Evil comes to Follow truth

Vesti una colonna

e par una donna. Ital.—R.

Fair in the cradle, / foul on the saddle. CL.
Applicable to a donkey.

Fair is not fair, but that which pleaseth. H.
Stubbes’ Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, ed. Furnivall, p. 32; Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, act iv. sc. 1; Marston and Webster, Malcontent, 1604, v. 2; Dekker, Satiromastix, i. 204, &c., &c. Non e bello quel’ ch’ e bello, ma è bello quel che piace. Ital.—R.

Fair play’s a jewel; don’t pull my hair.

Fair words and foul play cheat both young and old.

Fair words and wicked deeds deceive wise men and fools. B. OF M. R.

Fair words break no bone,

but foul words many a one.

See Cotgrave v. Escorcher.

Fair words butter no parsnips. CL.
Buttered parsnips appear to have been an early dish.

Fair words fill not the belly, nor mind always.

Fair words hurt not the mouth. C.

Fair words make fools fain [glad]. HE.
Title of a ballad licensed to Thomas Colwell in 1565–6; Summoning of Every Man (circa 1530), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 117; Scogin’s Jests (1565), in Old English Jest Books, ii.; Paradyce of Daynty Deuyses, 1578, repr. 14; Marriage of Wit and Science (Shakesp. Soc. ed. p. 74), circa 1570. In a rare tract called An Answer in Action to a Portingal Pearle, 8^o, 1570, sign. A 5 verso, the writer says: “The Prouerbe is, ‘Faire workes make fooles faine or glad.’”—Douce’s paroles obligent les fols. Fr.

Fair words make me look to my purse. H.

Fair words slake wrath.
How the Goode Wif, &c., in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, i.; Booke of Meery Riddles, 1629, No. 97 (slightly differing).

Faith, I’m in a wood.
Rowlands’ Knave of Spades, 1612, repr. 112. Tantamount, of course, to an expression of perplexity.

Faith sees by the ears.

Fall back, fall edge.

Fame is a magnifying glass.

Fame is a thin shadow of eternity.

Fame is but the breath of the people.
Popularis aura.

Fame is in the keeping of the mob.

Fame, like a river, is narrowest at its source and broadest afar off.

Familiarity engendereth contempt.Compendious Treatise in Metre, &c., 1554, Preface (Hazlitt’s Fugitive Tracts, 1875, 1st Series).

Fancy flees afore the wind.

Fancy may bolt bran and think it flour.

Fancy may kill or cure.

Fancy surpasses beauty.

Far-fetched and dear-bought is good for ladies.
This is the title of a drama licensed for the press 22d July, 1566, but not at present known.

See also Lyly’s Euphues, 1579, repr. Arber, p. 93; Latimer’s Remains, 1845, p. 108; Stafford’s Examination, 1581 (repr. p. 106); Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie, 1589, p. 193; Tell Troths New Yeares Gift, 1593, repr. p. 6. “We … had hardly a mess of rather ripe peas out from Holland, which were dainties for ladies, they came so far, and cost so dear.” See Lysons’ E. of L., 1792, i. 28.

Far folks fare well, and fair children die.
Vache de loin a lait assez. Fr. People are apt to boast of the good and wealthy condition of their far-off friends, and to commend their dead children.—R.

Far from court, far from care. WALKER (1672).
“Dormit secure, cui non est functio curæ.”—Mediæval Latin.

Far from eye, far from heart, quoth Hendyng.
Reliq. Antiquæ, i. 114. This is the original, it seems, of the better-known saying, Out of sight, out of mind.

Far from thy kin cast thee,

wrath not thy neighbour next thee;

in a good corn country rest thee,

and sit down, Robin, and rest thee.

MS. Lansd. 762, temp. Hen. V. in Rel. Ant., i. 233.

Farewell and be hanged: friends must part.
The first part is in Sir Thomas More, a play, circa 1590, ed. Dyce, p. 52.

