He is under the knife, in great danger or extremity. Our phrase, he is under the hatchet, is of similar import. The adage was applied when any one who had fallen into an ambush, into the sea, or into any other peril, was left to wade through, or extricate himself by his own strength or ingenuity. The metaphor is taken from a victim standing at the altar, ready to be sacrificed.

––«fugit improbus et me sub cultro liquit».

Instead of assisting, he fled, and left me to struggle through my difficulties unaided. Occasions offer too frequently of applying this apothegm.

We should believe that under every stone a scorpion may be lodged, which seems to be the sense of the adage; and it is intended to admonish us in all business to aet with deliberation and caution, that we may not involve ourselves in troubles and dangers; particularly we should set a guard over our tongues and not be too communicative, lest we should instruct others in any plans we may have formed for the advancement of our affairs, who may thence be enabled to become our rivals, and prevent the completion of our designs: or by speaking too freely of the concerns of others excite enmities which may be productive of consequences still more mischievous. "Volto sciolto," the Italians say, "i pensieri stretti," be free and open in your countenance and address, but cautious and reserved in your communications. There are many other similar cautions; "Latet anguis in herba," there is a snake in the grass, take care how you tread. "Debaxo de la miel, ay hiel," under the honey you may find gall. "Paredes tien oydos," and "tras pared, ni tras seto, no digas tu secreto." "Walls have ears," be cautious what you say; and "little pitchers have long ears." Children, even when playing about you, are often more attentive to what you are saying, then to their own amusement. "Dizen los ninos en el solejar, lo que oyen a sus padres en el hogar," they tell when abroad, what they hear their parents saying by the fireside. In the countries where scorpions breed, they are frequently found lying unders stones, as worms are in this country; any one therefore incautiously removing a stone, under which one of these venemous reptiles may happen to lie, will be in danger of being stung by the enraged animal, whence the proverb.

Joan is as good as my lady in the dark, and De noche todos los gatos son pardos, in the dark all cats are grey. The following, which is familiar to all my readers, says all that is necessary on this subject:

«Whilst in the dark on thy soft hand I hung,
And heard the tempting syren in thy tongue;
What flames, what darts, what anguish I endured:
But when the candle entered. I was cured».

He hath brought this mischief upon himself. "He hath pulled an old house about his ears." Why would he interfere in a business in which he had no concern? He should have remembered that, "He that meddleth with strife that doth not belong to him, is like one that taketh a mad dog by the ear."

You are preaching to the deaf; to prepossessed and prejudiced ears; to presons so besotted and addicted to their vices, that they will not listen to you, though your advice be most suitable to them, and such as they cannot reject, but to their manifest disadvantage. "They are like to the deaf adder, which stoppeth her ears, and refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." As the following narrative seems to give an ingenious explanation of this passage in the Psalms, it is here added. "There is a kind of snake in India," Mr. Forbes says, in his Oriental Memoirs, lately published, "which is called the dancing snake. They are carried in baskets throughout Hindostan, and procure a maintenance for a set of people, who play a few simple notes on the flute, with which the snakes seem much delighted, and keep time by a graceful motion of the head, erecting about half their length from the ground, and following the music with gentle curves, like the undulating lines of a swan's neck. It is a well attested fact, that when a house is infested with these snakes, and some others of the coluber genus, which destroy poultry, and small domestic animals, as also by the larger serpents of the boa tribe, the musicians are sent for, who, by playing on a flageolet, find out their hiding places, and charm them to destruction; for no sooner do the snakes hear the music, than they come from their retreat, and are easily taken. I imagine," Mr. Forbes says, "that these musical snakes were known in Palestine, from the Psalmist comparing the ungodly to the deaf adder, which stoppeth her ears, and refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. When the music ceaseth, the snakes appear motionless, but if not immediately covered up in the basket, the spectators are liable to fatal accidents. Among my drawings is that of a cobra de capello, which danced for an hour on the table, while I painted it, during which I frequently handled it, to observe the beauty of the spots, and especially the spectacles on the hood, not doubting but that its venemous fangs had been previously extracted. But the next morning I was informed by my servant, that while purchasing some fruit, he observed the man who had been with me the preceding evening, entertaining the country people, who were sitting on the ground around him, with his dancing snakes, when the animal that I had so often handled, darted suddenly at the throat of a young woman, and inflicted a wound, of which she died in about half an hour."

Persons pretending to instruct those who are qualified to be their masters, or to inform others in matters of which they are themselves ignorant, fall under the censure of this adage; their conduct being as ridiculous as would be that of a sow who should presume to attempt to teach wisdom. Our clowns, not very delicately, tell you, not to teach your grandames to suck eggs, for, «a bove majori discit arare minor», the young ox learns to plow from the elder, not the elder from the young, and El Diablo saba mucho, the Spaniards say, porque es viejo, the devil knows a great deal, for he is old.

Bear and forbear, a phrase frequently used by Epictetus, as embracing almost the whole that philosophy or human reason can teach us. Of this Epictetus was a memorable example, no man bearing the evils of life with more constancy or less coveting its enjoyments. His master Epaphroditus, for he was a slave in the early part of his life, diverting himself with striking his leg with a large stick, he told him, that if he continued to give such heavy strokes he would break the bone; which happening as he had foretold, all that he said on the occasion was, «did not I tell you, you would break my leg». When afterwards he had obtained his liberty and was much followed as a teacher of philosophy, he still lived in the plainest and simplest manner; his house or cottage had no door, and the little furniture it contained was of the meanest kind. When an iron lamp by which he used to study, was stolen, he said, « I shall deceive the thief if he should come again, as he will only find an earthen one».This earthen lamp, Lucian tells us, was sold for three thousand drachmas or groats, £75 of our money. He is said to have lived to his ninety-sixth year. The Mexicans, without being beholden to the tenets of philosophy, have learnt from experience the necessity of undergoing trouble; they say to their children on being born, «thou art come into the world, child, to endure; suffer, therefore, and be silent».

