Index, and with other similar tools, our government
endeavours to consign the flock under
its charge to moral blindness. Whether the
literary eyes of the people really are put out,
I greatly doubt. The whirligig of time will
bring round its revenges.

ROLL ON!

THE ancient sage, in philosophic dreams,
    Beheld our planet from its orbit started;
The type of powers with which man's nature teems,
    For moral marvels mightier far imparted.

To move the world with levers of the mind,
    To wield the forces of resistless reason—
This is to raise and regulate mankind,
    To shape their year, and frame their every season.

The fruits of industry which once were reap'd
    With awkward toil, since thoughtfully amended,
At first were scanty; yet, in gamers heap'd,
    Growing in wealth, new stores to old appended.

There they lie treasured from the birth of Time,
    Bequeath'd by nations that have lived and perish'd;
Unharm'd and scathless through the hand of crime,
    By keen custodians sharply watched and cherish'd.

Meanwhile, the soil more skilfully prepared,
    Is lever-moved to catch the sun's full glory;
Which, with due mixture of soft humours shared,
    Will rear fresh crops, when Time is old and hoary.

And none can estimate their future worth,
    Piercing the veil that covers distant ages;
When we and ours shall slumber in the earth,
    Wiped and erased from Memory's faithless pages.

STRINGS OF PROVERBS.

WHEN a saying has passed into a national
proverb, it is regarded as having received the
"hall-mark" of the people, with respect to
its prudence or practical wisdom. Proverbs
deal only with realities, generally of the most
homely and every-day kind, and are always
supposed to comprise the most sage advice, or
the most broad worldly truth, within the least
possible compass.

Now, while we admit that proverbs are for
the most part true, and useful in their teaching,
and that they very often inculcate
excellent maxims, we must at the same time
enter our protest against the infallibility of
most of them. Numbers will be found, on
the least examination (which is seldom given
to them) to be one-sided truths; others,
inculcate an utterly selfish conduct, under the
guise of prudence or worldly wisdom; and
some of them are absolutely false, or only of
the narrowest application. The majority of
the proverbs, of all modern nations, originate
with the people, and with the humbler classes,
(we must except the Chinese and Arabic,
which are evidently the product of their
sages,) as witnessed by the homeliness of the
allusions, and the frequent vulgarity, but, in
all cases, the actual experience of life and its
ordinary occurrences with regard to men and
things. They are full of corn, with a
proportionate quantity of chaff and straw. Let us
no longer, therefore, take all these "sayings"
for granted; let us rather take them to
task a little, for their revision and our own
good.

Proverbs being the common property of all
mankind, and often to be traced to very
remote geographical sources, we shall observe
no national classification; but string a few
together now and then from Arabia and China,
from Spain, Italy, France, or England, just
as they may occur.

So, now to our first string.

"Honesty is the best policy." This is true in
the higher sense; but doubtful in the sense
usually intended. It is true as to the general
good, but not usually for the individual,
except in the long run. (We pass over the
obvious truth, that it is better policy to earn
a guinea than to steal one, because the proverb
has a far wider range of meaning than that.)
To be a "politic," clever fellow, a vast
deal more humouring of prejudices, errors,
and follies, is requisite, than at all assorts
with true honesty of character. If, however,
we regard this proverb only on its higher
moral ground, then, of course, we must at
once admit its truth. The reader will
probably be surprised, as we were, to find that it
comes from the Chinese, and will be found in
the translation of the novel of a "lu-Kiao-Li."

"A leap from a hedge is better than a good
man's prayer." (Spanish.) The leap (of a
robber) from his lurking-place, being
preferable to asking charity, and receiving a
blessing, ia one of those proverbs, the
impudent immorality of which is of a kind that
makes, it impossible to help laughing. Its
frank atrocity amounts to the ludicrous. It
is an old Spanish proverb, and occurs in
"Don Quixote "—of course in the mouth of
Sancho.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush" The extreme caution ridiculed by this
proverb is of a kind which one would hardly
have expected to be popular in a commercial
country. If this were acted upon, there
would be an end of trade and commerce, and
all capital would lie dead at the banker's—
as a bird who was held safe. The truth is,
our whole practice is of a directly opposite
kind. We regard a bird in the hand as worth
only a bird; and we know there is no chance
of making it worth two birds—not to speak
of the hope of a dozen—without letting it
out of the hand. Inasmuch, however, as the
proverb also means to exhort us not to give
up a good certainty for a tempting
uncertainty, we do most fully coincide in its
prudence and sound sense. It is identical with the
French, "Mieux vaut un 'tiens' que deux 'tu
l'auras,'"—one "take this" is better than two
"thou shalt have it;"—identical also with the
Italian: "E meglio un uovo oggi, che una
gallina domani;" an egg to-day is better
than a hen to-morrow. It owes its origin to