other nations possess. We may little guess how many aspects of interest there are in which our own by themselves, and our own compared with those of other people, may be regarded.

And yet there is much to induce us to reconsider our judgment, should we be thus tempted to slight them, and to count them not merely trite, but trivial and unworthy of a serious attention. The fact that they please the people, and have pleased them for ages,—that they possess so vigorous a principle of life, as to have maintained their ground, ever new and ever young, through all the centuries of a nation’s existence,—nay, that many of them have pleased not one nation only, but many, so that they have made themselves an home in the most different lands,—and further, that they have, not a few of them, come down to us from remotest antiquity, borne safely upon the waters of that great stream of time, which has swallowed so much beneath its waves,—all this, I think, may well make us pause, should we be tempted to turn away from them with anything of indifference or disdain.

And then further, there is this to be considered, that some of the greatest poets, the profoundest philosophers, the most learned scholars, the most genial writers in every kind, have delighted in them, have made large and frequent use of them, have bestowed infinite labour on the gathering and elucidating of them. In a fastidious age, indeed,[3] and one of false refinement, they may go nearly or quite out of use among the so-called upper classes. No gentleman, says Lord Chesterfield, or “no man of fashion,” as I think is his exact phrase, “ever uses a proverb.” [1] And with how fine a touch of nature Shakespeare makes Coriolanus, the man who, with all his greatness, is entirely devoid of all sympathy for the people, to utter his scorn of them in scorn of their proverbs, and of their frequent employment of these:
“Hang ’em!
They said they were an hungry, sighed forth proverbs;—
That, hunger broke stone walls; that, dogs must eat;
That, meat was made for mouths; that, the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only;—with these shreds
They vented their complainings.”
Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. 1.
Aristotle collected proverbs.

But that they have been always dear to the true intellectual aristocracy of a nation, there is abundant evidence to prove. Take but these three names in evidence, which though few, are in themselves an host. Aristotle made a collection of proverbs; nor did he count that he was herein doing aught unworthy of his great reputation, however some of his adversaries may afterwards have made of the fact that he did so an imputation against him. He is said to have been[4] the first collector of them, though many afterwards followed in the same path. Shakespeare loves them so well, that besides often citing them, and scattering innumerable covert allusions, rapid side glances at them, which we are in danger of missing unless at home in the proverbs of England, several of his plays, as Measure for Measure, All’s well that ends well, have popular proverbs for their titles. And Cervantes, a name only inferior to Shakespeare, has made very plain the affection with which he regarded them. Every reader of Don Quixote will remember his squire, who sometimes cannot open his mouth but there drop from it almost as many proverbs as phrases. I might name others who have held the proverb in honour—men who though they may not attain to these first three, are yet deservedly accounted great; as Plautus, the most genial of Latin poets, Rabelais and Montaigne, the two most original of French authors; and how often Fuller, whom Coleridge has styled the wittiest of writers, justifies this praise in his witty employment of some old proverb: and no reader can thoroughly understand and enjoy Hudibras, none but will miss a multitude of its keenest allusions, who is not thoroughly familiar with the proverbial literature of England.
Proverbs in Scripture.

Nor is this all; we may with reverence adduce quite another name than any of these, the Lord himself, as condescending to employ such proverbs as he found current among his people. Thus, on the occasion of his first open appearance in the synagogue of Nazareth, he refers to the proverb,[5] Physician, heal thyself, (Luke iv. 23,) as one which his hearers will perhaps bring forward against Himself; and again presently to another, A prophet is not without honour but in his own country, as attested in his own history; and at the well of Sychar He declares, “Herein is that saying,” or that proverb, “true, One soweth and another reapeth.” (John iv. 37.) But He is much more than a quoter of other men’s proverbs; He is a maker of his own. As all forms of human composition find their archetypes and their highest realization in Scripture, as there is no tragedy like Job, no pastoral like Ruth, no lyric melodies like the Psalms, so we should affirm no proverbs like those of Solomon, were it not that “a greater than Solomon” has drawn out of the rich treasure house of the Eternal Wisdom a series of proverbs more costly still. For indeed how much of our Lord’s teaching, especially as recorded in the three first Evangelists, is thrown into this form; and how many of his words have in this shape passed over as “faithful sayings” upon the lips of men; and so doing, have fulfilled a necessary condition of the proverb, whereof we shall have presently to speak.

