Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.

Cambridgeshire to Creditors have

Cambridgeshire camels.
I look upon this as a nickname, groundlessly fastened on this country men, perhaps because the three first letters are the same in Cambridge and camel. I doubt whether it had any respect to the fen-men stalking upon their stilts, who then, in the apparent length of their legs, do something resemble that beast. Fuller says, a camel is used proverbially, to signify an awkward, ungain animal; and as scholars are often rude in their deportment, it is presumed that the town’s-men of Cambridge might be called camels.—R.

Cambridgeshire oaks.
Cantabrigia petit æquales, or æqualia. That is (as Dr. Fuller expounds it), either in respect of their commons, all of the same mess have equal share; or in respect of extraordinaries they are all [Greek], club alike; or in respect of degree, all of the same degree are fellows well met. The same degree levels, although of different age.—R.

Can a mill go with the water that’s past?

Can a mouse fall in love with a cat?

Can Jack an Ape be merry, when his clog is at his heel? C.

Can you make a pipe of a pig’s tail?

Canny Newcastle.
“Canny, in the Northern dialect, means fine, neat, handsome, &c.”—R. See Brockett’s N. C. Glossary, 1825, p. 37. In Scotland it is understood in a different sense, however.

Can’t I be your friend, but I must be your fool too?

Can’t you hit the door? CL.

Canterbury is the higher rack, but Winchester is the better manger. CL.
“W. Edington, Bishop of Winchester, was the author of this expression, who made this the reason of his refusal to be removed to Canterbury, though chosen thereunto. Indeed, though Canterbury be graced with an higher honour, the revenues of Winchester are greater. It is applicable to such who prefer a wealthy privacy before a less profitable dignity.”—R. Of course, this has ceased to be true. William de Edindon was Bishop of Winchester, 1346–66.

Canterbury was, London is, and York shall be.
W. Perkins, Collected Works, 1618, p. 468. Comp. Lincoln.

Capons were at first but chickens.

Care he hath, that children will keep.
How the Goode Wif, &c., in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, i.

Care not, and that will prevent horns.

Care not would have it.

Care will kill a cat. CL.
Taylor, the water-poet, in his Motto, 1621: and Wither’s Fair Virtue, 1622, sig. O 4. “Care clammed the cat.”—Sir G. C. Lewis’s Herefordshire Glossary, p. 126. Ray observes, “And yet a cat hath nine lives. Cura facit canos.”

Careless shepherds make many a feast for the wolf.

Care’s no cure.
Cuidao nao he saber. Port.—R.

Carleton warlers. Leicestershire.
So denominated, according to Burton [Hist, of Leicestersh., 1622], from their harsh and rattling mode of speech.—R.

Carry-coals.
An old bye-name for a collier:

Carry your knife even between the paring and the apple.

Cast no dirt into the well that gives you water.

Cast not out thy foul water till thou hast clean.

Cast not the helve after the hatchet.

Cast not thy cradle over thy head.

Cast your cap at the moon. CL.

Cast your staff into the air, and it will fall upon its root.

Cat after kind good mouse hunt. HE.
Letter by F. A. touching the quarrel between Arthur Hall and Melch. Mallerie in 1575–6, repr. of ed. 1580 in Misc. Antiq. Anglic. 1816, p. 93. “For neuer yet was good Cat out of kinde.”—Gascoigne’s Aduentures of Master F. I. (Works, by Hazlitt, i. 483). The phrase occurs in the interlude of Nice Wanton, 1560; and in the History of Jacob and Esau, 1568, we hare—“Cat after kind will sweet milk lap.”

Catch not at the shadow and lose the substance.

Catch that catch may.

Cats eat what hussies spare.

Cats hide their claws.

Censure and scandal are not the same.

’Ch was bore at Taunton Dean; where should I be bore else? Somersetshire.
That is a parcel of ground round about Taunton, very pleasant and populous (containing many parishes), and so fruitful, to use their own phrase, with the zun and zoil alone, that it needs no manuring at all. The peasantry therein are as rude as rich, and so highly conceited of their own country, that they conceive it a disparagement to be born in any other place.—R.

Chains of gold are stronger than chains of iron.

Chance is a dicer.

Change is no robbery. CL.

Change not a clout / till May be out.

Change of fortune is the lot of life.

Change of pasture maketh fat calves. HE.
Wilkins’ Miseries of Enforced Marriage, 1607 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ix. 474).

Change of women makes bald knaves. C.

Changing of words is the lighting of hearts.

Charity and pride have different aims, yet both feed the poor.

