Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Spit in his mouth to That grief

Spit in his mouth and make him a mastiff.

Spit in your hand and take better hold.

Spit kills more than spigot.
More people kill themselves by excess of eating than of drinking. Dr. Diamond says this is a Kentish proverb.

Spit not against the wind.
Chi piscia contra il vento si bagna la camiscia. Ital. Chi sputa contra il vento si sputa contra il viso. Ital.—R.

Spite of the cock and his comb.
Rowlands’ Paire of Spy-Knaves (1619), sign. B 4 recto.

Sport is sweetest when no spectators.

Spread the table and contention will cease.

Springes to catch woodcocks.
This is used, apparently, in a proverbial sense, in Hamlet, i., 3. It is the sub-title of a book of Epigrams by Henry Parrot, 1613.

St. Andrew the king,

three weeks and three days, before Christmas comes in.

Forty’s Vocab. of East Anglia, 1830, p. 418.

St. Anthony’s pigs. FULLER.
The scholars of the City of London School.

St. Bartholomew (or St. Matthew) brings in the cold dew. F.
Notes and Queries, 2nd S., viii. 242.

St. Benedict, sow thy pease, or keep them in thy rick.

St. George cries goe; / St. Mark cries hoe!
Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire (circa 1670), 1847.

St. Giles’ breed; fat, ragged, and saucy.

St. Giles’s = the gallows.
“I bring you to St. Giles his howse.”—Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Collier, 3.

St. Hugh’s bones.
Shoemakers’ tools, it being a tradition that the saint’s bones were converted to this purpose.

St. Luke’s little summer.
The fine weather which often occurs about St. Luke’s Day (Oct. 18).

St. Martin’s little summer.
The fine weather that not unfrequently sets in about Martinmas (Nov. 11). In 1881 it was prolonged into December, except occasional storms.

St. Mathee shut up the bee.

St. Mathee sends sap into the tree.

St. Matthew, / get candlesticks new:

St. Matthi, / lay candlesticks by. East Anglia.

Forby’s Vocab., 418.

St. Mattho, / take thy hopper, and sow.

St. Matthy, / all the year goes by.
Because in leap year the supernumerary day is intercalated.—R.

St. Nicholas’ Clerks.
A term applied to thieves, as Bishop Tanner thought, from the licence introduced into the anniversary celebrations of the pageant of the Boy Bishop on Innocents’ Day.

St. Peter’s in the Poor,

where’s no tavern, alehouse, or sign at the door.

Under correction, I conceive it called “in the poor,” because the Augustinian friars, professing wilful poverty for some hundreds of years, possessed more than a moiety thereof. Otherwise this was one of the richest parishes in London, and therefore might say, Malo pauper vocari quam esse. How ancient the use of signs in this city on private houses is to me unknown; sure I am it was generally used in the reign of King Edward IV.—R.

St. Swithin’s Day if it does rain,

For forty days it will remain;

St. Swithin’s Day if it be fair,

For forty days ’twill rain no more.

St. Thomas gray, St. Thomas gray,

the longest night and the shortest day.

Notes and Queries, ubi supra.

St. Tyburn of Kent.
St. Thomas of Waterings, or the Watering of St. Thomas the Martyr in Southwark. It was one of the ancient places of execution, and especially for pirates. “By St. Tyburn,” or “by St. Tyb,” was an old oath.

St. Valentine, / set thy hopper by mine.

