e two high hills, one in Scotland and one in England; so near,
that what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other. If
a fog lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other; the mutual
sympathies of the two countries were hence deduced in a copious
dissertation, by Oswald Dyke, on what was called "The Union-proverb,"
which _local proverbs_ of our country Fuller has interspersed in his
"Worthies," and Ray and Grose have collected separately.

I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in
an opposition paper, where it appears that "Ministers pretend to make
their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering
the pressure, without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the
Italian proverb, _Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada_, 'To fit the
load on the journey:'" it is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers,
who, placing their packages at first but awkwardly on the backs of their
poor beasts, and seeing them ready to sink, cry out, "Never mind! we
must fit them better on the road!" I was gratified to discover, by the
present and some other modern instances, that the taste for proverbs was
reviving, and that we were returning to those sober times, when the
aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to the verbosity of
politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals!

There are domestic proverbs which originate in incidents known only to
the natives of their province. Italian literature is particularly rich
in these stores. The lively proverbial taste of that vivacious people
was transferred to their own authors; and when these allusions were
obscured by time, learned Italians, in their zeal for their national
literature, and in their national love of story-telling, have written
grave commentaries even on ludicrous, but popular tales, in which the
proverbs are said to have originated. They resemble the old facetious
_contes_, whose simplicity and humour still live in the pages of
Boccaccio, and are not forgotten in those of the Queen of Navarre.

The Italians apply a proverb to a person who while he is beaten, takes
the blows quietly:--

_Per beato ch' elle non furon pesche!_
Luckily they were not peaches!

And to threaten to give a man--

_Una pesca in un occhio._
A peach in the eye,

means to give him a thrashing. This proverb, it is said, originated in
the close of a certain droll adventure. The community of the Castle
Poggibonsi, proba