Scottish Proverbs, Collected and Arranged

I >< 4# V444f^4t >444<i N^f4^| >4f4ii ;>4444i fi iJljEXLiBR ^-- a/- # §A SCOTTISH PROVERBS, Scottish Proverbs. COLLECTED AND ARRANGED ANDREW HENDERSON. NEW EDITION, WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES AND A GLOSSARY, JAMES DONALD, F.R.G.S,, EDITOR OF ' ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ' ENGLISH DICTIONARY,' ' HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' ETC. LONDON: WILLIAM TEGG S: CO., PANCRAS LANE CHEAPSIDE. I 876. 12 i(^ PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. THIS edition of Henderson's Proverbs contains the whole of Henderson's Collection, without diminution or addition. The arrangement has been improved by alphabetising the entries under each heading, and explanatory notes, many of which are o taken from Kelly, are added to such proverbs as seemed CO ^ to call for them. Prefixed to the original edition was an Introductory Essay by the poet Motherwell. This, (fi which the writer himself characterized as prolix, is here ^. presented considerably abridged. is^ J. D. Q 410749 CONTENTS. Age - viii PREFACE. IT is so long since a collection of onr national proverbs, of similar extent to the present, has been given to the public of Scotland, that we believed it might have been welcomed by our countrymen, although the formality of a preface, bespeaking their kind attention to its merits, had been dispensed with. Deferring, however, to the v/ishes of the ingenious and laborious author,—who, in the matter of books, as well as other things, objects to any violent departure from established usage,—the following preliminary observations have been drawn up, which the reader may or may not peruse^ just as he has a mind. We are modest enough to think that in either case his loss or gain will not be much ; for in truth our pretensions to being Well seene In wittie riddles, and in wise soothsayes, are exceedingly moderate. " The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation," says Lord Bacon, " are discovered in their proverbs ;" and this profound though hackneyed observation never received a better exemplification than a patient survey of the contents of the present volume will afford to the study of national characteristics. Few countries can lay claim to a more abundant store of these pithy sayings t han our own ; and no people, at one time, were more attached V < X PREFACE. to the use of these significant and figurative lacouisms than Scotsmen. To a certain extent, all seemed to think in proverbs, and to prefer the same medium for expression, whether in writing or in conversation. Alluding to the esteem in which they were held at the beginning of last century, Kelly thus expresses himself : "Among others, the Scots are wonderfully given to this Way of Speaking ; and, as the consequence of that, abound with Proverbs, many of v/hich are very expressive, quick, and home to the Purpose. And indeed, this Humour prevails universally over the whole nation, especially among the better sort of the Community, none of whom will discourse with you any considerable time, but he will confirm every assertion and observation with a Scottish Proverb." Leaving out the speciality noticed by our learned author, his remarks in other respects hold good till the present day. But fashions in literature are as fluctua- ting as they are in the minor departments of taste ; and we much fear that the day of proverbs, " among the better sort of the community," has in a sense drawn to a close. Within the last century. Time's ploughshare has cut a deep and a long furrow, and proverbs, if not torn up by the roots, have to a certain extent been earthed from sight. Their use by writers on factitious manners and subjects of taste has been condemned as vulgar and unfashionable, and as it is always easier for the multitude to adopt opinions than to form them for themselves, the sentiments of even superficial thinkers find many willing followers. Our present system of education, and what, for want of a more precise term, we call the spirit of the age, are hostile to the oral enunciation of these ancient sentences of wisdom and worldly prudence. But although the shifting currents of fashion and taste have sought new channels, we do not anticipate a final extinction of apothegmatic knowledge. Fortunately, it is indestructible as language itself. PREFACE. and when the present changes in the moral and intellectual aspect of society have run their appointed course, the sententious saws of antecedent centuries will again stud with their epigram- matic brilliancy written and colloquial discourse. One law which we never should lose sight of, is well expressed by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his book of Political and Polemical Aphoiisms. " Whoso desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of that is past ; for the World hath ever