Stabbed with a Bridport dagger. Dorsetshire.
That is, hanged. The best, if not the most, hemp (for the quantity of ground) growing about Brydport, a market town in this county [Dorsetshire]. And hence it is, that there is an ancient statute (though now disused and neglected) that the cable ropes for the navy royal were to be made thereabouts.—R.
In Hickscorner (about 1520) Freewill asks:

To which Imagination replies:

Staff-end Law.
It is related in the play of the Pinder of Wakefield, ascribed to Robert Greene, 1599, and in the prose fiction on the same subject, that it had been a custom at Bradford in Yorkshire from time immemorial on Trail-Staff day for the local shoemakers to come out, and call on all comers to vail their quarterstaves. In the prose narrative King Richard and in the drama King Edward and his companions, all disguised, demand from the challengers where their charter was, to which they replied, that they wanted none, as the right was prescriptive and to them and their heirs for ever. Whereupon, lest the whole town might rise against them, the King advises submission. Hazlitt’s National Tales and Legends, 1892, p. 427.

Stafford Court.
To be tried in Stafford court is equivalent to a thrashing. Probably i.q. Stafford’s Law. Comp. Halliwell in v.

Stafford’s law.
A beating or thrashing. “Stafford’s Law must answere you, if you be possest with this frenzie, but, oh my friend, haue me not to Bedlam, it may be I haue sold my Land, which you meane to begge.”—Wybarne’s New Age of Old Names, 1609, p. 10.

Stake not thy head against another’s hat.

Stale as a black velvet cloak or a bay garland.
Fletcher’s Woman Hater, ed. 1648, Prologue.

Standers-by see more than gamesters.
Plus in alieno quam in suo negotio vident homines.—R. Comp. Bystanders.

Standing pools gather filth.

Strand-on-the-Green:

thirteen houses, fourteen cuckolds, and never a house between.

The tale of the fishwife of Standon-the-Green (a small village on the Brent) is included in Westward for Smelts, 1620 (Hazlitt’s Shakespear’s Library, part 1, ii. 197), and forms an illustration of Cymbeline. The same saying occurs in relation to other places.

Stanton Drew,

a mile from Pentford,

another from Chue. Somersetshire.

Stars are not seen by sunshine.

Starve ’m, Rob ’m, and Cheat ’m. Kent.
Stroud, Rochester, and Chatham.—R.

Stay, and news will find you. H.

Steal my cow and give away the hide.

Steal the goose and give the giblets in alms.

Stop after step the ladder is ascended. H.

Still he fisheth that catcheth one.
Toujours pesche qui en prend un.—R.

Still swine eat all the draff. HE.
Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602; Heywood’s Second Part of Queen Eliz. Troubles, 1606, repr. 90. See also Guilpin’s Skialetheia, 1598, repr. 1868, 23. “A still sow” is common in early English as a synonyme for what we call a slyboots or fox. Stille seugen eten al het draf op.—Dutch.

Stolen waters are sweet.
Carpenter’s Hebrew Proverbs, 1826, No. 6. We say stolen sweets.

Stop stitch, while I put t’ needle in. Craven.
A proverbial expression applied to a person when one wishes to check him in his discourse, or not to be in a hurry about anything.—D. of Cr., ii. 169.

Stop two gaps with one bush. C.

Stopford law; / no stake, no draw. Cheshire.
i.e., Such only as contribute to the liquor are entitled to drink.—R. But another form is—Lancashire law: No stake no draw.—Carr’s Dialect of Craven, 1828, i. 274. “Stockport is the place meant, nearly one half of which borough is in Lancashire. ‘This proverb,’ says Grose, ‘is commonly used to signify that only such as contribute are entitled to drink of the liquor.’”—Lancashire Legends, 1873, p. 207.

Store is no sore. HE.

Straight trees have crooked roots.

Stretch your arm no farther than your sleeve will reach.
Metiri se quemque suo modulo ac pede verum est. R. 1670.

Stretching and yawning leadeth to bed.

Stretton in the Street / where shrews meet.

Strew green rushes for the stranger. HE.*
This is still current in Cornwall.

Strike, Dawkin; the devil is in the hemp.
But compare Lower’s Curiosities of Heraldry, 1845, p. 155, where for Dawkin we read Dakyns, and the sentence is said to be an enigmatical motto of the Derbyshire family of Dakyns.

Strike, or give me the bill. WALKER.
The meaning seems very clearly to be, “Do it, or let me.”