Charity begins at home first. CL.
Self-love is the measure of our love to our neighbour. Many sentences occur in the ancient Greek and Latin poets to this purpose; as, Omnes sibi meliùs esse malunt quam alteri.—Terent. Andr. Proximus sum egomet mihi.—Ibid. [Greek], &c. v. Erasm. Adag. Fa buono à te et tuoi, e poi à gli altri, se tu puoi. Ital. [Greek].—R.

Charity excuseth not cheating.

Charon waits for all.

Charre-folks are never paid enough. F.
That is, give them what you will, they are never contented.—R.

Chatting to chiding is not worth a chewet. HE.

Cheapside is the best garden. R. 1670.
A former London saying.

Cheat me in the price, but not in the goods.

Cheek by jowl.
Dekker’s Knight’s Coniuring, 1607, repr. 1842, p. 20.

Cheshire chief of men.
It seems the Chestrians have formerly been renowned for their valour. V. Fuller.—R.

Chickens feed capons.
i.e., As I understand it, chickens come to be capons, and capons were first chickens.

Chickens now-a-days cram the cock.

Children and fools cannot lie. C.
New Help to Disc., 1721, p. 135. “The Dutch proverb hath it thus: You are not to expect truth from any one but children, or persons drunk or mad. In vino veritas, we know. Enfans et fols sons devins. Fr.”—R.
In Lyly’s Endimion, 1591, Master Constable says: “You know, neighbours, ’tis an old said saw, Children and fooles speake true.”

Children and fools have merry lives.

Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.

Children are poor men’s riches.

Children have wide ears and long tongues.

Children learn to creep ere they can go. HE.

Children suck the mother when they are young and the father when grown up.

Children to bed and the goose to the fire.
“I take it to mean that when the children are in bed, and the work done, the adults of the household are junketing. “The goose hangs high” is a common phrase for mirth and pasting, and indeed I remember being told by a Chinese scholar at Shanghai that the Chinese talk of being “with the pig” when they mean to express festivity. If he had known Elia, I should have thought it too good to be true—but he didn’t—and was doubtless honest.”—R. H. Vose.

Child’s pig, but father’s bacon.
Parents usually tell their children, This pig or this lamb is thine; but when they come to be grown up and sold, parents themselves take the money for them.—R.

Choke up, child, the churchyard’s nigh.

Choler hates a counsellor.

Choose a horse in Smithfield, and a serving-man in Paul’s.
“A man must not make choice of 3 things in 3 places. / Of a wife in Westminster, Of a servant in Paules, Of a horse in Smithfield / lest he choose a queane, a knave, or a jade.”—Robson’s Choice of Change, 1585 (Triplicitie of Poetrie, pt. ii. No. 4).
“Falst.Where’s Bardolph?
Page.He’s gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse.
Falst.I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield; if I could get me a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.”—Henry IV., part ii. act i. sc. 2.
This part of the present note was communicated to me by my excellent friend, the late Mr. H. Pyne.
“To conclude, they [the school-girls] learn nothing there befitting Gentlewomen, but onely to be so gentle at last, as commonly they run away with the first Serving-man or younger Brother makes love unto them: when their parents finde (to their cost) that all their cost was cast away, and their Husbands after a while find too, how to that old saying of choosing a Horse in Smithfield, and a Serving-man in Paul’s, you might well add the choosing a wife out of one of these [village Schools], and you shall be fitted all alike.”—Flecknoe’s Enigmatical Characters, 1658, p. 45. As to the great antiquity of Smithfield as a place for the sale of horses, see Fitzstephen’s Account of London. (Antiq. Repert., 1807, i. 245.) See also an entry in Pepys under December 4, 1668. This proverb is apt to remind us of Cruikshank’s Adventures of a Gentleman in search of a horse, 1857.

Choose a horse made, and a wife to make. H.

Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye.

Choose for yourself, and use for yourself. CL.

Choose not a woman nor linen cloth by a candle.
Booke of Meery Riddles, 1629, No. 18.

Choose not an house near an inn, or in a corner. H.

Choose thy company before thy drink. CL.

Christmas cometh but once a year. C.
Tusser’s Husbandry, 1601, p. 24. Wither’s Fair Virtue, 1622, sig. O 4. Probably the original form. But in my Faiths and Folklore, 1905, v. Christmas, we find a more recent and ample version. Compare Bounce Buckram, supra.

City gates stand open to the bad as well as the good.

Civility costs nothing.
Biretta in mano non face mai danno. Ital.
No hay cosa que menos cuesta, ni valgo mas barato que los buenos comedimentos.—Span.