e the Number in Effecte of all
the Proverbes in the English Tunge, 1561." There are more editions
of this little volume than Warton has noticed. There is some humour
in his narrative, but his metre and his ribaldry are heavy taxes on
our curiosity.

[34] The whole of Tusser's "Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie,"
1580, was composed in quaint couplets, long remembered by the
peasantry for their homely worldly wisdom. One, constructed for the
bakehouse, runs thus:--

"New bread is a drivell (waste);
Much crust is as evil."

Another for the dairymaid assures her--

"Good dairie doth pleasure;
Ill dairie spends treasure."

Another might rival any lesson of thrift:--

"Where nothing will last,
Spare such as thou hast."

[35] Townshend's Historical Collections, p. 283.

[36] It was published in 1616: the writer only catches at some
verbal expressions--as, for instance:--

The vulgar proverb runs, "The more the merrier."

The cross,--"Not so! one hand is enough in a purse."

The proverb, "It is a great way to the bottom of the sea."

The cross,--"Not so! it is but a stone's cast."

The proverb, "The pride of the rich makes the labours of the poor."

The cross,--"Not so! the labours of the poor make the pride of the
rich."

The proverb, "He runs far who never turns."

The cross,--"Not so! he may break his neck in a short course."

[37] It has been suggested that this whimsical amusement has been
lately revived, to a certain degree, in the _acting of charades_
among juvenile parties.

[38] Now the punning motto of a noble family.

[39] At the ROYAL INSTITUTION there is a fine copy of Polydore
Vergil's "Adagia," with his other work, curious in its day, _De
Inventoribus Rerum_, printed by Frobenius, in 1521. The _wood-cuts_
of this edition seem to me to be executed with inimitable delicacy,
resembling a pencilling which Raphael might have envied.

[40] Since the appearance of the present article, several collections
of PROVERBS have been attempted. A little unpretending volume,
entitled "Select Proverbs of all Nations, with _Notes_ and
_Comments_, by Thomas Fielding, 1824," is not ill arranged; an
excellent book for popular reading. The editor of a recent
miscellaneous compilation, "The Treasury of Knowledge," has