Farewell, field-fare!
“In Chaucer is a curious proverb: Farewel felde fare! [Farewell, fieldfare!] It has never been explained. It seems to mean much the same as Farewell and be hanged, or Farewell, without regret. May it not mean that, as the fieldfare flies north, and leaves England at the approach of summer, Englishmen see them depart without regret? There is a proverbial expression in P. Plowman, ed. Wright (p. 204): Farewel, Phippe, which seems to mean much the same. Phippe is short for Philip. The sense of the passage shews that, Farewel Phippe = the deuce cares. Wright misprints and for quod. His MS. has, Farewel, Phippe, quod Fauntelte.”—Note by the Rev. W. W. Skeat. In Notes and Queries for Feb. 20, 1869, W. P. P. writes: “Farewell feldefare. I rather wonder to find this in Tyrwhitt’s list of expressions not understood by him in his Chaucer Glossary. Even without reference to the contexts which he cites, it seems to me obvious that this is a valediction, probably proverbial, to anything which, like the wild and migratory fieldfare, has taken flight, and is not likely to be recovered. In the Romaunt of the Rose it is applied to summer friends; in Troilus, to something still more fugitive and irrecoverable, viz., that which has been destroyed by fire.” See Jennings’ Obs. on W. Country Dial. 31. “This expression,” he says, “is occasionally heard. It means, I apprehend, that, as the fieldfares disappear at a particular season, the season is over, the bird is flown.” But I agree with Mr. Skeat. The fieldfare leaves us about May. He rarely builds here.

Farewell, forty pence!

Jack Noble is dead. CL.

Day’s Blind-Beggar of Bednal Green, 1659, ed. Bullen, 114.
Compare To bring a shilling to ninepence. “Farewell, forty pence,” also occurs in Haughton’s Englishmen for my Money, written before 1598. The noble was equivalent to six shillings and eightpence, and forty pence was therefore the value of the half-noble. This saying seems to allude to the possessor of a noble, who has just spent the remaining moiety.

Farewell frost;

nothing got is nothing lost.

Fast and loose.
Davenport’s City Nightcap, 1639 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, xiii. 174).

Fast and loose is no possession. CL.

Fast bind, fast find. HE.
Scogin’s Jests (1565), ubi supra; Rowlands’ Paire of Spy-Knaues (1619), sign. C 3.

Fastolf’s buckram men.
The name given to the seven senior divines at Magdalen College, Oxford, who used to receive a (silver) penny a week each of the benefaction of Sir John Fastolf from his lands in Norfolk and Suffolk. See Hearne’s Diary, 1869, ii. 129. The originators of the saying possibly identified Fastolf with Shakespeare’s character.

Fat drops fall from fat flesh.

Fat housekeepers make lean executors.
The Italians say: Grassa cucina magro testamento.

Fat paunches make lean pates.
Some say, Full bellies make empty skulls. Pinguis venter gignit sensum tenuem. This Hierom mentions in one of his Epistles as a Greek proverb. The Greek is more elegant. [Greek].—R.

Fat sorrow is better than lean sorrow.
Better have a rich husband and a sorrowful life, than a poor husband and a sorrowful life with him; spoken to encourage a maid to marry a rich man, though ill conditioned. Duelos con pan son ménos. Span.—R. My father always said: Better be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.

Fate leads the willing, but drives the stubborn.

Father Derby’s bands.
In Gascoigne’s time (he died in 1577), this seems to have been a cant term for imprisonment, from the name perhaps of the keeper of one of the city counters, or else for the clutches of an usurer. See the Steele Glas, 1576 (Works by Hazlitt, ii. 203).

Father’s own son.
A boy who closely resembles his father in character. Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas, 1639, was revived about 1660 under this title.

Faults are thick, where love is thin.

Faults that are rich are fair.

Faversham oysters.
Skeat’s ed. of Pegge’s Kenticisms, 89. Faversham had succeeded Richborough in this respect, and now Whitstable has superseded that.

Fear and shame / much sin doth tame.
Booke of Robin Conscience (circa 1550), in Hazlitt’s Pop. Poetry, iii 246.

Fear is stronger than love.

Fear keeps the garden better than the gardener. H.

Fear may force a man to cast beyond the moon. HE.

Fear not the loss of the bell more than the loss of the steeple.

Feared men be fearful. CL.

Fears are divided in the midst. H.

Feasting makes no friendship.

Feastings are the physicians’ harvest-Christmas. CL.

Feather by feather the goose is plucked.

February fill dyke, be it black or be it white;

but if it be white, it’s the better to like.

Pluye de Februier vaut egout de fumier. Fr.“Snow brings a double advantage: it not only preserves the corn from the bitterness of the frost and cold, but enriches the ground by reason of the nitrous salt which it is supposed to contain. I have observed the Alps, and other high mountains, covered all the winter with snow, soon after it is melted, to become like a garden, so full of luxuriant plants and variety of flowers. It is worth the noting, that mountainous plants are for the most part larger than those of the same genus which grow in lower grounds; and that these snowy mountains afford greater variety of species than plain countries.”—R.