We each of us think, that whatever we possess, whether children, horses, dogs, houses, or any other things, are better than those of our neighbours, "all our geese are swans." Or, as a common adage has it, "Every crow thinks her own bird fair." This disposition, when not carried to excess, is rather to be encouraged than reproved, as tending to make us contented and happy, in our situations; indulged too much, it occasions our becoming dupes to sycophants and flatterers. None fall so easily under the influence of this prejudice, as poets, orators, and artisans, who are generally as much enamoured with their own productions, as lovers are with the charms of their mistresses. "Nemo unquam, neque poeta, neque orator fuit, qui quenquam meliorem se arbitraretur," there never was poet, or orator, Cicero says, who thought any other superior to himself in his art, nor any lover who did not find more beauty in his mistress than in any other woman.

If he had eaten quietly what he had obtained; if he had not boasted of his good fortune, before he was completely in possession of it, he might have enjoyed it unmolested; but by proclaiming it he has stirred up rivals for the situation, with whom he will find it difficult to contend, and who may probably supplant him. The idea is taken from the fable of the stag who had escaped the hunters and eluded their search by concealing himself among the vines, but thinking himself safe, he began to browse upon the leaves; the hunters, led to the place by the noise and by the motion of the boughs, took and killed him. Or from the crow, who, overcome by the flattery of the fox, attempting to sing, let fall the cheese that he held in his mouth, which the fox seized upon and devoured. Can't you fare well, we say, without crying roast meat?

Blinder than a mole. The ancients thought moles had no eyes, but they have two small eyes, affording them so mush sight, as to enable them to know when they have emerged through the earth, and they no sooner perceive the light, than they return into their burrows, where alone they can be safe. This proverb is applied to persons who are exceedingly slow in conceiving, or understanding what is said to them; also to persons searching for what lays immediately before them. "If it was a bear," we say, "it would bite you." To the same purport is "Leberide caecior." By the leberis, the Latins meant the dry and cast skin of a serpent, or of any other animal, accustomed to change its coat, in which the apertures for the eyes only remain. With us, it is usual, in censuring the same defect, to say, "He is as blind as a beetle." "We are all of us used to be Argus's abroad, but moles at home," but how much better would it be to correct an error in ourselves, than to find an hundred in our neighbours.

The subject is as familiar and as well known to me, as are my fingers; to be perfectly conversant with a business, or to have it, as we say, "at our fingers' ends."

He is as proud of the transaction, as if he had despoiled a Grecian warrior of his shield. The Greeks and Romans defended their shields with the greatest pertinacity, it being held in the highest degree dishonourable to suffer them to be taken from them. The adage was used to be applied to persons boasting of some insignificant exploit, and magnifying it, as if they had saved a friend, or their country from destruction.

It is a subject I am as well acquainted with, as I am with my own name, or with my fingers, was used to be said to persons repeating any well known story or circumstance.

«Totis diebus, Afer, hæc mihi narras,
Et teneo melius ista, quam meum nomen».

You are perpetually teasing me with a repetition of this story, which is as familiar to me as my own name.

He is like a cork, nothing will depress or sink him, was used to be said of persons who had passed through great trials, or escaped from imminent danger without mischief. Of such men we say, like a cat he has nine lives, or throw him as you will he will be sure to alight upon his feet, give a man luck and throw him into the sea.

"Who has been used to carry a calf, may in time carry an ox." The adage is said to have taken its rise from the story of a woman who took delight in nursig and carrying about with her a calf, and as the animal grew, her strength so increased, that she was able to carry it when it became an ox. Or, as Erasmus conjectures, from the story of Milo the Crotonian, who was said, with great ease to take up an ox, and carry it on his shoulders; but who perished miserably, "Wedged in the oak which he strove to rend." It may be used to shew the force of habit or custom, and its influence both on our mental and bodily powers, which may by use be increased to an almost incredible degree. Also to shew the necessity of checking and eradicating the first germs of vice in children, as, if they be suffered to fix themselves, they will in time become too powerful to be subdued.

Not having sufficient for your own support, do you pretend to keep dogs? This was used to be applied to persons whose income, insufficient to supply them with necessaries, was laid out in superfluities; in keeping servants and horses, or in an ostentatious use of gaudy clothes, furniture, or other articles of luxury, unbecoming their circumstances. "Los que cabras no tienen, y cabritos venden, de donde lo vienen?" those who, having no goats, yet sell kids, whence do they get them? is said by the Spaniards, of persons who, having no estates, or known income, yet contrive to live at a great expense.

Which cannot be better exemplified than by the following lines:

–––– «Time lays his hand
On pyramids of brass, and ruins quite
What all the fond artificers did think
Immortal workmanship. He sends his worms
To books, to old records, and they devour
Th' inscriptions; he loves ingratitude,
For he destroys the memory of man».

Time brings all things to light. Truth has therefore been called the daughter of Time, or as the Spaniards say, of God, "la verdad es hija de Dios"; the wicked man hence knows no peace, but lives in perpetual fear that time, the great revealer of secrets, should tear off the veil that hides his crimes and shew him in his true colours. But time also overturns and destroys every thing, and takes away even the memory of them.

I see land, may be said by persons getting nearly to the end of a long and troublesome business, or concluding any great work or labour; more directly, and to this the adage owes its origin, by those who have been a long time time at sea, and perhaps been driven about by adverse winds, on first espying the shore, «Thank God, I once more see land!».

A snail's pace, he moves slower than a snail, or is fit to drive snails, are phrases applied to persons who are extremely sluggish. Vicistis cochleam tarditate.