vin dolce_: "Beware of vinegar made of sweet wine;"
provoke not the rage of a patient man!

Among a people who had often witnessed their fine country devastated by
petty warfare, their notion of the military character was not usually
heroic. _Il soldato per far male e ben pagato_: "The soldier is well
paid for doing mischief." _Soldato, acqua, e fuoco, presto si fan
luoco_: "A soldier, fire, and water soon make room for themselves." But
in a poetical people, endowed with great sensibility, their proverbs
would sometimes be tender and fanciful. They paint the activity of
friendship, _Chi ha l'amor nel petto, ha lo sprone a i fianchi_: "Who
feels love in the breast, feels a spur in his limbs:" or its generous
passion, _Gli amici legono la borsa con un filo di ragnatelo_: "Friends
tie their purse with a cobweb's thread." They characterised the
universal lover by an elegant proverb--_Appicare il Maio ad ogn' uscio_:
"To hang every door with May;" alluding to the bough which in the
nights of May the country people are accustomed to plant before the door
of their mistress. If we turn to the French, we discover that the
military genius of France dictated the proverb _Maille a maille se fait
le haubergeon_: "Link by link is made the coat of mail;" and, _Tel coup
de langue est pire qu'un coup de lance_; "The tongue strikes deeper than
the lance;" and _Ce qui vient du tambour s'en retourne a la flute_;
"What comes by the tabor goes back with the pipe." _Point d'argent point
de Suisse_ has become proverbial, observes an Edinburgh Reviewer; a
striking expression, which, while French or Austrian gold predominated,
was justly used to characterise the illiberal and selfish policy of the
cantonal and federal governments of Switzerland, when it began to
degenerate from its moral patriotism. The ancient, perhaps the extinct,
spirit of Englishmen was once expressed by our proverb, "Better be the
head of a dog than the tail of a lion;" _i.e._, the first of the
yeomanry rather than the last of the gentry. A foreign philosopher might
have discovered our own ancient skill in archery among our proverbs; for
none but true toxophilites could have had such a proverb as, "I will
either make a shaft or a bolt of it!" signifying, says the author of
_Ivanhoe_, a determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken
of: the bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that
of the long-bow was called a shaft. These instances sufficient