19 APRIL 1862, Page 22

SCOTTISH PROVERBS.*

No father would now follow the example of Lord Chesterfield, and solemnly warn his son that no well-bred man ever quotes proverbs. Ms lordship's precept is, if we remember rightly, coupled with an injunction against laughter, and, at any rate, belongs to a high-flown system of etiquette, which has vanished with the ruffles and the dignity of Sir Charles Grandison. Indifference to popular sayings has been succeeded by an almost affected fervour for rustic wit, and when a dean writes eulogies of proverbs, there is no danger that any one should hesitate to compromise his respectability by owning that he not only quotes, but collects wise saws. Mr. Hislop is obviously an enthusiastic collector. He has brought together five or six hundred &ottish aphorisms, and is so keenly alive both to the importance of his undertaking, and to his own deficiencies, that his modesty almost averts criticism. When any one says, "I may have done my work badly, but I have done my best," it is almost inhuman to reply, "You, no doubt, have done your best; but equally without doubt, you have done your work badly." Yet this, or something like this, is pretty nearly all the comment that can be made on Mr. Hislop's deprecatory preface. In stringing together a long list of proverbs he has done good service, but neither his notes nor his arrange- ment are commendable. In such a case it is best to follow the precept which bids us not "look a gift horse in the mouth," and try what use can be made of the gift even if the present be not .the best of its kind. An error itself sometimes suggests curious inquiries, and the intrusion into a collection of proverbs of sayings which do not belong to the class under which they are placed leads to the question, what is a proverb? When, for instance, we read that "virtue is above -all price," not even transmutation from plain English into the feeble dialect which passes for Scotch can lead a reader,to suppose that he has heard anything more than a common-place sentiment, while the assertion that "half a loaf is better than no bread," rings at once with the unmistakable proverbial sound. Two main characteristics mark true proverbs. The first is currency among the people ; the second the exhibition of a more or less general truth, under the form of a special example. "Everyone knows their own affairs best" is a true eaceigh remark, and one made sufficiently often to lay claim to popular aceeptation, but it is ot till the caution is put in the form That "nobody knows where the shoe pinches but the wearer," that a proverb is created. Cariosity has often been expressed as to the extent to which the proverbs of different nations differ, and Mr. Iiislop's book promised to throw some light on a point of consider- able importance in speculationsoa national character, for it would be difficult to conceive a more promising method for measuring the real diversities of national genius than a comparison between the saws awl reflections in which the popular mind has unconsciously drawn its own picture. To such an investigation the present list of Scotch proverbs contribute singularly little assistance. No doubt local touches may be found. That "Sunday wooing leads to rain" can - never have been the conviction of any but a Sabbath-keeping nation.

"You come of the McTak's and not of the MeGie's,"- "I would rather that my baunock burnt than that you turned it," are sayings which betray the land of their birth, and the sententious remark, that "women are good for something or for nothing," is a neat specimen of logical dichotomy- which must have been produced by a countryman of Hamilton's. But, as a general rule, the proverbial wisdom of Scotland is, in its expression and thought, exactly like the current wisdom of all other nations. Either Mr. Hislop has been unlucky in his selections, or else it may be presumed that proverbial philosophy consists just of that sort of easy shrewdness which is common to the people of all lands. What this wisdom is worth can be seen by examining any single group of proverbs. On no subject have the unknown sages, whose prudential counsels have passed from mouth to month, devoted more attention than to women and marriage. Here, as elsewhere, can be traced the curious law which limits female creativeness. Of the fifty or sixty proverbs relating to women scarcely one can even plausibly be supposed to have been invented by a woman, and almost all sound like the teaching of men who took but an unfavourable view of the other sex. "All maidens are good," says one moralist, "but where do the bad wives come from ?" "Because," adds another, with a somewhat enigmatical cynicism, "is a woman's reason," and • The Proverbs of Scotland. By Alexander inslop. Glasgow: Porte= and Hislop. a third warns all bachelors that "he who takes a wife takes a master." Almost the sole reflection which could have proceeded from a fetus- nine mouth is the plea that "wives should have their will while they live, because they make none when they die," arid this exhibits so much legal knowledge as to suggest a suspicion that it must, if in- vented by a woman, have been at least touched up by a male acquaint- ance. Still any one wishing to marry is not positively discouraged by the oracles. "Good or bad ; wives must be had" is the pithy re- mark forced by the strength of facts from even the sternest misogy- nists, and he who strives to regulate his love affairs by their utterances will find, like most of those who have consulted prophets, that he is as wise after hearing the last oracular response as he was before he heard the first. Though the sharp decisions of every-day common sense turns out in the end nearly as bewildering as the equivocal replies of superhuman wisdom, still it would he a great mistake to suppose that because proverbs do not supply certain guidance, they fail in many cases to exert considerable influence. In certain ages and among certain nations they hold a position which it is diffiCult fully to bring before the mind. The remarks of the seven sages are most of them neither more nor less than expressions of the ordinary prudential morality which has now grown so trite that men forget the time when it was fresh. "Call no one happy before he dies" is a sentiment which if made in slightly different phraseology would pass, and pass rightly, for the flattest of platitudes, but it was pro- found wisdom to the contemporaries of Herodotus. It rings as a key-note through the most perfect of Greek tragedies, and becomes in the hands of Aristotle the basis of a disquisition on the soul's immortality. The fate of this celebrated dictum illustrates the curious expansiveness of proverbs. Their force lies wholly in their application, and the words that in one age mean little meat times made the vehicle for the profoundest thoughts of the next. When Siinonides said that justice consisted in paying your debts, he could scarcely have foreseen that this very superficial account of honesty would be the text on which would be written the noblest account of justice which the ancient world has left. So entirely indeed is its application the essence of a proverb that in some cases the descrip- tion "all men's wisdom in one man's wit" turns out incorrect, because all men's wisdom has embodied itself in one man's folly. A perplexed logician, unable to expose a fallacy, cut the knot by his simple sta- ndar anthulando, and thus unknowingly 'blundered upon a solution of almost every difficulty which life presents, except the one problem which the dictum was meant to solve. The hold which proverbs have on nations at particular stages of their progress explains the source of their power over special classes. Though no well-bred man now fears to give his conversation a proverbial turn it- still remains true that saws and sayings have their fall weight only among the poorer classes of society. Mrs. Poyser -could have been found nowhere but in a farm-house. Gentlefolks appreciated her wit, but, neverthe- less, her humour was not the wit of gentlefolks. To men unused to generalization, proverbial examples form a real step towards abstract thought. Moreover, saws are to the half-educated what the Ca- tholic Verdict is to some theologians, and the decisions of so-called Common Sense to some metaphysicians. The propounder of a pro- verb feels, or fancies he feels, that his private wisdom is guaranteed by the general assent of all well-thinking persons. Tell your friend that he had better repair his house, and you have expressed your own opinion; say sententiously " a stitch in time saves nine," and you speak as the mouthpiece of universal experience. A dictum exercises another still weightier effect, which almost escapes analysis. Every one mast, we should conjecture, have felt at some period of exist- ence how much strength 19 lidded to resolutions through the possi- bility of summing them up in some terse sentence. It is very well to argue that the sentence Is but the sign, not the cause, of the reso- lution. Still, we have no hesitation in asserting that apophthegms do stimulate to action. They, as it were, drive the nail home. whoever doubts this examine honestly whether such a reflection as that "in all labour there is profit" has not at times driven him back to work, or whether he has not struggled more energetically with toil because he has chanced to remember that gui labored oral.