W.C. Hazlitt, comp. English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. 1907.
Hen pen to I love you
Hen pen, / duck an’ mallard, / Amen.
See Jennings’ West of England Dialects, 1825, xiv.
Henry Chick ne’er slew a man till he came near him.
Her hands are on the wheel, but her eyes are in the street.
Her pulse beats matrimony.
Her tongue steals away all the time from her hands.
Her yellow hose she will put on.
Ritson’s Ancient Songs, ed. 1829, ii. 20.
Here is Gerard’s bailiff; work or you must die with cold. Somerset.
Here you be altogether, like Brown’s cows.
Here’s a couple, quoth Jackdaw.
Patient Grissil, a comedy, 1603, repr. 59.
Here’s nor rhyme nor reason.
This brings to mind the story of Sir Thomas More, who being by the author asked his judgment of an impertinent book, desired him by all means to put it into verse, and bring it to him again; which done, Sir Thomas, looking upon it, saith, Yea, now it is somewhat like, now it is rhyme; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.—R.
Here’s talk of the Turk and Pope, but it’s my next neighbour that does me the harm.
Here’s to our friends, and hang up the rest of our kindred.
Hertfordshire clubs and clouted shoon.
Some will wonder how this shire, lying so near to London, the staple of English civility, should be guilty of so much rusticity. But the finest cloth must have a list, and the pure peasants are of as coarse a thread in this as any other place. Yet, though some may smile at their clownishness, let none laugh at their industry; the rather, because the high shoon of the tenant pays for the Spanish leather boots of the landlord. Club is an old term for a booby.—R. Lamb, in his letter to Manning, of May 26, 1819, speaks of Joskins as a name for Hertfordshire bumpkins.
Hertfordshire hedgehogs.
Plenty of hedgehogs are found in this high woodland country, reported to suck the kine: though the dairymaids conne them small thanks for sparing their pains in milking them. Whether this proverb may have any further reflection on the people of this county, as therein taxed for covetousness and constant nuddling on the earth, I think not worth the inquiry; these nicknames being imposed on several counties groundlessly as to any moral significance.—R.
Hertfordshire kindness.
That is, when one drinks back again to the party who immediately before drank to him; and although it may signify as much as, “Manus manum fricat, et par est de merente bene mereri,” yet it is commonly used only by way of derision of those who, through forgetfulness or mistake, drink to them again whom they pledged immediately.—R. See Blount’s Tenures, ed. 1874, p. 383, and Daily News, January 5, 1876.
Hey! brave Arthur [of] Bradley.
The well-known ballad-hero. See Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 539.
Hey! ninny, nanny! / one fool makes many.
Hickledy pickledy, or one among another.
We now say higgledy piggledy; but the form given appears to be of old standing. I have seen a little book of characters printed in 1708 under the title of Hicklety Pickelty. We have in our language many the like conceited rhyming words in reduplication, to signify any confusion or mixture, as hurly-burly, hodge-podge, mingle-mangle, arsy-versy, kim-kam, hob-nob, crawly-mauly, hab-nab.—R. But compare Nash:—“Yet you shall see me, in two or three leaves hence crie, Heigh for our towne greene! and powre hot boyling inke on this contemptible heggledepegs barrain scalp.”—Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, repr. 1869, p. 20.
Hickscorner’s jests.
Collier’s Diary, iii. 73. This saying is supposed to have arisen from the interlude so called, printed in the first volume of Hazlitt’s Dodsley.
Hiders are good finders.
High Church, and Low Church, and little England.
Higson’s MSS. Coll., 207.
High places have their precipices.
High regions are never without storms.
Highflying hawks are fit for princes.
His back is broad enough to bear jests.
His bashful mind hinders his good intent.
His belly cries cupboard.
Sento che l’ oriulo é ito giu. Ital.—R.
His brain is not big enough for his skull.
His brains are addled.
His brains crow.
His brains will work without harm. Yorkshire.
His bread is buttered on both sides.
i.e., He hath a plentiful estate: he is fat and full.—R.
