Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. (Ham. i. 3.)

As a woodcock to mine own springe; I am killed by mine own treachery. (Ib. v. 2.)

1643. Joyeuse comme souris en graine.

Sleepest thou or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn,

And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
Thy sheep shall take no harm. (Lear, iii. 5.)

1644. Il a beaucoup de grillons en la teste.

Faith thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.

1645. Elle a son Cardinall.

(Mer. Wiv. ii. 1.)

When the brown wench lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal. (Hen. VIII. iii. 2.)

1646. Il est fourni du fil est d'esquille.

1647. Chevalier de Cornevaille.

1648. Angleterre le Paradis des femmes le pourgatoire de valetts l'enfer de chevaux.

1649. Le mal an entre en nageant.

He that has a little tiny wit,

With heigh, ho, the wind and rain,

Must make content with his fortunes fit,

For the rain it raineth every day.

(See Lear, iii. 1, 2, 3, where it seems as if the 'foul weather' is meant to be typical of the evil days which had fallen on Lear.)

1650. Qui a la fievre au mois de May le rest de l'an vit sain et gay.

1651. Fol a vint cinque carratts.

1652. Celuy a bon gage du chatte, qui en tien la peau. One that will play the devil with you, and may catch your hide, and you alone.

I'll smoke your skin coat an' I catch you right. (John, ii. 1.)

17 Misprint for crickets.

1653. Il entend autant comme truye en especes.

1654. Nul soulas humaine sans helas. (No human solace without woe-alas!).

Sorrow would solace. (2 H. VI. ii. 2.)

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,

But one thing to rejoice and solace in.

And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!

O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!

(Rom. Jul. iv. 5.)

1655. Il n'est pas en seureté qui ne meschoit onques. (He is not safe who never falls.)

Be cheerful, wipe thine eyes;

Some falls are means the happier to rise. (Cymb. iv. 2.)

His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;

For then, and not till then, he felt himself,

And found the blessedness of being little.

(Hen. VIII. iv. 2; ib. iii. 2, 222-225, &c.)

For some further references to the above entries see
Appendix K.

Τ. Σ.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

LYLY'S PROVERBS COMPARED WITH HEYWOOD'S AND WITH THOSE NOTED IN THE 'PROMUS' AND USED IN THE PLAYS.

THERE are upwards of three hundred and eighty proverbs used by Lyly in his Euphues. Of these only the eight following proverbs have been found also in Heywood's collection, and none of the eight are in the Promus nor in the Plays:

To stand as if he had a flea in his ear.

To give an inch and take an ell.

It is an ill wool that will not take a dye.

Prove your friend with the touchstone.

When the fox preaches, beware of your geese.

A burnt child dreads the fire.

To catch a hare with a taber.

A new broom sweeps clean.

There are about fifteen other proverbs or sayings in Euphues which are made the subject of notes in the Promus and quoted in the Plays:

Euphues thought . . . by wit to obtain some conquest and .. laid reason in water, being too salt for his taste. (Comp. Promus, No. 693.) Like wax, apt to receive any form. (Comp. Promus, No. 832.) Sweetest fruit turneth to sharpest vinegar. (Comp. Promus, No. 571.) The cammocke the more it is bowed the better it is.

(Comp. Promus, No. 500.) Cherries be fulsome when they be through ripe, because they be plenty, and books be stale when they be printed in that they be common. (Comp. Promus, No. 149.)

If your lordship with your little finger do but hold me up by the chynne, I shall swimme.-Epistle Dedicatory.

(Comp. Promus, No. 473.)

Himself knoweth the price of corn, not by the market folks, but by his own foote. (Comp. Promus, No. 642.)

Green rushes are for strangers. (Comp. Promus, No. 118.)
Thou shalt come out of a warm sun into God's blessing.

(Comp. Promus, No. 661.)

If these are compared with the Promus entries, it will be seen that there is hardly an instance in which the entry is exactly like the original; and in the last example the proverb is actually inverted by Bacon, and appears thus: 'Out of God's blessing into the warm sun;' and this is the form in which it is also introduced in Lear, ii. 2.

The following eleven proverbs or sayings from Lyly's Euphues are also to be found in the Plays, though not in the Promus :The weakest to the wall. (Rom. Jul. i. 1.)

The greatest serpent in the greenest grass. (Ib. iii. 2.)

Fire from a flint. (2 H. VI. iii. 2; L. L. L. iv. 2.)
Comparisons are odious. (M. Ado, iii. 5.)

(Tam. Sh. ii. 1; M. Ado, ii. 1.)

(Rom. Jul. ii 4.)
(1 Hen. VI. iii. 2.)

Sour meat, sour sauce.
Delays breed dangers.
The fly that playeth with the fire is singed.
IIe that touches pitch is defiled. (2 Hen. VI. ii. 1; M. Ado, iii. 3.)

(Mer. Ven. ii. 9.)

Hence it appears that out of upwards of three hundred and eighty English proverbs used by Lyly, only about nineteen are used in the Plays, although the rest of the three hundred and eighty were equally popular, equally 'in everybody's mouth,' and for the most part as wise and as pithy as the two hundred proverbs from Heywood's epigrams which Bacon notes and Shakespeare quotes.

It is reasonable to suppose that Bacon would not wish to draw too freely from so well-known and fashionable a book as Euphues. And when he repeats any saying from its pages, it is, as has been said, almost always with a change in the meaning, yet it is interesting to compare the Promus entries with the turns of speech and metaphors used by Lyly. We see how true is Mr. Spedding's remark, that there is little in Bacon's writings that is absolutely original; the originality is in his manner of applying