But not urging this testimony any further,—a testimony too august to be lightly used, or employed merely to swell the testimonies of men—least of all, men of such “uncircumcised lips” as, with all their genius, were more than one of those whom I have named,—and appealing only to the latter, I shall be justified, I feel, in affirming that[6] whether we listen to those single voices which make a silence for themselves, and are heard through the centuries and their ages, or to that great universal voice of humanity, which is wiser even than these (for it is these, with all else which is worthy to be heard added to them), there is here a subject, which those whose judgments should go very far with us have not accounted unworthy of their serious regard.

And I am sure if we bestow on them ourselves even a moderate share of attention, we shall be ready to set our own seal to the judgment of wiser men that have preceded us here. For, indeed, what a body of popular good sense and good feeling, as we shall then perceive, is contained in the better, which is also the more numerous, portion of them; what a sense of natural equity, what a spirit of kindness breathes out from many of them; what prudent rules for the management of life, what shrewd wisdom, which though not of this world, is most truly for it, what frugality, what patience, what perseverance, what manly independence, are continually inculcated by them. What a fine knowledge of the human heart do many of them display; what useful, and not always obvious, hints do they offer on many most important points, as on the choice of companions, the bringing up of children, the bearing of prosperity and adversity, the restraint of all immoderate expectations. And they take a yet higher range than this; they have their ethics, their theology, their views of man in his highest relations of all,[7] as man with his fellow man, and man with his Maker. Be these always correct or not, and I should be very far from affirming that they always are so, the student of humanity, he who because he is a man counts nothing human to be alien to him, can never without wilfully foregoing an important document, and one which would have helped him often in his studies, altogether neglect or pass them by.
Shortness, sense, salt.

But what, it may be asked, before we proceed further, is a proverb? Nothing is harder than a definition. While on the one hand there is for the most part no easier task than to detect a fault or flaw in the definitions of those who have gone before us, nothing on the other is more difficult than to propose one of our own, which shall not also present a vulnerable side. Some one has said that these three things go to the constituting of a proverb, shortness, sense, and salt. In brief pointed sayings of this kind, the second of the qualities enumerated here, namely sense, is sometimes sacrificed to alliteration. I would not affirm that it is so here: for the words are not ill spoken, though they are very far from satisfying the rigorous requirements of a definition, as will be seen when we consider what the writer intended by his three esses, which it is not hard to understand. The proverb, he would say, must have shortness; it must be succinct, utterable in a breath. It must have sense, not being, that is, the mere small talk of conversation, slight and trivial, else it would[8] perish as soon as born, no one taking the trouble to keep it alive. It must have salt, that is, besides its good sense, it must in its manner and outward form be pointed and pungent, having a sting in it, a barb which shall not suffer it to drop lightly from the memory.[2] Yet, regarded as a definition, this of the triple s fails, as I have said; it indeed errs both in defect and excess.
Proverbs will be concise.