His breech makes buttons.
This is said of a man in fear. We know vehement fear causes a relaxation of the sphincter ani, and involuntary dejection. Buttons, because the excrements of some animals are not unlike buttons or pellets; as of sheep, hares, &c. Nay, they are so like, that they are called by the same name; this figure they get from the cells of the colon. The Italians say, Fare il culo lappe lappe.—R. This vulgar saying, now probably grown out of use, may be due to a particular type of intestinal flatulence, resembling in sound the buttoning process.
His calves are gone to grass.
His candle burns within the socket.
That is, he is an old man. Philosophers are wont to compare man’s life not inaptly to the burning of a lamp, the vital heat always preying upon the radical moisture, which, when it in quite consumed, a man dies. There is indeed a great likeness between life and flame, air being as necessary to the maintaining of the one as of the other.—R.
His clothes are worth pounds, but his wit is dear at a groat.
His cockloft is unfurnished.
i.e., He wants brains.—R. Bacon, who was not tall, said that tall men resembled lofty houses, where the upper storeys are usually ill furnished.
His cow hath calved.
He hath got what he sought for or expected.—R.
His eye is bigger than his belly.
His eyes are like two burnt holes in a blanket.
His eyes draw straws. E. Anglia.
“When a person’s eyes are nearly closed, he appears to see small rays of light, like straws.”—Forby.
His fingers are lime twigs.
Spoken of a thievish person.—R.
His hair grows through his hood.
His heart is in his hose.
Towneley Mysteries, 95; Timon, a play (about 1590), in Hazlitt’s Shakespear’s Library, vi. 409. Another form is: “His heart fell down to his hose.” Animus in pedes decidit.
His heart’s on’s halfpenny.
His house stands on my lady’s ground.
His learning overbalanceth his brain.
His lies are latticed. E. Anglia.
“You can see through them.”—Forby.
His lungs are very sensible, for everything makes them laugh.
His milk boil’d over.
His mill will go with all winds.
His mind’s a wool-gathering.
His money comes from him like drops of blood.
His nose will abide no jests.
His promises are lighter than the breath that utters them.
His purse and his palate are ill met.
His purse is made of toad’s skin.
His religion is copyhold, and he has not taken it up. E. Anglia.
“This is said of one that never goes to any place of worship.”—Forby.
His room’s better than his company.
His shoes be made of running leather.
His tail will catch the chin-cough.
Spoken of one that sits on the ground.—R.
His tongue goes always of errands, but never speeds.
His tongue is as cloven as the devil’s foot.
His tongue is no slander.
His tongue runs on wheels, or at random.
His word is as good as his bond.
Nobody and Somebody (1606), sign. C 2 verso. This, says Forby (Vocab. 1830, p. 428), is sometimes said satirically.
Hit or miss for a cow heel.
Hitty-missy, as the blind man shot the crow. E. Anglia.
Hobi-de-hoy, / neither man nor boy.
I have never seen a satisfactory explanation of this word hobi-de-hoy, which we at present apply to both sexes. See Forby’s Vocab., art. Hobi-de-Hoy, and Halliwell’s Dict., ibid. The term is, at least, of considerable antiquity; it is in Palsgrave, 1530. Tusser, who uses it, scarcely seems to have understood its precise meaning.
In a curious tract of 1674 giving an account of a sort of half-witted character of the town, he is called John Webb, alias Hop body-boody. I don’t know whether this term has anything to do with the other.
Hobson’s choice.
“A man is said to have Hobson’s choice when he must either take what is left him, or choose whether he will have any part or no. This Hobson was a noted carrier in Cambridge, in King James’s time, who, partly by carrying, partly by grazing, raised himself to a great estate, and did much good in the town: relieving the poor, and building a public conduit in the market place.”—R. He must not be confounded with William Hobson, the Merry Londoner, who is the hero of a dull Jest Book, printed in 1607, and one of the dramatis personæ in one of T. Heywood’s plays. The carrier’s choice consisted in affording any one who applied for the hire of a horse, the option between the one next the door, and none at all. Milton, wrote this man’s epitaph. Compare Robin Hood’s Choice.
