ght and number." Erasmus has pointed out some of these sources, in
the responses of oracles; the allegorical symbols of Pythagoras; the
verses of the poets; allusions to historical incidents; mythology and
apologue; and other recondite origins. Such dissimilar matters, coming
from all quarters, were melted down into this vast body of aphoristic
knowledge. Those "WORDS OF THE WISE and their DARK SAYINGS," as they are
distinguished in that large collection which bears the name of the great
Hebrew monarch, at length seem to have required commentaries; for what
else can we infer of the enigmatic wisdom of the sages, when the royal
paroemiographer classes among their studies, that of "_understanding a
proverb and the interpretation_?" This elevated notion of "the dark
sayings of the wise" accords with the bold conjecture of their origin
which the Stagyrite has thrown out, who considered them as the wrecks of
an ancient philosophy which had been lost to mankind by the fatal
revolutions of all human things, and that those had been saved from the
general ruin by their pithy elegance and their diminutive form; like
those marine shells found on the tops of mountains, the relics of the
Deluge! Even at a later period, the sage of Cheronea prized them among
the most solemn mysteries; and Plutarch has described them in a manner
which proverbs may even still merit: "Under the veil of these curious
sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy
have afterwards developed into so many volumes."

At the highest period of Grecian genius, the tragic and the comic poets
introduced into their dramas the proverbial style. St. Paul quotes a
line which still remains among the first exercises of our school-pens:--

Evil communications corrupt good manners.

It is a verse found in a fragment of Menander the comic poet:

[Greek: Phtheirousin hethe chresth' homiliai kakai].

As this verse is a proverb, and the apostle, and indeed the highest
authority, Jesus himself, consecrates the use of proverbs by their
occasional application, it is uncertain whether St. Paul quotes the
Grecian poet, or only repeats some popular adage. Proverbs were bright
shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers; and when Bentley, by a league of
superficial wits, was accused of pedantry for his use of some ancient
proverbs, the sturdy critic vindicated his taste by showing that Cicero
constantly introduced Greek proverbs into his writings,--that Sca