Walter K. Kelly

How we apples swim!

So said the horsedung as it floated down the stream along with fruit.

"We hounds slew the hare," quoth the messan [lapdog].—Scotch.

"They came to shoe the horses of the pacha; the beetle then stretched out its leg" (Arab). We read in the Talmud that "All kinds of wood burn silently except thorns, which crackle and call out, 'We, too, are wood.'" "It was prettily devised of Æsop," says Lord Bacon; "the fly sat upon the axle of the chariot, and said, 'What a dust do I raise!'"

A' Stuarts are no sib to the king.—Scotch.

That is, not all who bear that name belong to the royal race of Stuarts. "There are fagots and fagots,"[392] as MoliÈre says. "It is some way from Peter to Peter" (Spanish).[393] Great is the difference between the terrible lion of the Atlas and the Cape lion, the most currish of enemies; but the distinction is not always borne in mind by the readers of hunting adventures in Africa. The traditional name of lion beguiles the imagination of the unwary. In like manner some people think that

"A book's a book, although there's nothing in it."

Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king's horses.

But asses deceive themselves. "He that is a donkey, and believes himself a deer, finds out his mistake at the leaping of the ditch" (Italian).[394] "Doctor Luther's shoes will not fit every village priest" (German).[395]

Many talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow.

Like Justice Shallow, who "talks," says Falstaff, "as familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the tiltyard, and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men." Southey, in his "Omniana," has applied this proverb to that numerous class of literary pretenders who quote and criticise flippantly works known to them only at second-hand. A conspicuous living example of this class is M. Ponsard, who, on the occasion of his reception into the French Academy, discoursed about Shakspeare, and talked of him as "the divine Williams," by way of evincing his proficiency in the language of the great dramatist whose works he disparaged.

The man on the dyke is always the best hurler.—Munster.

The looker-on is quite sure he could do better than the actual players. In Connaught, which is as renowned for its neck-or-nothing riders as Munster is for its vigorous hurlers, they have this parallel saying,—

The best horseman is always on his feet.

In the same sense the Dutch aver that "The best pilots stand on shore."[396]

In a calm sea every man is a pilot.

Every man can tame a shrew but he that hath her.

Bachelors' wives and maids' children are always well taught.

"He that has no wife chastises her well; he that has no children rears them well" (Italian).[397]

I ask your pardon, coach; I thought you were a wheelbarrow when I stumbled over you.—Irish.

An ironical apology for offence given to overweening vanity or pride.

The pride of the cobbler's dog, that took the wall of a wagon of hay, and was squeezed to death.

[392] Il y a fagots et fagots.