far goes
the penny as the penny's master. _Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura
subveniunt._ Pay the reckoning overnight and ye shall not be troubled in
the morning. If ready money be _mensura publica_, let every one cut his
coat according to his cloth. When his old suit is in the wane, let him
stay till that his money bring a new suit in the increase."[35]

Another instance of the use of proverbs among our statesmen occurs in a
manuscript letter of Sir Dudley Carlton, written in 1632, on the
impeachment of Lord Middlesex, who, he says, is "this day to plead his
own cause in the Exchequer-chamber, about an account of four-score
thousand pounds laid to his charge. How his lordship sped I know not,
but do remember well the French proverb, _Qui mange de l'oy du Roy
chiera une plume quarante ans apres_. 'Who eats of the king's goose,
will void a feather forty years after!'"

This was the era of proverbs with us; for then they were _spoken_ by all
ranks of society. The free use of trivial proverbs got them into
disrepute; and as the abuse of a thing raises a just opposition to its
practice, a slender wit affecting "a cross humour," published a little
volume of "Crossing of Proverbs, Cross-answers, and Cross-humours." He
pretends to contradict the most popular ones; but he has not always the
genius to strike at amusing paradoxes.[36]

Proverbs were long the favourites of our neighbours; in the splendid and
refined court of Louis the Fourteenth they gave rise to an odd
invention. They plotted comedies and even fantastical ballets from their
subjects. In these Curiosities of Literature I cannot pass by such
eccentric inventions unnoticed.

A COMEDY _of proverbs_ is described by the Duke de la Valliere, which
was performed in 1634 with prodigious success. He considers that this
comedy ought to be ranked among farces; but it is gay, well-written, and
curious for containing the best proverbs, which are happily introduced
in the dialogue.

A more extraordinary attempt was a BALLET _of proverbs_. Before the
opera was established in France, the ancient ballets formed the chief
amusement of the court, and Louis the Fourteenth himself joined with the
performers. The singular attempt of forming a pantomimical dance out of
proverbs is quite French; we have a "ballet des proverbes, danse par le
Roi, in 1654." At every proverb the scene changed, and adapted itself to
the subject. I shall give two or three of the _entrees_ that we may f