PROVERB (OF., Fr. proverbc, from Lat. pro ver/Jill/1i, adage, from pro, before, for + rerbum, word). A short. sententious phrase or clause long current in common speech. The last phrase. 'long current in common speech,' serves to dif ferentiate the proverb from the multitude of happy expressions in literature which never be come permanently fixed in popular usage, "Pa tience on a monument" is a happy phrase. often quoted by literary men. but it is not a proverb. "A bird in the band is worth two in the bush" is a proverb. Another frequent characteristic of proverbs is alliteration or rhymes or rhyth mic balance. Thus, "Where there's a will there's a way" shows alliteration: of a feather flock together" shows both rhyme and rhythm; and "Out of sight out of mind" shows rhythmic balance.
Whence comes the proverb? Lord Russell suggests the apparent origin in the phrase the wit of one.' Some one gives apt expres sion to a general truth or to an apparent truth ; taken up by others, it spreads far and wide. Saint Jerome is said to have originated "To make a virtue of necessity." In sterne's •S'entimental Jourrr y occurs the most beautiful proverb. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." And it is assipied either to Sterne or to the Bible, where it does not occur. It is found in George Herbert's Jaculn Prudentam (1640), under the form, ''To a close-shorn sheep God gives wind by measure." Herbert clearly took it from the French. "Dieu inesure le froid a la brehis tondue" (sixteenth century). From this point the proverb may be followed back to Provencal and Latin; and we find, too, the Turkish "God makes a. nest for the blind bird." Sterne had come across the saying, clothed it in exquisite language, and made it immortal. As in this specific case, the proverb is made by nianv hands. Like the ballad and the fairy tale, it is impersonal; and, like them, it goes back to the remotest times. The age of proverb-making is the age of the folk-song. Tts frequent meta phor and alliteration suggest this. Later times remold what comes to them. Among nations far advanced in civilization new proverbs are rare. The press throws off phrases of a proverbial character, but they do not often become a part of our speech. They serve their purpose and then disappear. It is the old phrases that we em ploy, as those relative to sour grapes, the gift horse, the prophet honored elsewhere than at home, haste and waste, honesty and policy. Ex cept in certain eases, as in the examples just given, we do not usually quote proverbs at length, but. some phrase or word from them. With these remnants our speech and our very best literature are pervaded. Shakespeare, for ex ample, refers to two proverbs in the same scene of the Tempest (11. ii.) : liquor will make a eat speak," and "He must have a long spoon who must eat with the devil." As we have implied. all countries have their proverbs as well as their folk-songs. There is a rich mine in the East—Arabic. Persian, Hindu stani. Japanese, and Chinese. "Where the corpse is, there the vultures gather," for example, is an Indian proverb. Of ancient Hebrew proverbs, a whole book is extant. The language of Christ and the Evangelists is ornamented with them. They were turned to the highest spiritual uses in the Sermon on the Mount. Roman proverbs, often relating to husbandry, inculcate frugality, patience, and independence. Trench cites this against high farming: minus expedit qualm agrum optime colere" (Nothing pays less than over-cultivation). Italian proverbs are of various import, teaching now distrust and cyni cism, now subtle wisdom and plain-dealing. At
tention has frequently been called to the respect shown to the Devil in the Italian proverb; where as in the Teutonic proverb—l-lerman, Dutch, and Seandinavian—he is a ridiculous figure. The Gallie wit of French literature is curiously ab sent from the French proverb.
Proverbs appear in Anglo-Saxon poetry. espe cially in the gnomic verses. Tn length the gnomic verse proverbs vary from half a line to eight lines. Here are two Anglo-Saxon proverbs: "The words [fates] change not God," and "0 lythe [pleasant] it is on land to him whom his love constrains." At the Renaissance this fund of native philosophy was augmented by impor tation. Chaueer's Dame Partlet turns the Latin "Somnia ne cures" into "Ye do no fors of themes" (Heed not dreams). Tn the early part of the seventeenth century appeared two not able collections of proverbs, partly English and partly foreign—George Herbert's Jaeula Pru dentum (1640), and the volume added to James Howell's Lexicon Tetraglotton, published sepa rately in 1659, under the title "Proverbs or old Sayed Saws and Adages in English or the Saxon tongue, Italian, French, and Spanish; where unto the British [Welsh] for their great an tiquity and weight are added." Of all coun tries, Spain possesses the largest and best store of proverbs. Don Juan de Iriarte (eighteenth century) collected at least 24,000. Cervantes hardly exaggerated the employment of them among the peasants when he made them crowd thick into the mouth of Sancho Pa nza and come out haphazard. Even after admonished by Don Quixote, Sancho in the next sentence utters four: "In a plentiful house sapper is soon dressed;" "He that cuts does not deal;" "With the repique in hand the game is sure;" "Hc is no fool who can both spend and spare." As in England, the proverb in Spain was a part of popular poetry. The so-called Spanish copla (couplet) is a witty proverbial thrust.
There now remains the question of the origin of the similarity between proverbs in various countries. Have those resembling one another a common ancestry? "(toe swallow does not make a spring," is current in some form among many peoples. and was a proverb some two thou sand years ago. Have all the forms of this proverb a common parent? Such a question cannot be safely answered. All that can be done is to attempt to settle the date when a proverb appears in different countries. The tendency, of course, is to say that all forms derive from the oldest. In many cases the investigation leads to the East, and it is perfectly evident that the native proverbs of Europe have been enriched from that source. The media of dif fusion were the Bible, the Arabs in Spain, travel ers in the East, and mediaeval Latin literature. Still more easy is it to understand how proverbs have been exchanged by the peoples of Western Europe, and how Englishmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen have freely given and taken. In spite of all this, it must be remembered that men's minds work in common ways. That one swallow does not make the spring or summer is a natural observation. The thought may have been ex pressed by a hundred different men far apart in space and time. So, too, it is not probable that "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" derives from "God makes a nest for the blind bird." On the other hand, "Where the carrion is, there the eagles gather," seems to be a variant of the Eastern "Where the corpse is, there the vultures gather."