February makes a bridge, and March breaks it. H.

February sil lew. South Wilts.
i.e., seldom warm. See Thoms’ Anecdotes and Traditions, 1839, p. 85.

February sowlegrove. South Wilts.

Februeer / doth cut and shear. D.

Feed a pig, and you’ll have a hog.

Feed by measure and defy the physician. HE.

Feeling hath no fellow.

Felicity eats up circumspection.

Felicity lies much in fancy.

Festina lentè.
This is almost an English saying. It has its analogues in Greek, Italian, French, etc. See Beloe’s Aulus Gellius, ii. 218.

Fetters of gold are still fetters, and silken cords pinch.

Few are fit to be entrusted with themselves.

Few lawyers die well. C.

Few leaves and bad fruit.

Few men and much meat make a feast. CL.

Few physicians live well. C.

Few words are best.
Poche parole è buon regimento.—Ital. A fool’s voice is known by a multitude of words. Nature hath furnished man with two ears and but one tongue, to signify he must hear twice as much as he speaks.—R. This is the title of an early ballad reprinted by Collier (Roxburgh Ballads, 1847, p. 97).

Few words, many deeds.

Few words the wise suffice.
Verbum sap.

Fiat justitita: ruat cælum.

Fiddler’s fare.
Meat and drink, like the old woman’s in the nursery rhyme. See The Dumb Knight, 1608 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, x. 169).

Fie upon hens, quoth the fox, because he could not reach them.
Assi dixo la zorra a las uvas, no pudiendo las alcanzar que no estavan maduras. Span.—R.

Fields have eyes, and woods have ears. HE.
Bois ont oreilles, et champs œillets. Fr.—R.

In a MS. 15th cent., ap. Retr. Rev., 3rd S., ii. 309, there is this preferable version:

Fight dog, fight bear.
“Ne depugnes in alieno negotio.”—R. “Let them shift it; as they fell out, so let them fall in.” Walker, 1672. Compare, Pull Devil, &c.

Fill the cup, fill.
This appears to be introduced as a current popular saying in the Jests of the Widow Edyth, 1525. I quote from the ed. of 1573:

Fill what you will,

and drink what you fill. F.

Find a sluggard without a scuse,

and find a hare without a meuse.

“A muse or mewse,” says Miss Baker, “is an ancient term still in use for the beaten track of a hare through a fence.”Greene in his Thieves falling out, &c., first printed before Sept. 1592, says:“Vias novit quibus effugit Eucrates. This Eucrates was a miller in Athens, who, getting share in the government, was very cunning in finding out shifts and pretences to excuse himself from doing his duty. The Italians say: In un hora nasce un fongo; when they would intimate that an excuse is easily found.”—R.

Fine a poor man sixpence, and not a bottle of wine.

Fine as the crusado.
Gascoigne’s Supposes, 1566 (Works by Hazlitt, i. 228). The crusado here mentioned was, I suppose, the Portuguese gold coin, so called from having a double cross on one side. It was equal in size and (probably) value to the old French gold écu, which preceded the louis d’or. The writer of a tract called A Skeltonical Salutation, 1589, speaks as if the crusado was also current in Spain; perhaps it was likewise so in the Netherlands when Gascoigne was there in 1572.

Fine cloth is never out of fashion.

Fine clothes oftentimes hide a base descent.

Fine clothes wear soonest out of fashion.

Fine dressing is a foul house swept before the doors. H.

Fine feathers make fine birds.

Fine words dress ill deeds. H.

Finer than fivepence.
Grim the Collier of Croydon (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 414).

Fire and flax differ. DS.

Fire and water be good servants, but bad masters. CL.

Fire in flax will smoke.

Fire is not to be quenched with tow.

Fire, quoth the fox, when he made water on the ice.
He saw it smoked, and thought there would be fire ere long. This is spoken in derision to those which have great expectation from some fond design or undertaking, which is not likely to succeed.—R.

First born: first fed. CL.

First canting, then wooing,

then dallying, then doing.

First come, first served. C.
Ante molam primus qui venit, non molat imus.—Mediæval Latin. In Lancashire Legends, 1873, p. 3, it is said that Sir John Townley appropriated the majority of the seats in Whalley Church on the principle of “first come, first served,” as he thought that this would make the proud wives of Whalley come early to church.

