"DON'T PROPHESY UNLESS YOU KNOW."
[To THE EDITOR OF TES " SPICTLTOR:]
SIE,—Wby does the Spectator speak of the phrase, "Don't
prophesy unless you know," as an old " saw " ? I cannot say that the false prophets of Israel may not have been thus warned, or when the wisdom of many was first expressed by the wit of one, in this form ; but I am not aware that it appears as an old saw in any language before Lowell put it into the mouth of Hosea Biglow. As he says elsewhere :—
" Though old the thought and oft exprest, 'Tis his at last who says it best."
Do not relegate the wit of the modern Hosea to the antiquity of an old saw. It may be indeed that the Yankee Idyll of
Mason and Slidell in which it is found (p. 243 of Houghton and Mifflin's edition of his poetical works), is not so familiar to English as to Yankee readers in connection with the lines :— " The Concord Road, for instance (I for one Most gingly allers call it John Bull's Run), The field of Lexinton, where England tried The fastest colors that she ever dyed."
The lines are :—
"When some wise rooster (men act jest that way) Stands to 't that moonrise is the break of day
My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 'tis to crow,— Don't never prophesy—ouless you know."
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