The office shows the man.
'Tis the place shows the man.
It tries his capacity, and shows what stuff he is made of. But it also forms the man; it teaches him (German)[734] if he has the faculty to be taught, so that it may be said with some truth, "To whom God gives an office he gives understanding also" (German).[735] "A great place strangely qualifies," saith Selden. "John Read was groom of the chamber to my lord of Kent. Attorney-General Roy being dead, some were saying, how would the king do for a fit man? 'Why, any man,' says John Read, 'may execute the place.' 'I warrant,' says my lord, 'thou thinkest thou understand'st enough to perform it.' 'Yes,' quoth John; 'let the king make me attorney, and I would fain see that man that durst tell me there's anything I understand not.'" The proverb at the head of this paragraph is literally translated from a Greek maxim, attributed by Sophocles to Solon, and to Bias by Aristotle.
He is a poor cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
And "He is a bad manager of honey" who does not help himself in the same way (French).[736] The rule applies to all who have the fingering of good things, whether in a public or a private capacity. "He who manages other people's wealth does not go supperless to bed" (Italian).[737] "All offices are greasy" (Dutch).[738] Something sticks to them. Wheels are greased to make them run smoothly, and in some countries it is found that what the Dutch call smear money may be applied to official palms with advantage to the operator. The French call this Graisser la patte À quelqu'un. "'Hast thou no money? then turn placeman,' said the court fool to his sovereign'" (German).[739] King James, we are told by L'Estrange, was once complaining of the leanness of his hunting horse. Archie, his fool, standing by, said to him, "If that be all, take no care; I'll teach your Majesty a way to raise his flesh presently; and if he be not as fat as ever he can wallow, you shall ride me." "I prithee, fool, how?" said the king. "Why, do but make him a bishop, and I'll warrant you," says Archie. A good deal of surreptitious finger-licking and fattening would be prevented if this truth were clearly understood, that "Office without pay [or with inadequate pay] makes thieves" (German).[740] "He cannot keep a good course who serves without reward" (Italian).[741]
A man gets little thanks for losing his own.
An excuse for taking the perquisites of office, however extortionate they may be.
It is the clerk that makes the justice.
The magistrate would often be wrong in his law if he were not kept right by the clerk. "The blood of the soldier makes the captain great" (Italian).[742]
For faut o' wise men fules sit on binks [benches].—Scotch.
"For want of good men they made my father alcalde" (Spanish).[743] We do not always see the right man in the right place.
Never deal with the man when you can deal with the master.
"It is better to have to do with God than with his saints"[744] is a French proverb, which Voltaire has fitted with a droll story. A king of Spain, he tells us, had promised to bestow relief upon the people of the country round Burgos, who had been ruined by war. They flocked to the palace, but the doorkeepers would not let them in except on condition of having part of what they should get. Having consented to this, the countrymen entered the royal hall, where their leader knelt at the monarch's feet and said, "I beseech your Royal Highness to command that every man of us here shall receive a hundred lashes." "An odd petition truly!" said the king. "Why do you ask for such a thing?" "Because," said the peasant, "your people insist on having the half of whatever you give us."
M. Quitard believes that the saints referred to in the French proverb are the "frost" or "vintage saints,"[745] so called because their festivals, which occur in April, are noted in the popular calendar as days on which frost is injurious to the young green crops and to vines. The husbandmen, whose fields and vineyards were injured by the inclemency of the weather, used to hold these saints responsible for the damage they ought to have prevented, and the reproaches addressed to them might very naturally take the form perpetuated in the proverb. This is the more probable as it is recorded in the ecclesiastical annals of Cahors and Rhodez that the angry agriculturists were in the habit of flogging the images of the frost saints, defacing their pictures, and otherwise maltreating them. Rabelais asserts, with mock gravity, that, in order to put an end to these scandalous irregularities, a bishop of Auxerre proposed to transfer the festivals of the frost saints to the dog days, and make the month of August change place with April.
A king's cheese goes half away in parings.
His revenues are half eaten up before they enter his coffers. Before Sully took the French finances in hand such was the system of plunder established by the farmers of the revenue, that the state realised only one-fifth of the gross amount of taxes imposed on the subjects; the other four-fifths were consumed by the financiers. Under such a wasteful system as this, or one in any degree like it, one might well say that
Kings' chaff is worth other men's corn.
The perquisites belonging to the king's service are better than the wages earned elsewhere.
The clerk wishes the priest to have a fat dish.—Gaelic.
