FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6491, 16 December 1881, Page 6

FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.

(Cbamton* Journal.)

“ Apophthegm*/’ asys Sir Francis Bacon, “are certainly of excellent nee. They are muerouet eorkorum, pointed apeesbes. Cicero prettily calls them saliuae, salt-pits; that yon may extract salt out of, and sprinkle it where you wilL They eerre to be interlaced in continued speech. They serve to be nested upon oocasidne of themselves.” In our own days, no Icm than in “the spacious days of great Elizabeth,” the excellent um of apophthegms is known and turned duly to account. Our daily talk is full of these “pointed speeches,” derived from a hundred different sources, and very often used without any knowledge of their context, or any thought as to their authors. Who ever thinks, for example, when he cheerily reminds a friend that “ Christmas comes but once a year, and when it comes it brings good cheer," that he is quoting a modification of the words of old Ikuscr ? The homely philosopher who bids you “ Look era you learn” who warns os that “A stone that is rolling can gather no moss,” and to whom we owe whatever comfort is to be had from the reflection that “It is an ill wind turns none to good.” The hackneyed phrase, “ Neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.” favours little of the style of the “ majestic ” Drrden; it is taken, nevertheless, from his epilogue to the “ Duke of Chase.” It is probable, however, that many of these sayings were simply adaptations by the authors from popular existing proverbs. It is Dryden also who tells ns that “ None but the brsve deserve too fair,” that “Sweet is pleasure after pain,” that it is well to “ Take the good the gods provide,” and who remind* us, in hi* prologue to “Love for Love,” that. •*Men are bat children of a larger growth.” “ When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war”—a line, by the way, which is generally misquoted —is from “ Alexander the Great,” written by the mad dramatist Nat Lee. “ Plato, thou reasoned well,” is in the “ Cato "of Addison; and from hun also oome the well-worn phrases, “ Bides in the whirlwind and directs the storm,” and “ Still 1 seem to tread on classic ground." It is in Pom's “Odyssey” that the lino occurs, “ Welcome in coming, speed the parting Kest," varied in his translations from Horace , a change of “ parting ” into “ going.” As unfruitful source of popular quotations, Pape probably ranks next after Shakespeare, and like him, is often credited with the authorship of lines which he never wrote. To Pope, for example, has often been attributed the famous couplet—

Troo patriot* we; for. to it understood. Wo left oar country (or our country's good; yet this mi really composed by the notorious BemagkHs, as part of the prologue of a play performed by his fellow-conriots at Botany

The smooth end sonorous line,“Music hath ch«ms to soothe a ravage bmrt," which has •o often been tuoribed to Shakespeare, fora* the opening of Congreve 6 * “ Mourning Bride," the play in which occur* that famous daeorip* lion o! a temple which Dr Johnson onee do* dared to bo the finest poeti:al pawage he had •rer read—that he recollected none equal to it in Shake#peare. It i» from Congreve, too, that we have borrowed the somewhat terrify* iog couplet— , * Heaven toe ao rap Uk« love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned t

Upon the poet Young, many a loan hu been levied, without much if any aeknow* lodgement. From hit “Flight Thoughts" we get “ Procrastination is the thief of time $" “ Man want* but little, nor that little long i” “ All men think dl men mortal bal themielvee j" " We tale no note of time, but from ite low j" and many another familiar •eying. Grave judge#, and other* learned in the law, have contributed their quota, ae In duty bound, to the common dock of popular say* inge. It la Francis Bacon who speaks of mattera that “ Come home to men’s business and bosom," who lays down the axiom that' " Knowledge is power," and who utter* that solemn warning to enamoured Benedicks. “ He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune." We have the high an* thorite of the renowned Sir Id ward Coke for declaring that “ Corporation* have no sods," and that“ A man'* house is his castle." The expression, “An accident of en accident," is borrowed from Lord Thurlow. "The greatest happiness of the gwatest number," oooure in Bentham, but as au acknowledged from the learned Jurist Becoaria. To the “ Leviathan " Hobbes we owe thesege “Words ere wise men’s counter*; but the money of fools." It is John Selden who sug* gests that by throwing a straw into the alt you may see the way of the wind t and to hi# contemporary Oxenstiera ie doe in* dls. eovery, “ With how little wisdom thTwmS is govemsd." Mackintosh In* need the phrase, “A wise and masterly Inactivity."