First comes David; next comes Chad,

and then comes Winneral as though he was mad,

white or black,

on old house thack.

See Notes and Queries, 1st S., i. 340. St. Winwaloe’s Day is the 3rd March; it is here called Winneral, the eastern corruption of it; but in the North of England, where the proverb is also known, they say Winnold.

First cousins may marry,

Second cousins can’t;

third cousins will marry;

fourth cousins won’t. S. Devon.

First creep, then go.

First deserve, and then desire. C.

First hang and draw,

then hear the cause by Lydford law.

A Devonshire saying of remote antiquity. Browne has a facetious poem on the subject in Lansdowne MS. 777. An incomplete copy is in Wit and Drollery, 1682, and in Prince’s Worthies of Devon, 1701.
It is alluded to in Langland’s poem on the Deposition of Richard II. (Camd. Soc. 19):See Lysons, M. Br. Devonshire, 512, where it is stated that the lords of the manor of Tiverton had formerly the power of capital punishment. There are similar sayings applied to two other places: Cupar Justice and Jedburgh Justice.
“Lidford is a little and poor (but ancient) corporation in this county [Devon] with very large privileges, where a court of Stannaries was formerly kept. This libellous proverb would suggest unto us, as the townsmen thereof (generally mean persons) were unable to manage their own liberties with necessary discretion, administering preposterous and preproperous justice.”—R. There is a parallel Scotish saying, “Jedburgh justice,” which seems to have arisen out of the system of Lynch law pursued by the early rulers of Scotland toward the mosstroopers.

First learn, / then discern.
Lottery of 1567 (Kempe’s Loseley MSS. 207).

First rise, after low,

foretells a sharp below.

This is in reference to the barometer.

Fish and swine

live in water, and die in wine. R.

This, however, seems to be merely the French: “Poisson, poret, et cochon, vit en l’eau, et meurt en vin.”

Fish are not to be caught with a bird-call.

Fish is cast away that is cast into dry pools. HE.

Fish make no broth.

Fish marreth water, and flesh mendeth it. B. OF M. R.

Fish must swim.
Gothamite Tales (1565), ed. 1630, No. 20.

Fish must swim thrice.
Once in the water, a second time in the sauce, and a third time in wine in the stomach.—R.

Fish will not enter the net, but rather turn back. W.

Fishes follow the bait.
In Mayne’s City Match, 1639 (Hazlitt’s Dodsley, xiii. 256), Warehouse says: “Can your fish speak, friends? The proverb says they’re mute.” I have not yet met with the proverb itself.

Five score’s a hundred of men, money, and pins:

six score’s a hundred of all other things.

“Nails, quills, and eggs are still sold at six score to the hundred. The Stat. Hen. III. De Mensuris, and the Stat. 31 Edw. III. st. ii. A.D. 1357, de alecio vendendo, ordained that a hundred of herrings should be accounted by six score.”—Stat. of the Realm, quoted in Teesdale Glossary, 1849, 111. This is what is still known as the long hundred; but in herrings 132 commonly go to the hundred. Alecium comprised herring, sardine, and anchovy.

Flagranti delicto.
i.e., In the very act. To be taken in the act of committing an offence.

Flatterers haunt not cottages.

Flattery sits in the parlour when plain dealing is kicked out of doors.

Flesh never stands so high but a dog will venture his legs.

Flies go to lean horses. B. OF M. R.

Flight towards preferment will be but slow without some golden feathers.

Fling down the nests and the rooks will be gone.

Flitting of forms makes mailings dear. D.

Fly pride, says the peacock.
Comedy of Errors, iv. 3.

Fly that pleasure which paineth afterward.
B. of M. R., 1623, No. 29.

Fly the pleasure which bites to-morrow. H.

Fogge’s feast.
An old story of an entertainment where everything went wrong. Skeat’s ed. of Pegge’s Kenticisms, 96.

Folkestone washerwomen.
The white clouds which commonly bring rain. Skeat’s ed. of Pegge’s Kenticisms, 89.

Follow love and it will flee:

flee love and it will follow thee.

This was wont to be said of glory: Sequentem fugit, fugientem sequitur. Just like a shadow.—R.

Follow pleasure, and then will pleasure flee;

flee pleasure, and pleasure will follow thee. HE.

Follow the river and you will get to sea.

Follow truth too close at the heels: ’twill strike out your teeth.