With all this, I would not of course in the least deny that immoral proverbs, and only too many of them, exist. For if they are, as we have recognised them to be, the genuine transcript of what is stirring in the hearts of men, then, since there is cowardice, untruth, selfishness, unholiness, profaneness there, how should these be wanting here? The world is not so consummate an hypocrite as the entire absence of all immoral proverbs would imply. There will be merely selfish ones, as our own: Every one for himself, and God for us all; or as this Dutch: Self's the man;* or more shamelessly cynical still, as the French: Better a grape for me, than two figs for thee;† or again, such as proclaim a doubt and disbelief in the existence of any high moral integrity anywhere, as Every man has his price; or assume that poor men can scarcely be honest, as It is hard for an empty sack to stand straight; or take it for granted that every man would cheat every other if he could, as the French: Count after your father; or, if they do not actually

speak good of the covetous," yet assume it possible that a blessing can wait on that which a wicked covetousness has heaped together, as the Spanish: Blessed is the son, whose father went to the devil; or find cloaks and apologies for sin, as

toi.

* Zelf is de Man.

J'aime mieux un raisin pour moi que deux figues pour

Comptez après votre père. Compare the Spanish: Entre dos amigos un notario y dos testigos.

the German: Once is never; * or such as would imply that the evil of a sin lay not in its sinfulness, but in the outward disgrace annexed to it, as the Italian: A sin concealed is half forgiven.+ Or again there will be proverbs dastardly and base, as the Spanish maxim of caution, which advises to Draw the snake from its hole by another man's hand; to put, that is, another, and it may be for your own profit, to the peril from which you shrink yourself;-or more dastardly still, "scoundrel maxims," an old English poet has called them; as for instance, that one which is acted on only too often: One must howl with the wolves; in other words, when a general cry is raised against any, it is safest to join it, lest one be supposed to sympathise with its object; to howl with the wolves, if one would not be hunted by them. In the whole circle of proverbs I know no baser, nor more dastardly than this. And yet who will say that he has never traced in himself the cowardly temptation to obey it? Besides these there will be, of which I shall spare you any examples, proverbs wanton and impure, and not merely proverbs thus earthly and sensual, but devilish; such as some of

* Einmal, keinmal. This proverb was turned to such bad uses, that a German divine thought it necessary to write a treatise against it. There exist indeed several old works in German with such titles as the following, Ungodly Proverbs and their Refutation.

+ Peccato celato, mezzo perdonato.

Badly turned into a rhyming pentameter:

Consonus esto lupis, cum quibus esse cupis.

those Italian on revenge which I quoted in my third lecture.

But for all this these immoral proverbs, rank weeds among the wholesome corn, are comparatively rare. In the minority with all people, they are immeasurably in the minority with most. The fact is not a little worthy of our note. Surely there lies in it a solemn testimony, that however men may and do in their conduct continually violate the rule of right, yet these violations are ever felt to be such, are inwardly confessed not to be the law of man's life, but the transgressions of the law; and thus, stricken as with a secret shame, and paying an unconscious homage to the majesty of goodness, they do not presume to raise themselves into maxims, nor, for all the frequency with which they may be repeated, pretend to claim recognition as abiding standards of action.

As the sphere in which the proverb moves is no imaginary world, but that actual and often very homely world which is round us and about us; as it does not float in the clouds, but sets its feet firmly on this common earth of ours from which itself once grew, being occupied with present needs and every-day cares, it is only natural that the proverbs having reference to money should be numerous; and in the main it would be well if the practice of the world rose to the height of its convictions as expressed in these. Frugality is connected with so many virtues—at least, its contrary makes so many impossible—that the numerous

.*

proverbial maxims inculcating this, than which none perhaps are more frequent on the lips of men, must be regarded as belonging to the better order ;* especially when taken with the check of others, which forbid this frugality from degenerating into a sordid and dishonourable parsimony; such, I mean, as our own: The groat is ill saved which shames its master. In how many the conviction speaks out that the hastily-gotten will hardly be the honestly-gotten, that "he who makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent," as when the Spaniards say: He who will be rich in a year, at the halfyear they hang him;t in how many others, the confidence that the ill-won will also be the ill-spent,‡ that he who shuts up unlawful gain in his storehouses, is shutting up a fire that will one day destroy them. Very solemn and weighty in this sense is the German proverb: The unrighteous penny corrupts the righteous pound;§ and the Spanish, too, is striking: That which is another's always yearns for its lord; it yearns, that is, to be gone and get to its true owner. In how many the conviction is expressed that this mammon, which more than anything else men are tempted

* There are very few inculcating an opposite lesson: this however is one: Spend, and God will send; which Howell glosses well; "Yes, a bag and a wallet."

+ Quien en un año quiere ser rico, al medio le ahorcan. Male parta male dilabuntur.-Wie gewonnen, so zer

ronnen.

§ Ungerechter Pfennig verzehrt gerechten Thaler. Lo ageno siempre pia por su dueño.

to think God does not concern Himself about, is yet given and taken away by Him according to the laws of his righteousness; given sometimes to his enemies and for their greater punishment, that under its fatal influence they may grow worse and worse, for The more the carle riches, he wretches; but oftener withdrawn, because no due acknowledgment of Him was made in its use; as when the Gerinan proverb declares: Charity gives itself rich; covetousness hoards itself poor;* and the Danish: Give alms, that thy children may not ask them; and the Rabbis, with a yet deeper significance: Alms are the salt of riches; the true antiseptic, which as such shall prevent them from themselves corrupting, and from corrupting those that have them; which shall hinder them from developing a gerin of corruption, such as shall in the end involve in one destruction them and their owners.†

* Der Geiz sammlet sich arm, die Milde giebt sich reich. In the sense of the latter half of this proverb, we say, Drawn wells are seldom dry; though this word is capable of very far wider application.

†There is one remarkable Latin proverb on the moral cowardliness which it is the character of riches to generate, saying more briefly the same which Wordsworth said when he proclaimed

"that riches are akin

To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death;”

it is this: Timidus Plutus; and has sometimes suggested to me the question whether he might not have had it in his mind when he composed his great sonnet in prospect of the invasion:

"These times touch monied worldlings with dismay;"