n which they stand." What should
we think of a people who had a proverb, that "He who gives blows is a
master, he who gives none is a dog?" We should instantly decide on the
mean and servile spirit of those who could repeat it; and such we find
to have been that of the Bengalese, to whom the degrading proverb
belongs, derived from the treatment they were used to receive from their
Mogul rulers, who answered the claims of their creditors by a vigorous
application of the whip! In some of the Hebrew proverbs we are struck by
the frequent allusions of that fugitive people to their own history. The
cruel oppression exercised by the ruling power, and the confidence in
their hope of change in the day of retribution, was delivered in this
Hebrew proverb--"When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes!" The
fond idolatry of their devotion to their ceremonial law, and to
everything connected with their sublime Theocracy, in their magnificent
Temple, is finely expressed by this proverb--"None ever took a stone out
of the Temple, but the dust did fly into his eyes." The Hebrew proverb
that "A fast for a dream, is as fire for stubble," which it kindles,
could only have been invented by a people whose superstitions attached a
holy mystery to fasts and dreams. They imagined that a religious fast
was propitious to a religious dream; or to obtain the interpretation of
one which had troubled their imagination. Peyssonel, who long resided
among the Turks, observes that their proverbs are full of sense,
ingenuity, and elegance, the surest test of the intellectual abilities
of any nation. He said this to correct the volatile opinion of De Tott,
who, to convey an idea of their stupid pride, quotes one of their
favourite adages, of which the truth and candour are admirable; "Riches
in the Indies, wit in Europe, and pomp among the Ottomans."

The Spaniards may appeal to their proverbs to show that they were a
high-minded and independent race. A Whiggish jealousy of the monarchical
power stamped itself on this ancient one, _Va el rey hasta do peude, y
no hasta do quiere_: "The king goes as far as he is able, not as far as
he desires." It must have been at a later period, when the national
genius became more subdued, and every Spaniard dreaded to find under his
own roof a spy or an informer, that another proverb arose, _Con el rey y
la inquisicion, chiton!_ "With the king and the Inquisition, hush!" The
gravity and taciturnity of the nation hav