essence. It is to be suspected that the Adventures
of Don Quixote de la Mancha would have
made rather a sorry figure in literary history if
Cervantes had, by some accident, left out the
Licentiate and the Windmill; but what if he
had not put in Don Quixote? What, if that
celebrated scene in Sterue, which has made the
person and name of the author familiar to many
thousands who buy engravings, but who do not
read the Sentimental Journey—the episode in
the shop—had dropped out at press? What,
if Walpole had fancied he could do without the
helmet in his Otranto?

There are some parts of some wholes with
which the case stands differently. There are
some things which we could bear patiently to
see tampered with by a judicious hand. We
should never object, on our own part, to dates
without stones, to oysters without shells (cæteris
paribus), or to shrimps without cuticles.

But these are quite the exceptions, we take
it. The rule is just the other way. The goose-
pie without the goose would never eat so
toothsomely. Duck without stuffing would make
an epicure take out his pocket-handkerchief,
and forget that he was a man, though the duck
might be a duck for all that. Completeness is
decidedly a beauty to be aimed at in these cases
and in similar ones. The human eye is a little
given to the love of perfect things, as well as,
be it added, to a dislike of things imperfect in
any of their more important elements.

The public is not unreasonably exacting in its
requirements from authors, actors, and cooks.
But it is always somewhat better pleased and
satisfied when the goods supplied are, to borrow
the commercial jargon, as per invoice. The
public is a pretty good paymaster, and it
prefers, if possible, to see its "money's worth."

It is not invariably that the public does.

In milder phrase, these matters do not
uniformly realise the expectations which were
formed of them.

It was by the purest accident that some
proverbs have fallen in our way. The editor of
a late Book of Proverbs happened unknowingly
to let a large number of them drop on
his way to the printer's, and it was our excessive
good fortune to pick up the same.

We are aware that treasure-trove may be
claimed by somebody or other, perhaps it may
be, by Royalty, but in this instance we have no
intention of surrendering a fraction. For the
satisfaction of the editor, however, we propose
to favour him with a glimpse or two of our
highly valuable discovery, that he may feel
comfortably sure that our two thousand foundlings
ought to have gone into the "most complete
collection in the language," and were left out
only by a very singular fatality.

The Reverend John Ward, vicar of Stratford-
on-Avon, when there were old men there who
might have seen and known Shakespeare, has
left behind him, among other good things, the
best definition of a proverb we can find
anywhere.

"Six things," says he, "are required to a
proverb. It should be—1. Short; 2. Plain;
3. Common; 4. Figurative; 5. Ancient; 6.
True."

What we are going to point out almost
directly cannot well fail to exercise a tantalising
influence on the editor we have in our eye, and
we are sorry that it should be so. We shall
not, however, push our advantage beyond
moderate limits. We shall exhibit no unbecoming
glee. We shall content ourselves with proving
that our treasure-trove ought to have gone to
the printer's—his printer's—with the rest, and
that it was his fault that it did not, not ours.
Bis vincit, qui convincit.

Besides, the bare enumeration of what we
have got would occupy about fifty pages, which
is forty-five more than there are to spare. We
understated rather than overstated, when we
mentioned roughly two thousand, and we find
ourselves in the position of those persons who
are called upon to select from their materials
for approbation a few specimens of surpassing
choiceness.

The partiality which we have cherished from
the commencement of our proprietorship for
these waifs is almost of a parental intensity, and
has led us on to a feeling that we would scarcely
exchange them for all the rest in the editor's
richly furnished volume. Proverbs come
ordinarily by, straightforwardly by, uprightly by,
would not possess the same charm, the same
worth.

They have been ours long, and we have been
of two minds up to the present moment whether
or no we would suffer common eyes even so
much as to peep at them. Once passed from our
hands, they will be written out, we foresee
plainly, on the margins of their copies by men
we know not.

We shall proceed, then, to give those who
are interested a general and cursory idea of the
capital sort of thing this Proverb Dictionary
might have been, had not the editor had the
unhappiness to which we have alluded:

    Anglica gens,
    Optima flens,
    Pessima ridens.

"Merry England" does not mean, we are told
now (rather late in the day!), jolly England,
but pleasant, cheerful ditto. It is as much as
to say, we are a pleasant cheerful race, not at
all fond of grumbling, ready to take things as
they come, and clever at making out sermons
from stones, with the remainder of the quotation,
of course, into the bargain.

But the proverb, what is to become of that, if
these are our virtues, or rather but a taste of
them?

The proverb is short, plain, common
(formerly), figurative, and ancient. In all these
points it complies with Mr. Ward's requirements.
Shall it be said that it is not true as
well?

Not so true, perhaps, as a proverb should be.
The reason is obvious. It is not  a thorough-bred
proverb. It has epigram blood in it. The