Few men takes his ADVICE who talks a great deal.

And no wonder: for “he who knows but little, presently outs with it.” And, though silence is not necessarily, not in itself a proof of good judgment, excessive talkativeness shows a want of it. The following is an old Grecian adage, translated:—“Tongue! whither goest thou? To build a city and then to destroy it!” signifying, says Erasmus, that the tongue affords great blessings to mankind, and that the same member becomes a cause of dreadful mischief! Our English poet, George Wither, who wrote in 1634, observes in his emblems,

No heart can think to what strange ends,
The tongue’s unruly motion tends.

In vain does he ask ADVICE who will not follow it.

“Few things,” says Dr. Johnson, “are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice!”

Well BEGUN is half done.

This ancient proverb is found in Horace; and there is one in Italian like it. The BEGINNING only is hard and costs dear.

We often have great reluctance in setting about an appointed task, the apparent difficulty continuing to increase with delay; but once engaged in it, we proceed with pleasure until it is completed. It is the case in those “trifles which make the sum of human beings.” The young scholar wants courage to set about his lesson in time; the friend, or man of business, to answer a letter or acquire some point of useful information: and to go higher in the application of the maxim, it tells us, that to begin to do good leads on to continued improvement. So the Italians say, BEGIN your web, and God will supply you with thread! Akin to this, are two valuable proverbs, which chide us for indecision and needless hesitation, Procrastination is the thief of time: and

To do what’s right make no delay,
For life and time slide fast away.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Persons of similar manners are fond of associating together; but the bad particularly: indeed, when their characters are known, they cannot easily get other companions. Hence it is a saying,—

Tell me with whom thou goest,
And I will tell thou what thou doest!

These who sleep with dogs rise up with fleas. It is bad company that brings men to the gallows. Burckhardt in his collection of Arabic proverbs, gives the following remarkable one:—He who introduces himself between the onion and the peel, goes not forth without its strong smell. But on the other hand we have in the Spanish, Associate with the GOOD, and thou shall be esteemed one of them.

One Bird in the Hand is worth two in the Bush; and the Italians say, Better have an egg to-day than an hen to-morrow. But this carries the idea too far. Ray, quotes another, which is much better.—

He that leaves certainty, and sticks to chance,
When fools pipe, he may dance.

This adage, like the fable of the dog and the shadow, advises us not to part with what we actually possess, on the distant prospect of some doubtful or uncertain profit. It seems a kind of madness in any one who has a competence, or is exercising with fair success any business or profession, to hazard all in pursuit of some new scheme, which, however promising in appearance, may fail and involve him in ruin. And yet how many are the victims of this! How many instances in our own country do the records of the year 1825 supply.