Struggle not against the stream. C.

Study sickness while you are well.

Stuffing hads out storms.

Stumble at a straw and leap over a block.
Merie Tales and Quicke Answeres, ed. Berthelet, No. 66; The Uncasing of Machivells Instructions to his Sonne, 1613; Burton’s Anatomy, 1621. It is the same in import as “Strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel,” still in use. It is the title of a ballad licensed in 1562–3. See my Coll. and Notes, 2nd S., v. Ballads.

Subtility set a trap, and caught itself.

Success is never blamed.

Success makes a fool seem wise.

Such a cup, such a cruse.
Latimer’s Fifth Sermon before Edward VI., 1549, ed. Arber, p. 143.

Such an one hath a good wit, if a wise man had the keeping of it. C.

Such as the priest, such is the clerk.

Such as the tree is, such is the fruit.
Telle racine, telle feuille. Fr. De fructu arborem cognosco. Matt. xii. 34. Ogni erba si conosce dal seme. Ital.—R.

Such beginning, such end. HE.*

Such carpenters, such chips: / such lettuce, such lips. HE.

Such envious things the women are,

that fellow flirts they cannot bear.

Such welcome, such farewell. HE.*

Sudden friendship, sure repentance.

Sudden glory soon goes out.

Sudden joy kills sooner than excessive grief.

Sudden passions are hard to be managed.

Sudden trust brings sudden repentance.

Sue a beggar and catch a louse. WALKER (1672).
“Rete non tenditur accipitri neque milvo.”—Terent.

Suffer and expect. H.
This seems almost equivalent to the Latin Patere et abstine.

Suffer the ill and look for the good. B. OF M. R.

Suffering for a friend doubleth the friendship.

Suffolk cheese.
Compare Hunger will, &c.

Suffolk fair maids.
It seems the God of nature hath been bountiful in giving them beautiful complexions; which I am willing to believe, so far forth as it fixeth not a comparative disparagement on the same sex in other places.—R.

—Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Works, edit. 1861, p. 153).

Suffolk milk.
No county in England affords better and sweeter of this kind, lying opposite to Holland in the Netherlands, where is the best dairy in Christendom.—R.

Suffolk whine.
The inhabitants of all counties are distinguished for some peculiarities. The inhabitants of Suffolk, speaking in a whining tone, are thus particularised.—R. This whine is said to be the parent of the Yankee twang, many early settlers in the New World having come from East Anglia.

Suits hang half a year in Westminster Hall;

at Tyburn half an hour’s hanging endeth all. HE.

This seems to denote a change of practice in regard to condemned criminals, whose remains are now left to hang a full hour after execution.

Summer in winter, and a summer’s flood,

never boded England good. D.

Sup, Simon, ’tis best i’ th’ bottom.

Sup, Simon, here’s good broth. CL.

Sup sorrow by spoonsful.

Sure as a gun.

Sure bind, sure find.
Bon guet chasse mal aventure. Fr. Abundans cautela non nocet.—R.

Surely she wears low-heeled shoes, she’s so apt to fall backwards.

Sus Minervam.
Nash’s Address before Greene’s Menaphon, 1589. Perhaps that other saying, sus per rosas, has a somewhat similar meaning. See Beloe’s Aulus Gellius, i. xvi.

Suspicion has double eyes.
Durfey’s Pills, iv. 47; Chappell’s Pop. Mus. of the Olden Time, 269.

Suspicion may be no fault, but shewing it is a great one.

Sussex weeds.
i.e., Oaks, which are particularly common in that county; more so than any other forest tree.

Sutton for mutton, / Carshalton for beeves;

Epsom for whores, / and Ewell for thieves.

Another version is:

Sutton Wall and Kenchester Hill,

are able to buy London, were it to sell. Herefordshire.

These are two places fruitful in this county, saith Mr. Howell.—R.