Hoist your sail when the wind is fair.
Hold fast is the first point in hawking.
Hold fast when you have it.
Hold him to it buckle and thong.
Hold or cut codpiece point.
Hold the dish while I shed my pottage.
Hold up your dagger hand.
Hold your tongue, husband; let me talk that have all the wit.
Holding an eel too fast is the way to let it escape.
Holland’s Leaguer.
A place of disreputable resort at the Bankside, Southwark, on the site of the ancient brothels within the jurisdiction of the See of Winchester. These were suppressed in the time of Henry VIII., but the locality preserved till a much later date its original character. Laurence Price, a popular writer of Charles II.’s time, published about 1670 a little tract called Newes from Hollands Leager, purporting to narrate its downfall. See Brayley and Britton’s Surrey, v. 310, where the error is committed of ascribing to Marmion the dramatist the rare prose tract on Holland’s Leaguer by Nicholas Goodman, 4to, 1632. Marmion published his play on the same subject in that year. An engraving of Bankside, shewing Holland’s Leaguer as it appeared in 1648, was published by Boydell in 1818.
Holt lions.
The people of Holt in Cheshire are so called by their neighbours on account of their quarrelsome character, not without a sneer perhaps at their real courage.
Home is home, be it never so ill.
Ballad licensed in 1569–70. Clarke, however (Parœm., 1639, p. 101), says with us, “Be it never so homely.” [Greek]. Because there we have the greatest freedom. V. Erasm. Bos alienus subinde prospectat foras.”—R.
Home is homely.
Honest as the cat when the meat is out of reach.
Honest men and knaves may possibly wear the same cloth.
Honest men fear neither the light nor the dark.
Honest men marry soon, wise men not at all.
Honest men never have the love of a rogue.
Honesty is the best policy.
North’s Life of Lord Keeper Guildford, 1740. I do not think that the North family was remarkable for its cultivation of the doctrine.
Honesty may be dear-bought, but can never be a dear pennyworth.
Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.
Honey is too good for a bear.
The Spaniard says: “No es la miel para ba boca del arno.”
Honour a physician before thou hast need of him.
Honour and ease lie not in one sack.
Honour buys no beef in the market.
Honour is but ancient riches.
Breton’s Court and Country, 1618 (Roxb. Lib., repr. 190).
Honour without profit is a ring on the finger.
Honours change manners.
“Honores mutant mores. As poverty depresseth and debaseth a man’s mind, so great place and estate advance and enlarge it, but many times corrupt and puff it up.”—R. This saying will remind the reader of the well-known anecdote of Sir T. More and Manners, the first Earl of Rutland of that family. Honours change manners, to which the rejoinder is alleged to have been: Honores mutant Mores.
Honours nourish arts.
The Debate between Pride and Lowlines, by T. F. (circa 1570) repr. 1841, p. 22. A mere translation of Honor alit artes.
Hooper’s hide.
Hope helpeth.
Lottery of 1567.
Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad supper.
Hope is a lover’s staff.
Hope is as cheap as despair.
Hope is grief’s best music.
Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick.
Hope often makes the fool blink.
Hope well and have well.
Paradyce of Daynty Deuyses, 1578, repr. 1867, p. 92. Fuller (Gnomologia, 1732) adds: “Quoth Hickwell.” It seems to be nothing more than the Latin, Crede quod habes et habes.
Hops make or break.
No hop-grower will have much difficulty in appreciating this proverbial dictum; an estate has been lost or won in the course of a single season; but the hop is an expensive plant to rear, and a bad year may spoil the entire crop. Vermin and mildew are the two chief dangers.
Horn mad.
Horns and grey hairs do not come by years.
Horse and foot.
“To cheat horse and foot” is an expression used by Walpole in a letter of 1740 to R. West (Cunningham’s edit., i. 62).
Hot anger soon cold.
Title of a play (now lost), by Henry Porter and others, 1598.
Hot love soon cold.