M Tim schoolmaster is abroad," k from a - r —a by Lord Brougham. It does not mean that th* teacher k "abroad," in the ataae of being aa many seen to interpret the phiu« w that he is "abroad,” in lbs **n*« of brio* svsry where at work. In the familiar phre-j# “a delusion, a mockery, and a soar#,’ is • certain Biblical ring, which lias *om*Uma* led to its being quoted a* from on* or other of the Hebrew prophets; the words ar«, fo fad, an extract from the Judgment of tani Denman at the trial of O’Connell. Loogjbefore Mr Matthew Arnold lived and wrote, Dean Swift had sang the praise* of the "Two noblest things, sweetness and light.” it is Swift also who wrote that ” Censure i« the but a man py# to the public Ur being eminent} ” and who teli* us, in his " Tale of a Tab” that" Bread is the staff of life.” Out of mind as soon as out of sight,” corns* from the sonnets of Lord Brooks % and it was hk friend and contemporary, Sir Philip Sidney, who mned the phrase, •* My dear, my betterhall,” Humphry Gifford, a writer of the sixteenth century, has the following : — I eaaaot say the crow Is white. Bat needs mast rail » spade a spade, Btakerstsff, a playwright as seldom read as he is often quoted, is author of (ha prodsnt admonition that " Enough it se good a feast,” and of th® indisputable assertion that " One cannot hav* one's oak* and eat it too.” From Home’s "DougUa ” com.* the famous speech, “My name it Norral,** familiar to the readers of Bsftald’s once celebrated but now forgotten "Speaker;” and in the same play is found the consolatory assurance that "Virtue ts its own reward.” ’•The almighty dollar” com* to os terns the Atlantic from Washington Irving} and it was Beaumont and Fletcher who first taught ns to speak of "money ” as “the sinews of war. " How goes the enemy ?’’is a nnrerion often asked in th* " Dramatist ” of Beynolds j and " Pray, sir, what is your opinion of thing* W general?" is one of th* "catchwords’* of that impecunious sponger Jeremy Diddler. From old Chaucer we learn that « Mordre wol out," and that it it wise to "Makam virtu# of neremite,” It is he, too, who wrote, “Yet in our ashen cold is fire yroken,” a passage which the poet Gray mast, consciously or unconsciously, have had ia memory when he penned the celebrated line, "Even is our ashes live their wonted fire* ” ft Is Gray also who speaks of “ Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at tbs helms” of " Thought# that breathe, and word* that burn; ” who warn* us that "Favourite* have no frirndi,” that ** Where ignorance is bliss, ’tie folly to be arise.” It k the shy recluse Cowpe? who expresses hk opinion that "God made the country, and man made the town,” and who slags the praise of "cupa that chser but not inebriate.” The light-hearted Gay instruct® os that ” life is a jest, and all things show it; ” and it is part of hk cheerful philosophy that " While there’* life there’s hope.”

Foreign writers, moreover, have been mad# to contribute to oar stock of familiar quote' lions* “To encourage the others,” vu said by Voltaire, apropos to lb* capital sentence passed epos Admiral Byng. “To gild the pill,” i» probably borrowed from the lisa a Moliif*’* '‘Amphitryon n —L»uiguemr Jwpi* ter tail dot er la pilule. Wo leant from the witty Babelais that “ Appetite come* with eating,” asd that men noma times u Par Paai by robbing Peter»" asd tha old French fare* of Maitre Pierre Paiflin aeppliea m with Iha humorous expression, “Let oa raters to oar muttons." Asd taking thia a* s gentle reminder sot to stray beyond our proper limits, ws may fitly let it asm to dose oar liet of “familiar quotation*.”