Ancient Or Modern ?

ANCIENT OR MODERN ?

" If a saying has a proverbial fame , the probability ia that it was nsver said . "—De Qainoy . The question has been asked , " Who waa the original story-teller ? for in romance , history , and science , hia stories seem to havo had many imitators and adapters . " Then follows tbo witty simile , "They have sometimes been disguised , as gipsie 3 dvo their stolen

ohildren in walnufc-jaice , that their parents may not recognise them . " Miss Edgeworth reoords many instances of jokes and stories , whioh have been aaoribed first to one nation and then to another , to one celebrated oharacter and then another , inst to suit the demand

and fashion of the day . Many jokes claiming various origins and nationalities , and attribnted to all kinds of celebrities ( some of which I shall refer to in future sketches ) , have been proved to possess a very ancient pedigree . One author even asserts that there never has been in the world more than a very limited number of jokes , and that every apparent new one is but an alteration of some one already

in existence . Hierooles , the Grecian Neo-PlatiniBt , who lived in tho middle of the fifth century , among otber things compiled a book of jests and ludiorous stories which he had collected during the course of his lifetime . From this source is derived tho following joke , with which Paddy is generally credited nowadays : — " A man , anxious to know

how he looked when ho was asleep , stood boforo a looking-glass with his eyes Bhnt to see . " Then who has not heard about tho individual , who , wishing to teach his horse to do without food , actually starved him ? In complaining to his friends that tbe animal bad died under such treatment , ho said , " I have suffered a great loss , for just when I had taught my horse to live . upon nothing , he died . " The next one

is also familiar : — " A . healthy-looking Bon of the soil , meeting a physician , ran and hid himself behind a wall . Upon being questioned as to his reason for so doing , he replied , ' It is so long since I have been sick that I am ashamed to look a physician in the face . '" Another had to cross a river , and went on board the ferryboat on horseback . Upon being asked why be did so , he replied ,

" Because I was in a hnrry . " A friend having written to a pedant to boy him some books , and his commission having been neglected , when they met some time afterwards the pedant said ( we have read it that Pat said ) " The letter yoa wrote to me about the books , I never reoeived . " The Greeks , apparently , were inst as notorionsly habituated to

making bulls a 3 our Irish neighbours are known to be . To judge from the following and other examples , onr modern high-priest of metaphorioal blundering and contrarino 3 s ( Sir Boyle Roche ) is merely a copyist : — " A man hearing that a raven would live two hundred years , bought one to try . A landlord who had a house to sell , went amongst his friends carrying a brick as a specimon . One

of two twin brothers died ; some one meeting the survivor asked , ' whioh is it , yon or your brother , that's dead ? ' A citizen , seeing some sparrows in a tree , went beneath and shook it , holding out hia hat to catch them as they fell . A man who had nearly been drowned while bathing , declared that he would not go again into the water nntil he had learned to swim . " A similar remark to that of the

latter is made by Orouoh , in tbe seventeenth century . The following sentiments with regard to women , strike ns as having boon repeated , although under another form . Aristophanes in his Lysietratns affirms that " there is no living with woman bocause of her caprice , " bub is also candid enough to admit that " there is no living without her—because of her charms . " That was

a pieoe of sarcasm on tho part of Euripides , when he preferred a bill of indictment against Jove for having sent woman into the world , only to rednce man to bondage by her charms . The censor Metallus Numidicus , whose duty was to persuade the citizens to marry for tbe good of the Commonwealth , thus sums up the excellencies of woman : — "If , Romans , we could do without a

wife , we should all be free from that source of vexation ; bat as Natnre has BO ordered it that we cannot live without them happily , or without them ab all , we had best take onr physio as sensible men . " It is related iu the Curiosities of Literature that " the learned Kelly formed a copious collection of Scotch proverbs , but was mortified at discovering that many which he had long believed to be

genuine Scottish , were not only English , bat French , Italian , Spanish , Latin , and Greek ones ; many of his Scottish proverbs are almost literally expressed among the fragments of remote antiquity . It would have surprised him farther had he been aware that his Greek originals were themselves bnt copies , and might have been found in D'Herbelob , Erpenius , and Golius , and in many Asiatic works . "

For every ancient saying that has become popular and axiomatic , another , equally so , can be found to qualify it . Thus : " Too many oooks spoil the broth , " has as its opposite , " In a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom . " Again , " Out of sight out of mind , " is contradicted by " Absence makes the heart grow fonder . " The expression , " Procrastination is the thief of time , " is contradicted

by one which tells you that " Second thoughts are best , " and " Never aot on impulse , " has its antithesis in " Strike while the iron is hot . " It may be asked whether humorous sayings which are similar in all ages , have been handed down , or re-invented over and over again , the writers having by a similar train of concidences struck

upon the same idea . Some of the jokes given to ns as new are more than two thousand years old . Porson said that he could trace back all the " Joe Millers " to a Greek origin . Sayings attributed to Frederick the Great , have also been attributed to Napoleon . The saying , " Trast a friend as though be would one day become an

enemy , " has been ascribed to Lord Chesterfield , to Pablius Syrns , and even to Bias , one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece . We learn through the Venerable Bede , that the rope trick as performed by the notorious Davenport Brothers , was anticipated by Imma , There is a well-known story of Raleigh ' s servant , who , going into