In Ralph Roister Doister, written about 1550, Christian Custance says:
Hot men harbour no malice.
Hot sup, hot swallow.
How can the foal amble when the horse and mare trot?
How doth your whither go you?
i.e, your wife.
How many things hath he to repent of that lives long.
How North Crawley her bonnet stands!
i.e., Not straight, all on one side.—Baker’s North. Gloss., 1854, art. North Crawley.
Huge winds blow on high hills.
Feriuntque summos fulmina montes. Horat.—R.
Hull cheese.
Strong ale. See Halliwell v. Hull.
Human blood is all of one colour.
But not of one quality. See my Man Considered in Relation to God and a Church, 1905, ch. xxi.
Human laws reach not thoughts.
Humble hearts have humble desires.
Hunger and cold deliver a man up to his enemy.
Hunger fetches the wolf out of the woods.
This was exemplified in the Franco-German War of 1871, when the wolves came within a short distance of Paris.
Hunger finds no fault with the cookery.
Hunger is the best sauce.
Appetito non vuol salse. Ital. Il n’y a sauce que d’appetit. Fr. This proverb is reckoned among the aphorisms of Socrates: Optimum cibi condimentum fames, sitis potûs,—Cic., lib. 2 de Finibus. A fome he boa mostarda. Port.—R.
Hunger maketh hard beans soft.
“Mollea coctura jejunio fit faba dura.”—Leonine verse of the 12th cent., quoted in Wright’s Essays, 1846, i. p. 147. “Erasmus relates as a common proverb (among the Dutch, I suppose), ‘Hunger makes raw beans relish well, or taste of sugar. Manet hodiéque vulgò tritum proverbium Famem efficere ut crudæ etiam fabæ saccharum sapiant.’ Darius in his flight, drinking puddle-water defiled with dead carcases, is reported to have said, that he never drank anything that was more pleasant: for, saith the story, Neque enim sitiens unquam biberat: he never had drunk thirsty. [Greek].”—R.
Hunger pierceth stone walls.
Hunger will break through anything except Suffolk cheese.
Suffolk cheese, from its poverty, is frequently the subject of much humour.—R. This point is referred to in a quaint tract called The World Bewitch’d, 1699. In his Imitations of Horace, vi. 2, Pope writes:
Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings.
Walker’s Parœm., 1672, p. 35. “Jejunus rarò stomachus vulgaria temnit. A la faim il n’y a point de mauvais pain.” Fr. “L’ asino chi ha fame mangia d’ogni strame.” Ital.—R.
Hungry flies bite sore.
The horse in the fable, with a galled back, desired the flies that were full might not be driven away, because hungry one would then take their places.—R.
Hungry Harborne.
Harborne, near Birmingham, once celebrated for its keen, exacting air.
Hungry horses make a clean manger.
Hungry men think the cook lazy.
Hungry stewards wear mony shoon.
Hunting, hawking, and love, for one joy have a hundred griefs.
Hurly-burly.
A disturbance or commotion. See a note in Huth Cat. under Hake (Edward). Shakespeare introduces the expression into the song or incantation of the witches in Macbeth.
Hurry no man’s cattle; you may come to have a donkey of your own.
Sometimes said to an impatient child.
Husband, don’t believe what you see, but what I tell you.
Husbands are in heaven whose wives scold not.
Hypocrisy can find out a cloak for every rain.
New Custome, 1573 (Dodsley’s O. P., ed. Hazlitt, iii. 30).
Hypocritical honesty goes upon stilts.
I am a fool: I love anything that is good.
I am at Dulcarnon.
See N. and Q., 1st S., i. 254, and v. 180.
I am in a twittering case: betwixt the devil and the deep sea.
Walker’s Parœmiologia, 1672, p. 11. Compare Betwixt the Devil, &c.
I am loth to change my mill. Somerset.
i.e., Eat of another dish.—R.
I am not everybody’s dog that whistles.
I am sorry for you, but I cannot weep.
A formal expression of unfelt regret or grief. Three Ladies of London, 1584, Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 319.
