vicious saying, " As well be hung for (stealing)
a sheep as a lamb."

"Eine Hand wäscht die andere;" one hand
washes the other. An extremely terse and
suggestive proverb, not easily reducible to
literal terms. One thought assists another;
one action, another; one event clears up
another. What one hand does wrong, the
other sets right; one thing excuses another;
self-love balances itself with itself.

"Out of the frying-pan into the fire.'' Those
who often get themselves into broils are very
likely to get burnt. The proverb expresses a
disagreeable and dangerous position to
perfection, where the only retreat is to something
worse.

"Much virtue in ' if.' " That is, there is
much depends on a qualifying term.
Sometimes the whole question turns upon it, or is
reduced to nothing, as expressed in the
old Swedish saying, " If no if had come
between, then had the old woman bitten the
bear "—instead of being eaten by him.

"What is sown in the snow comes up in the
thaw." (Swedish). It is a prudent thing to
begin in an ungenial and apparently premature
time, when you can foresee that you will
still be sure of the future. By these means
you will be in advance of all those who do not
see so far.

' Handsome is that handsome doth." A very
handsome and manly proverb. We believe it
is derived from the Spanish.

"Happy is the child whose father went to the
devil." From its quaint and graphic Romanism,
we should conjecture this proverb to
come from Spain. It smacks of the auto da
fé. The vices of a father may cause a revulsion
in the mind of a child; but, unfortunately,
we often see that the son goes the same way
as the father.

"His gown is full of holes; he can thrust his
hand out at any one of them." (Arabic.) There
is full freedom of action in poverty.

"In grief at having no house, she bought a
broomstick." (Arabic.) The slightest fancy
consoles some people for the loss of a great
reality. We may laugh at them, but, as
things go, they are happily constituted.

"When they came to shoe the Pasha's horses,
the beetle stretched out his leg." (Arabic.)
This is exquisite; we commend it to the
attention of Hans Christian Andersen.

"The clartier the cosier;" the dirtier the
warmer. This is a Scotch proverb, and might
equally well have been an Irish one. It is
one of the many instances which show that
proverbs (excepting those from the East)
are seldom derived from the wisdom of
educated people, but from the daily experience
of the vulgar,—not the less practically wise
on that account, when they really are wise.

"It's ill takin' the breeks off a Hielandman."
You cannot rob a man of " nothing." Do not
go to law with a pauper. The same meaning
lies in the Latin proverb, in Juvenal—" Vacuus
cantat coram latrone viator;" the man
with an empty purse sings (whistles) in
presence of the robber.

"You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear." This is the same as " washing the
blackamoor white." All the education in
the world will not change a strong original
nature, or law of nature; it may modify and
improve; but the inherent principle—the
raw material—will always remain the same.
"What's bred in the bone will come out in
the flesh."

"How you walk!—as the old crab said to
her daughter." This, and the " pot calling the
kettle black," is a modern version of the old
scriptural parable of the mote and the beam:
just as ' Look at home," is a modern
paraphrase of the saying of Solon, ????t ???????—
know thyself.

"Mach dich zum Schaf im Spass, bist du der
Wölfe Frass; " make yourself a sheep in jest,
and the wolf will eat you in earnest. Place
yourself in the power of a greedy man, a
tyrant, a bully, or a bitter satirist, in an
unguarded moment, and he is sure to take
advantage of it. " Do not play with edged
tools."

"Make hay while the sun shines." Manifestly
of English origin, and derived from the
climate; though in substance it is the same
as the Latin, " Carpe diem "—seize the
opportunity—a maxim of Epicurus, versified by
Horace.

"The devil was sick—the devil a monk would
be: the devil got well—the devil a monk was
he." The sick-bed resolutions, or hypocritical
vows while in calamity, of those who are
inherently wicked, are worthless.

"El sabio muda consejo; el nescio, no."
The wise man alters his mind—the fool never.
A dangerous saying, if literally taken, as it
seems to excuse vacillation and compromise.
But, rightly understood, it is an excellent
maxim. The wise man is able to alter his
mind (on conviction), the ignorant man is
not.

"Dry reeds still keep company with the fire."
(Arabic.) No chances of destruction prevent
some companionships; perhaps there is even
a fascination in it. One often wonders why
people live at the foot of a volcano, or in
towns subject to earthquakes.

"May her enviers stumble over her hair."
(Arabic.) A richly Oriental saying. May
the hair of the woman, who is pursued by
envy, grow to a luxuriance that shall
entangle the feet of her enemies; may
detractors be ruined by the increased success of
those whom they sought to injure.

"The camel has his projects; and the camel-
driver has his projects." (Arabic). The wishes
and intentions of the people are different from
those of their rulers—in all countries. The
consequences of this very ancient truth are
about to be developed in our own day, though
the final solution is not so near at hand.

"God bless those who pay visits—short ones."
(Arabic). A capital saying, though one would