Ancient Or Modern ?

hia master ' s presence one day , and finding him in the enjoyment of the weed , became alarmed at tho incandescent appearance of the great man , and threw into his face the contents of a vessel which he carriod . This incident seems to have been first ascribed to Raleigh iu a periodical pnbliahod at the commencement of the eighteenth century . The same story however is related in connection with

Tarlton and others , just a hundred years previously as follows ;—" How Tarlton tooke Tobacco at the first oomraing up of it . " Tarlton , ( as other gentlemen used ) , at the first comming up of Tobacco , did take it more for fashion ' s sake than otherwise , & being in a room , set between two Men overcome with Wine , and they never seeing the like , wondred at it ; and seeing the vapour come

out of TarV . on's nose , cryed out Fire , fire , and then threw a Cup of Wine in Tarlton * s face . Make no more stirre , quoth Tarlton , the fire is quenched : if the Sheriffes come , it will turn to a fine , as the Cnstome is . And drinking that againe , Fie , sayes the other , what a stinke it makes , I am almost poisoned . If it offend , saies Tarlton , let ' s every one take a little of the smell , and so the savour will

quickly goe : but Tobacco whiffes made them leave him to pay all . " Lord Baoon tells us a story of a Flemish tiler in Flanders , who by accident fell from the top of a house upon a Spaniard , and killed him , though he escaped himself . " The next of the blood prosecuted his death with great violence , and when he was offered pecuniary recompense , nothing would serve him but lex talionis ; whereupon

tho Judge said to him , that if he did urge that sentenoe , it must be that he should go up to the top of the house and then fall down upon the tiler . " Lord Bacon also relates another story about a yonng man in Rome who waa very like Augustns Cmsar . " Augustus took knowledge of him , and sent for the man , and asked him , " Was yonr mother never at Rome ? " He answered , " No , sir , but my father

was . " Both these stories have been repeated over and over again , each narrator claiming a fresh soil in whioh to plant them , giving at the same time a new \ oca \ coAoming . In the Wonderful Magazine , published about a hundred years ago , there is an anecdote about Alphonso , King of Naples . ' He had a fool who recorded in a book the follies of the great men of the Court .

The King sent a Moor in his household to the Levant to buy horses , for whioh he gave him ben thousand ducats , and the fool marked this as a piece of folly . Some time afterwards the king asked for the book to look over it , was surprisad to find his own name there , and asked the reason . " Because , " said the jester , " you have entrusted your money to one yon are never likely to see again . " " But if he

does come back P" demanded the king , " and brings me the horses , what folly have I committed ? " " Well , if he does return , " replied the fool "I'll blot ont your name and put in his . " A similar story to the above is related of the present Shah of Persia , both narratives evidently being founded upon one related of Bresquet , jester to Francis the First of France , by Lord Bacon , or upon a

pleasantry extracted from " Pasquil ' s Jests with the Merriments of Mother Bun oh . " Sydney Smith ' s reply , when it was proposed to pave the approach to St . Paul ' s with blocks of wood , " Tbe canons have only to put their headB together and it will bo done , " was not original ; Rochester made a similar remark to Charles II when he noticed a

conalraction near Shoreditcb . There is the story of a man who complained that a chicken brought op for bis dinner bad only one leg . It was explained to him that if he would go and look into the roost-house he would see others like it . But when he did so , and caused them to regain tbe other leg by startling them with " Sh ! sh ! " the servant very coolly retorted ,

" Bnt maBter , you should have said ' Sh ! sh ! ' to the one you vo eaten . " This story is to be found in an old Turkish jest-book of tho fifteenth century . The almost archaic saying attribnted to Joseph Brotherton , a former Member of Parliament for Salford : — " My riohes consist not in the extent of my possessions , but in the fewness of my wants , " is

snspioiously like the siying of Socrates , when some one remarked it was a great thing to have one ' s desires . "It is still greater , " Baid the philosopher , " to have no desiies . " Iphicrates , when reproached with tbe absurdity of fortifying his camp every night , and taking the same precautions as if the country

was hostile , when marching with his army through a friendly country , replied , "The worst words a general can utter are " I never should have thought it . " Lord Wolseley says in the " Soldier's Pocketbook , " that the greatest disgrace a general can suffer is to have to say , " I never thought of it . " The same sentiment is expressed by Plutarch . " Book of Rarities , " by EDWARD ROBERTS P . M . ( To be continued ) .

June.

JUNE .

June comes , in all the pride of womanhood , Dressed in a glorious garb of leaves and flowers ; In ten thousand glens and meads and bowers She graceful reigns—the Empress of each wood . And , ah ! her rule is beautiful and good : She fills the rills with soft refreshing shower ? , And gives to ns those perfnme-laden hours

Which fly too soon from her fair habitude . Sweet ia her breath—melodious her voice , Stately her form , yet gentle as the breeze That softly sighs through all her well-clad trees , Making her children—bird , bad , bee—rejoice . But radiant , rapturous June will quickly fly , Leaving her offspriug , all forlorn , to dio . CHAKLES F . FOHSHAW .