Suum cuique.
Hearne used to write this as a motto in his books: “Suum cuique, Tho. Hearne.”

Swear by your burnt shins.

Swearing came in at the head, and is going out at the heels.
In allusion to this having been at first the vice of the aristocracy, and through the change of manners having become characteristic chiefly of the lower classes.

Sweep before your own door.

Sweet beauty with sour beggary. HE.*

Sweet-heart and bag-pudding.

Sweet-heart and honey-bird keeps no house.

Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy’s sake,

and for thy bitter passion:

save us from the axe of the Tower,

and from Sir Ralph of Assheton.

Higson’s MSS. Coll. There is a second version of the same profane allocution in the collections quoted:This Sir Ralph of Ashton, who was probably the Ashton made Vice-Constable of England in the reign of Richard III., appears to be the same person in whom originated the popular diversion called Shooting the Black Lad, practised in Douce’s time at Ashton-under-Lyne on the 16th of April. See Mr. Axon’s pamphlet, The Black Knight of Ashton. It may be added, that if this supposition be correct, we have here a remarkable instance of the transmission of popular feelings and incidents in a form most consonant with the vulgar taste for making traditions even of great sufferings entertaining. As early as 5 Henry VI. (1426–7) Sir John Assheton was lord of this manor at a yearly rent of a penny.

Sweet meat will have sour sauce. HE.
“I thinke they shall haue sowre suppes too their sweete meates.”—Gascoigne’s Supposes, 1566 (Poems, by Hazlitt, i. 244). But the saying is quoted as an old one in the interlude of Jack Jugler, circa 1550, edit. 1848, p. 16.

“The 15th of the aforesaid month, we departed from Curaçao; not a little to the rejoicing of our captain and us, that we had there ended our traffic. But notwithstanding our sweet meat, we had sour sauce.”—Sir John Hawkins’s Second Voyage, 1564–5, cited in Arber’s Garner, iv. 113. The Italians say, Chi à mangiato le candele ne caca i stoppini.

Sweet sauce begins to wax sour. HE.*

Swine, women, and bees cannot be turned.

Tace is Latin for a candle.
i.e., To hold the candle, was the phrase in common use formerly for to hold your peace, or, as we should say vulgarly, to shut up.
In Romeo and Juliet, i. 4, we have the line:

Tag-rag and bobtail.
Riffraff, or the refuse of any company or people. It was said of the Earl of Essex, that he made so many knights during his Deputyship in Ireland, that he brought the order into contempt, by bringing in “tag and rag, cut and long taile.”—Chamberlain’s Letters, Camd. Soc., p. 63; letter dated Aug. 23, 1599.
In London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered, by D. Lupton, 1632, the author, speaking of the mistress of an inn, says, “Shee must entertaine all, good and bad, tag and rag, cut and long tayle.” “Tag-rag, all that can lick a dish.”—Walker (1672).
The meaning of “tagrag” in Martin’s Dictionary, 1754, is a pitiful ragged fellow, and that of “bobtail,” a prostitute. The phrase “tagrag and bobtail” signifies, therefore, all sorts of low and dirty men and women.”—Brady. See a curious note on this proverb in Southey’s Select Letters, 4 vols, 8vo, iii. 158–9, and compare also my Dodsley, xiii. 83–4.

Tailor-like.
This phrase seems to have been current in Elizabeth’s time for anything superficial and despicable. So Sir William Cornwallis writes: “What is his gaine but the maske of an ideot? What his knowledge, but Tailour-like, and light?”—Essayes, Part ii. 1601, sign. Ee 2 verso. In Collier’s Roxburghe Ballads, 1847, p. 285, we have:

Tailors and writers must mind the fashion.

Tailors’ shreds are worth the cutting.

Take a man by his word, and a cow by her horns.

Take a vine of a good soil and a daughter of a good mother.

Take all, and pay the baker.

Take away fuel, take away flame.
Remove the tale-bearer, and contention ceaseth. Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus.—R.