Thus in demanding shortness, it errs in excess. It is indeed quite certain that a good proverb will be short, as short, that is, as is compatible with the full and forcible conveying of that which it intends. Brevity, “the soul of wit,” will be eminently the soul of a proverb’s wit; it will contain, according to Fuller’s definition, “much matter decocted into few words.” Oftentimes it will consist of two, three, or four, and these sometimes monosyllabic, words. Thus Extremes meet;—Right wrongs no man;—Forewarned, forearmed;—with a thousand more.[3] But still shortness is only a relative term, and it would perhaps be more [9]accurate to say that a proverb must be concise, cut down, that is, to the fewest possible words; condensed, quintessential wisdom. [4] But that, if only it fulfil this condition of being as short as possible, it need not be absolutely very short, there are sufficient examples to prove. Thus Freytag has admitted the following, which indeed hovers on the confines of the fable, into his great collection of Arabic proverbs: They said to the camel-bird, [i. e., the ostrich,] “Carry:” it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a bird.’ They said, “Fly;” it answered,‘I cannot, for I am a camel.’ This could not be shorter, yet, as compared with the greater number of proverbs, is not short. [5] Even so the sense and salt, which are ascribed to the proverb as other of its necessary conditions, can hardly be said to be such; seeing that flat, saltless proverbs, though comparatively rare, there certainly [10]are; while yet, be it remembered, we are not considering now what are the ornaments of a good proverb, but the essential marks of all.

And then moreover it errs in defect; for it has plainly omitted one quality of the proverb, and that the most essential of all—I mean popularity, acceptance and adoption on the part of the people. Without this popularity, without these suffrages and this consent of the many, no saying, however brief, however wise, however seasoned with salt, however worthy on all these accounts to have become a proverb, however fulfilling all other its conditions, can yet be esteemed as such. This popularity, omitted in that enumeration of the essential notes of the proverb, is yet the only one whose presence is absolutely necessary, whose absence is fatal to the claims of any saying to be regarded as such.
Aphorisms not proverbs.

Those, however, who have occupied themselves with the making of collections of proverbs have sometimes failed to realize this to themselves with sufficient clearness, or at any rate have not kept it always before them; and thus it has come to pass, that many collections include whatever brief sayings their gatherers have anywhere met with, which to them have appeared keenly, or wisely, or wittily spoken; [6] while yet a multitude of these [11]have never received their adoption into the great family of proverbs, or their rights of citizenship therein: inasmuch as they have never passed into general recognition and currency, have no claim to this title, however just a claim they may have on other grounds to our admiration and honour. For instance, this word of Goethe’s, “A man need not be an architect to live in an house,” seems to me to have every essential of a proverb, saving only that it has not passed over upon the lips of men. It is a saying of manifold application; an universal law is knit up in a particular example; I mean that gracious law in the distribution of blessing, which does not limit our use and enjoyment of things by our understanding of them, but continually makes the enjoyment much wider than the knowledge; so that it is not required that one be a botanist to have pleasure in a rose, nor a critic to delight in Paradise Lost, nor a theologian to taste all the blessings of Christian faith, nor, as he expresses it, an architect to live in an house. And here is an inimitable saying of Schiller’s: “Heaven and earth fight in vain against a dunce;” yet it is not a proverb, because his alone; although abundantly[12] worthy to have become such; [7] moving as it does in the same line with, though far superior to, the Chinese proverb, which itself also is good: One has never so much need of his wit, as when he has to do with a fool.

Or to take another example still more to the point. James Howell, a prolific English writer of the earlier half of the seventeenth century, one certainly meriting better than that almost entire oblivion into which his writings have fallen, occupied himself much with proverbs; and besides collecting those of others, he has himself set down “five hundred new sayings, which in tract of time may serve for proverbs to posterity.” As was to be expected, they have not so done; for it is not after this artificial method that such are born; yet many of these proverbs in expectation are expressed with sense and felicity; for example: “Pride is a flower that grows in the devil’s garden;” as again, the selfishness which characterizes too many proverbs is not ill reproduced in the following: “Burn not thy fingers to snuff another man’s candle;” and there is at any rate good theology in the following: “Faith is a great lady, and good works are her attendants;” and in this: “The poor are God’s receivers, and the angels are his auditors.” Yet for all this, it would be inaccurate to quote these as proverbs, (and their author himself, as we have [13]seen, did not do more than set them out as proverbs upon trial,) inasmuch as they have ............