ual collection of favourite ones, which we ourselves
must form. The experience of life will throw a perpetual freshness over
these short and simple texts; every day may furnish a new commentary;
and we may grow old, and find novelty in proverbs by their perpetual
application.

There are, perhaps, about twenty thousand proverbs among the nations of
Europe: many of these have spread in their common intercourse; many are
borrowed from the ancients, chiefly the Greeks, who themselves largely
took them from the eastern nations. Our own proverbs are too often
deficient in that elegance and ingenuity which are often found in the
Spanish and the Italian. Proverbs frequently enliven conversation, or
enter into the business of life in those countries, without any feeling
of vulgarity being associated with them: they are too numerous, too
witty, and too wise to cease to please by their poignancy and their
aptitude. I have heard them fall from the lips of men of letters and of
statesmen. When recently the disorderly state of the manufacturers of
Manchester menaced an insurrection, a profound Italian politician
observed to me, that it was not of a nature to alarm a great nation; for
that the remedy was at hand, in the proverb of the Lazzaroni of Naples,
_Meta consiglio, meta esempio, meta denaro!_ "Half advice, half example,
half money!" The result confirmed the truth of the proverb, which, had
it been known at the time, might have quieted the honest fears of a
great part of the nation.

Proverbs have ceased to be studied or employed in conversation since
the time we have derived our knowledge from books; but in a
philosophical age they appear to offer infinite subjects for speculative
curiosity. Originating in various eras, these memorials of manners, of
events, and of modes of thinking, for historical as well as for moral
purposes, still retain a strong hold on our attention. The collected
knowledge of successive ages, and of different people, must always enter
into some part of our own! Truth and nature can never be obsolete.

Proverbs embrace the wide sphere of human existence, they take all the
colours of life, they are often exquisite strokes of genius, they
delight by their airy sarcasm or their caustic satire, the luxuriance of
their humour, the playfulness of their turn, and even by the elegance of
their imagery, and the tenderness of their sentiment. They give a deep
insight into domestic life, and open for us the heart