Take away my good name, take away my life.

Take care of the pence: the pounds will take care of themselves.

Take courage: younger than thou have been hanged.

Take heed is a fair thing. HE.
Or, as another proverb hath it, Good take heed doth surely speed. Abundans cautela non nocet. The Spaniards say, Cuida bien lo que haces, no te fies de rapáces.—R.

Take heed / is a good reed [advice]. C.

Take heed of an ox before, an ass behind, and a monk on all sides. H.

Take heed of enemies reconciled, and of meat twice boiled.

Take heed of still waters: the quick pass away. H.
Compare Deepest, The stillest waters, &c.

Take heed of the vinegar of sweet wine. H.

Take heed you find not that you do not seek.

Take him in a good turn, and knock out his brains. CL.

Take hold of a good minute.

Take me upon your back, and you’ll know what I weigh.

Take my cap!
This appears to have been formerly a taunt for a liar. In a Trip through the Town, 8vo, p. 17, we read: “A Yorkshire wench was indicted at the Old Bailey for feloniously stealing from her mistress a dozen of round-eared laced caps, of a very considerable value. The poor creature pleaded not guilty, insisting very strenuously that she had her mistress’s express orders for what she had done. The prosecutrix being called upon by the court to answer this allegation, said: ‘Mary, thou wast always a most abominable lyar.’ ‘Very true, madam,’ replies the hussey, ‘for whenever I told a round lye, you was so good as to bid me take your cap.’ The court fell into a violent fit of laughter, and the jury acquitted the prisoner.”

Take not a musket to kill a butterfly.

Take the chestnuts out of the fire with a cat’s paw.

Take the sweet with the sour. HE.*

Take the will for the deed.

Take time, when time cometh, lest time flee away. HE.*

Take your venture, as many a good ship hath done.

Take your wife’s first advice, not her second.

Talbot comes!
“So terrible hath the name of Talbot byn heretofore vnto the French, that Mothers and nurses to still their crying children, accustomed to say, Talbot comes.”—Richard Smith’s Life of Viscountess Montagu, transl. by C. F., 1627, sign. A 1 verso.

Tale-bearers are commonly a sort of half-witted men.

Tales of Robin Hood are good among fools. HE.

Talk is but talk; but ’tis money that buys land.

Talk of camps, but stay at home.

Talk of the devil, and he’ll either come or send.

Talk of the devil and he’s sure to appear.
“He is good to talk of; here’s the man himself we were speaking of.”—Walker’s Parœm., 1672, p. 32. “Think o’ the divel an’ he’s sure to be aback o’ yuh.”—Dialect of Leeds, 1862, p. 231. “Talk of the Devil, and see his horns.”—Cataplus, a Mock Poem, 1672, p. 72.

Talking pays no toll. H.

Tangerine, A.
See He hath studied, &c.

Tarry a little, that we may make an end the sooner.
This is reported to have been a saying of Sir Amias Paulet, our ambassador to the French court in 1577. His letters have been printed for the Roxburghe Club.

Tarry-long brings little home. WALKER (1672).

Teach your grandame to grope her ducks.

Teach your grandame to spin.

Teach your grandame to suck eggs, or to sup sour milk.
Aquilam volare, delphinum natare doce. Il ne faut pas apprendre aux poissons à nager.—Fr. Sus Minervam.—R.

Teaching others teacheth yourself.

Tell a lie and find the truth.

Tell a tale to a mare, and she’ll let a f——t. R. (1670).
Countryman’s New Commonwealth, 1647.

Tell a woman she’s a beauty, and the devil will tell her so ten times.

Tell me it snows.
Walker’s Parœm., 1672, p. 15. “Quid opus nota noscere?”—Plaut.—W.

Tell me news. WALKER.
“What I know not; speak to the matter; come to the question.”—W.

Tell me with whom thou goest,

and I’ll tell thee what thou doest.

