Much straw, but little grain. With much labour I have obtained but small profit; or, from a long and laboured discourse, but little information. Assai romor et poco lana. Great cry but little wool, as the devil said when he sheared his hogs. This adage takes it rise from a scene in one of the Misteries, a kind of dramatic amusement very popular before the use of plays; in which the devil is introduced shearing one of those animals, which continued making a most frightful noise during the operation, to the great diversion of the audience.

The horse is not the progeny of the slow paced ass, the sheep of the lion. We do not easily believe a dull and stupid man to be the son of an acute, sensible and ingenious parent; a coward, of a brave and spirited, or a debauched and worthless man, to be the progeny of a good and worthy sire; and yet these anomalies not unfrequently occur.