I am talking of hay, and you of horse beans.
I am very wheamow, quoth the old woman when she stepped into the milk bowl.
I’m not going to a fair to buy thee for a fool.
I ask for a fork and you bring me a rake.
I bear him on my back.
That is, I remember his injuries done to me with indignation and grief, or a purpose of revenge.—R.
I can see as far into a millstone as another man.
I cannot be at York and London at the same time.
I cannot run and sit still at the same time.
I cannot spin and weave at the same time.
I can’t be your friend and your flatterer too.
I cry you mercy; I have killed your cushion.
The precise meaning of this phrase, once evidently employed in a proverbial sense and manner, is rather obscure. See Lyly’s Mother Bombie, 1592:
I cry you mercy; I took you for a join’d [joint] stool.
I deny that with both my hands and all my teeth.
I do what I can, quoth the fellow, when he threshed in his cloak.
I gave the mouse a hole, and she is become my heir.
I gave you a stick to break my own head with.
I had no thought of catching you when I fished for another.
I had rather be fed with jack-boots than with such stories.
I had rather it had wrung you by the nose than me by the belly.
I had rather my cake burn, than you should turn it.
I had rather ride on the ass that carries me, than on the horse that throws me.
I had rather your room as your company.
Marriage of Wit and Wisdom (circa 1570), Shakesp. Sec. ed. 27. The expression also occurs in Grim the Collier of Croydon, written about 1600. iv. 1.
I have a bone in my arm.
I have a cold coal to blow at.
I have a good bow, but I can’t come at it.
I have a good cloak; but it’s in France.
I have a tangled skein of it to wind off.
I have cured her from lying in the hedge, quoth the good man, when he had wed his daughter.
I have dined as well as my Lord Mayor of London.
That is, though not so dubiously or daintily, on variety of costly dishes, yet as comfortably, as contentedly, according to the rule, Satis est quod sufficit.—R.
I have eggs on the spit.
I am very busy. Eggs, if they be well roasted, require much turning.—R. Compare There goes, &c.
I have got the bent of his bow.
I have got the length of his foot.
I have known him when he was but an oilman.
I have lived too near a wood to be frightened by owls.
I have lost all and found myself.
I have more to do than a dish to wash.
I have other fish to fry.
I have paid my shot.
“Shot” is a common mode of expression among the commonalty to denote a reckoning, &c. “I have paid my shot,” or rather “scot,” from “scottum,” a tax or contribution, a shot.—Nicholson and Burn’s Westmoreland and Cumberland, quoted by Brady.
I have said my prayers in the other corner. Devon.
This phrase is in common use in cases where a person only partially fills any utensil, as a jug or a milk-bowl.
I have shot my bolt.
“The implement shot from the cross-bow is called by the French a quadrel, and by the English a bolt. This arrow, I am informed, is still used in some parts of the country, chiefly in Norfolk, in shooting rabbits, which do not take so general an alarm as when a gun is fired off.”—Editor of Brady’s Varieties of Literature, 1826. Comp. A fool’s bolt, &c.
I have victualled my camp.
I hope better, quoth Benson, when his wife bid him come in, cuckold.
I hope I may tie up my own sack when I please.
I killed her for good will, said Scott, when he killed his neighbour’s mare.
I know best where the shoe wringeth me.
“But I wot best wher wryngith me my scho.”—Chaucer, Marchandes Tale, l. 399. Clarke, in his Parœmiologia, 1639, gives it, “Every man knows where his own shoe wringeth him.”
I know enough to hold my tongue, but not to speak.
I know he’ll come by his long tarrying.
I know him as well as if I had gone through him with a lighted link.
I know him not should I meet him in my pottage dish.
I know no more than the Pope.
See N. and Q., 3rd S., iv. 318.
I know of nobody that has a mind to die this year.
I know what I do when I drink.
I like writing with a peacock’s quill, because its feathers are all eyes.
I live, and lords do no more.
I love thee like pudding; if thou wert pie I would eat thee.
I love you well, but touch not my pocket.