presses any decided opinion has "quelque chose de metrique, ou de mesure." So as even so bare-faced a truism as "Of two evils choose the least," (superfluous reason, and no rhyme at all!) is not without its secret poetic charm. How much vain hesitation has it not cut short!

So that if Cogan and Chapone had not been made poetical by the gods, but only brief-

Sometimes indeed our old friend the Proverb gets too much clipt in his course of circulation: as in the case of that very important business to all Englishmen, a Cold—" Stuff a cold AND STARVE A FEVER," has been grievously misconstrued, so as to bring on the fever it was meant to prevent.

Certainly Dr. Johnson (who could hit hard too) not only did not always drive the nail home, but made it a nail of wax, which Fuller truly says you can't drive at all. "These sorrowful meditations," the Doctor says of Prince Rasselas, “fastened on his mind; he passed four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves; and was awakened to more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid, who had broken a porcelain cup, remark that what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.''

But perhaps this was a Maid of Honour. If so, however, it proves that Maids of Honour of Rasselas' court did not talk like those of George the Second's. Witness jolly Mary Bellenden's letters to Lady Suffolk.

Swift has a fashionable dialogue almost made up of vulgar

adages, which I should have thought the Beaux and Belles left to the Mary Bellendens and Country Squires of his day

"Grounding their fat faiths on old country proverbs." Nor do I see any trace of it in the comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, &c.*

* I find in my

Complete Correspondent," which seems begotten by Dr. Johnson on Miss Seward, the following advice about Proverbs. "STYLE. Vulgarity in language is a proof either of a mean education, or of associating with low company. Coarse Proverbial expressions furnish such with their choicest flowers of rhetoric. Instead of saying, 'Necessity compelled,' such an one would say, "Needs must when the devil drives.' Such vulgar aphorisms ought especially to be rejected as border upon profaneness. A good writer would not say, 'It was all through you it happened,' but 'It happened through your inattention,'” &c.

This elegance of style however does not always mend the matter; as we read in Boswell that Dr. Johnson, having set the company laughing by saying of some lady in the good English so natural to him, "She's good at bottom," tried to make them grave again by, "What's the laugh for? I say the woman is fundamentally good."

The following is one of Punch's jokes; I do not know if true of the author referred to-not true, I should suppose, of the class to which he belongs, (except as regards the foolish and vulgar use of French)-but very true of the Hammersmith education, of which my complete Letterwriter-Correspondent, I mean-is an exponent.

DESULTORY REFLECTIONS.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

INIQUITOUS intercourses contaminate proper habits.

One individual may pilfer a quadruped, where another may not cast his eyes over the boundary of a field.

Erasmus says that the Proverb is " a nonnullis Græcorum," thus defined, λογος ωφελιμος εν τῷ βίῳ, εν μετρια παρακρύψει πολυ το χρησιμον ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῳ.” The definition, it might seem at first, rather of a Fable, or Parable, than a Proverb. But, beside that the titles of many fables do become proverbs"Fox and Grapes," "Dog in Manger," &c., the title including the whole signification, (like those "Sentences of the Seven,”") -so many of our best proverbs are little whole fables in themselves; as when we say, "The Fat sow knows not what the Lean one thinks," &c.

We are fantastic, histrionic creatures; having so much of the fool, loving a mixture of the lie, loving to get our fellowcreatures into our scrapes and make them play our parts-the Ass of our dulness, the Fox of our cunning, and so on-in whose several natures those of our Neighbours, as we think, come to a climax. Certainly, swollen Wealth is well enacted by the fat Sow reclining in her sty, as a Dowager in an opera-box, serenely unconscious of all her kindred's leanness without. The phrase "rolling in wealth" too suggests the same fable.

In the absence of the feline race, the mice give themselves up to various pastimes.

Feathered bipeds of advanced age are not to be entrapped with the outer husks of corn.

Casualties will take place in the most excellently conducted family circles.

More confectioners than are absolutely necessary are apt to ruin the potage.-LENNOX's Lacon.

Indeed, is not every Metaphor (without which we cannot speak five words) in some sort a Fable-one thing spoken of under the likeness of another? And how easy (if need were) it is to dramatize, for instance, Bacon's figure of discovering the depth, not by looking on the surface ever so long, but beginning to sound it!

And are these Fables so fabulous after all? If beasts do not really rise to the level on which we amuse ourselves by putting them, we have an easy way of really sinking to theirs. It is no fable surely that Circe bodily transformed the captives of Sensuality into apes, hogs, and goats; as Cunning, Hypocrisy, and Rapacity, graft us with the sharp noses, sidelong eyes, and stealthy gait, of wolves, hyænas, foxes, and serpents; sometimes, as in old fable too, the mis-features and foul expressions of two baser animal passions-as lust and cunning for instance, with perhaps cruelty beside-conforming man into a double or triple monster, more hideous than any single beast. On the other hand, our more generous dispositions determine. outwardly into the large aspect of the lion, or the horse's speaking eye and inspired nostril. "There are innumerable animals to which man may degrade his image, inward and outward; only a few to which he can properly (and that in the Affections only) level it: but it is an ideal and invisible type to which he must erect it."

"Such kind of parabolical wisdom," says Bacon, "was much in use in ancient times, as by the Fables of Æsop, and

the brief Sentences of the Seven, may appear. And the cause was, for that it was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was more subtle or sharp than the vulgar in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtlety of conceit; and as Hieroglyphics were before letters, so Parables were before arguments."

We cannot doubt that Christianity itself made way by means of such Parables as never were uttered before or after. Imagine (be it with reverence) that Jeremy Bentham had had the promulgation of it!

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And as this figurative teaching was best for simple people, even now," adds Bacon, "such Parables do retain much life and vigour, because Reason cannot be so sensible, nor example so fit." Next to the Bible parables, I believe John Bunyan remains the most effective preacher, among the poor, to this day.

Nor is it only simple matters for simple people that admit such illustration.* Again, Bacon says, "It is a rule that

it.

* Fable might be made to exemplify the syllogism, but not to illustrate The Lion swore he would eat all flesh that came in his way. One day he set his paw on a Polecat: the Polecat pleaded that he was small, ill-flavoured, &c. ; but the Lion said, 'I have sworn to eat all flesh that came in my way you are flesh come in my way; therefore I will eat you.'" The syllogism is proved: but the speakers do not illustrate, but obscure it, but because it is a matter of understanding, of which no animal but man is the representative. Your Lion, noble beast as he is, is only to be trusted with an Enthymeme. One sees this fault in the