been in a circular Revolution : Whatsoever is now was heretofore, and things past or present are no other than such as shall be again. Redit orbis in oii'eni.'''' There is no surer sign of the oral knowledge of a people being on the wane, than the attempt to secure it from oblivion by collecting its fragments and printing them in books. Whenever either the National songs, the popular tales, or prudential maxims of a country are curiously and diligently gathered, and transferred to another ark of safety than that of the living voice, it may be safely inferred that changes in the character and habits of feeling and of thinking, of the people themselves, are in progress deemed inimical to their longer preservation in a pure, accurate, and authentic form. Betwixt man and oblivion there is a perpetual warfare. Whether we look upon him as an isolated individual, or part of one great family, still the solitary exertions of the individual, or the combined efforts of the whole are directed to this one grand object—perpetuity of remembrance. Not more assiduously does the patient Dutchman fortify himself against the heavy swell of the vast Atlantic than does one age strive to transmit to another an unimpaired mental inheritance. Without any exaggeration of expression, or absurdity in philo- sophical reasoning, this eager, active, and undying longing to be remembered may be designated the principle of life itself, as it — PREFACE. is of all action in life. To the working of this great principle, every great invention for the transmission of knowledge from age to age may be safely and satisfactorily traced. For these reasons, much of the regret we feel that there have been so few collectors of proverbs amongst us is greatly diminished. It is a sign that their oral existence was not deemed to be in a precarious state, and that to ensure their preservation, it was not considered necessary (if we may be allowed the expression) to mn77imify them into books, and to swaddle them up in sheets of learned com^mentary and illustration. Our first collection, so far as we have been enabled to discover, takes its date only from the era of the Reformation, According to Mackenzie—a writer, however, whose authority is by no means of the highest order when uncorroborated by other evidence James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, made a collection of Scottish Proverbs. This statement is given on the report of Dempster, a writer whose accuracy is also frequently called in*******question by those versant in Scotch literature. Assuming for the present, and in the absence of direct proof to the contrary, that the first of our parremiographers was Archbishop Beaton, the next in order of time, as to authorship, though a contemporary, was also a churchman, but of the Reformed faith, Mr. David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline. It is worthy of remark, that divines have been the most assiduous cultivators of this subordinate branch of literature, both in England and Scotland. In Scotland our ministers seem to have had a most extraordinary relish for these quaint and homely saws. Ferguson was in his day distinguished for his inveterate love of them ; and at a subsequent period, Zachary Boyd, Rector PREFACE. of Glasgow University, has, in his " Last Battell of the Soule,'* given quite a cento of common proverbialisms. * '' * Of Ferguson, the historian of Knox speaks with a partiality not unmerited. He was a native of Dundee, and though not a graduate of a college, he was very far from being illiterate, and was much admired for the quickness of his wit and his good taste, as well as for his piety. While other leaders of the Reformation were busied cultivating the literature of Greece and Rome, Ferguson was equally assiduous in polishing the ver- nacular dialect ; for which service, a tribute, in Latin verses, was paid to him by John Davidson, one of the regents of St. Andrews. " Nor was the improvement of our native tongue,"" says M'Crie, *' neglected at that time. David Ferguson, minister of Dunferm- line, was celebrated for his attention to this branch of composition. the He had not enjoyed advantages of a university education ; but, possessing a good taste and lively fancy, was very successful in refining and enriching the Scottish language by his discourses and writings." ****** Ferguson died upon the 23rd August, 1593. Of his collection of " Scots Proverbs," which even in the time of Kelly (1721) was esteemed old and scarce, it has not been our good fortune to meet with an early impression, or even to ascertain the exact dates of all the earlier editions. But in the account given of Ferguson by his son-in-law, John Row, minister of Camock, in his MS. history, we have the following passage, from which it appears that the first edition of the proverbs was printed in 1642.

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