La mala compagnia è quella che mena huomini à la furca. Ital. Dime con quien andas, decir te he’ quien eres. Span. Dizeme com quem andas, dirte hei que manhas has. Port.—R. Tell me your company, &c. “It is a prouerbe in Italie not so trite as true:—Essayes Morall and Theologicall, by D[aniel] T[uvill.] 1609, sign. D 3. verso.

Tell money after your own father.

Tell no tales out of school.

Tell thy cards, and tell me what thou hast won. HE.*

Temperance is the best physic.

Tempestas sequitur serenum.
Philosophers Banquet, by W. B., 1614, 8vo.

Temporising is sometimes great wisdom.

Tempus edax rerum.
This and the following are so familiar, that they require no explanation: there are no exact equivalents in our language.

Tempus fugit.

Ten in the hundred.
An usurer from the rate of interest habitually charged by him in old days.

Tertium quid.

Tertius hæres.
In the Thrie Tales of the Thrie Priests of Peblis, written before 1492, the First Question is: “Quhy burges bairnis thryvis not to the thrid air?” It is known to be a very customary incidence in families, even where the first money-earning generation transmits an estate, to see it dissipated by the next successor, and in America they have an apposite saying: “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.”

Testons are gone to Oxford to study in Brazen-nose.

quoted by B. Corney.
Another epigram by Heywood, quoted in Knight’s London, iii. 43, is:—So that they became worse soon after their original issue probably.
“But the name of the Oxford college has nothing to do with a brazen nose, having in all probability been derived from the brewery (Brasseria), which may have stood on the site of the original Brasenose Hall. It has been said, however, that the name came from a college or hall at Stamford in Lincolnshire so called.
This began about the end of the reign of King Henry VIII. at such time as he debased the coin, alloying it with copper (which common people confound with brass). It continued till about the middle of Queen Elizabeth, who by degrees called in all the adulterated coin. Testone and our English tester come from the Italian testa, signifying a head, because that money was stamped with a head on one side. Copstick, in High Dutch, hath the same sense; i.e., Nummus capitatus; money with a head upon it.—R. See also Oxoniana, ii. 169–70, and Bolton Corney’s Illustrations of the Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1838, p. 82. The silver coinage of Henry VIII., except the first, was much alloyed, and each successive issue was more shamefully adulterated than its predecessor. The “brazen-nosed” testoons were those with his own head on them, as the shillings and groats with his father’s effigy are comparatively pure.

Th’ Abbey Hey bull-dogs drest i’ rags,

dar’ no’ com’ out to th’ Gorton lads.

Higson’s MSS. Coll., No. 49. Gorton is in Lancashire, three and a half miles on the E.S.E. side of Manchester.

That bird is not honest that [de]fileth his own nest.
Skelton (Works, 1843, i. 125) speaks of this as an old proverb. He died in 1529. In Eastward Hoe, by Marston, Jonson, and Chapman, 1605, Mildred says to her sister, who is speaking disparagingly of her city home and origin: “Well, sister, those that scorn their nest oft fly with a sick wing.” [Greek].

That bolt never came out of your quiver.

That cake came out of my oven.

That cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap.

That char is char’d.
“That char is char’d well now, Ignorance my son.”—Marriage of Wit and Science (1570).

That char is char’d, as the good wife said when she had hanged her husband.
A char (Goth. kar, and A.S. cyrre), in the Northern dialect, is any particular business, affair, or charge, that I commit to or entrust another to do.

That city cannot prosper where an ox is sold for less than a fish.

That city is in a bad case whose physician hath the gout.

That dirt made this dust.

That fellow would talk a horse to death. S. Devon.
In the local vernacular: Thilk veller would tell a horse to death.

That fish will soon be caught that nibbles at every bait.

That girdle will not gird me.

That goes against the shins.
i.e., It is to my prejudice, I do it not willingly.—R.

That grief is light which is capable of counsel.