Proverb-rhymes

: PROVERB RHYMES
: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales

Metrical proverbs are so numerous, that a large volume might be filled

with them without much difficulty; and it is, therefore, unnecessary to

say that nothing beyond a very small selection is here attempted. We may

refer the curious reader to the collections of Howell, Ray, and Denham,

the last of which chiefly relates to natural objects and the weather,

for other examples; but the subject is so diffuse, that these writers
< r /> have gone a very short way towards the compilation of a complete series.



Give a thing and take again,

And you shall ride in hell's wain!



Said by children when one wishes a gift to be returned, a system

naturally much disliked. So says Plato, . Ray, p. 113, ed. 1768. Ben Jonson appears to allude

to this proverb in the Sad Shepherd, where Maudlin says--"Do you give a

thing and take a thing, madam?" Cotgrave, Dictionarie of the French and

English Tongues, 1632, in v. Retirer, mentions "a triviall proverb:"



Give a thing,

And take a thing,

To weare the divell's gold-ring.



And it is alluded to in a little work entitled Homer a la Mode, a mock

poem upon the First and Second Books of Homer's Iliads, 12mo. Oxford,

1665, p. 34:



Prethee for my sake let him have her,

Because to him the Graecians gave her;

To give a thing, and take a thing,

You know is the devil's gold-ring!



The proverb sometimes runs thus:



Give a thing, take a thing,

That's an old man's play-thing.



"A lee with a hatchet," as they say in the North, is a circumstantial

self-evident falsehood, and so runs the proverb:



That's a lie with a latchet,

All the dogs in the town cannot match it.



Children say the following when one has been detected in any

misrepresentation of a mischievous character--



Liar, liar, lick spit,

Your tongue shall be slit,

And all the dogs in the town

Shall have a little bit.



The following versions of the former rhyme are current in the North of

England:



That's a lee wi' a latchet,

You may shut the door and catch it.



That's a lee wi' a lid on,

And a brass handle to tak houd on.



In Yorkshire a tell-tale is termed a pleen-pie, and there is a

proverb current which is very similar to that given above:



A pleen-pie tit,

Thy tongue sal be slit,

An iv'ry dog i' th' town

Sal hev a bit.



Left and right

Brings good at night.



When your right eye itches, it is a sign of good luck; when the left, a

sign of bad luck. When both itch, the above distich expresses the

popular belief.



He got out of the muxy,

And fell into the pucksy.



A muxy is a dunghill, and the pucksy a quagmire. This is a variation of

the old saying of falling out of the dripping-pan into the fire:



Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdini.



Those that made me were uncivil,

For they made me harder than the devil!

Knives won't cut me, fire won't sweat me,

Dogs bark at me, but can't eat me!



These proverbial lines are supposed to be spoken by Suffolk cheese,

which is so hard that a myth tells us gate-pegs in that county are made

with it. The proverb has been long true, and Pepys, writing in 1661,

says: "I found my wife vexed at her people for grumbling to eate Suffolk

cheese, which I also am vexed at."



Speak of a person and he will appear,

Then talk of the dule, and he'll draw near.



Said of a person who makes his appearance unexpectedly, when he is

spoken of.



When Easter falls in our Lady's-lap,

Then let England beware a rap.



That is, when Easter falls on Lady-day, March 25, which happens when the

Sunday Letter is G, and the Golden Number 5, 13, or 16. See Aubrey's

Miscellanies, ed. 1696, p. 21.



In July

Some reap rye.

In August,

If one won't, the other must.



From Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, given in Hone's Year-Book, col.

1595.



In March

The birds begin to search;

In April

The corn begins to fill;

In May

The birds begin to lay.



From Lancashire. This resembles in its character the cuckoo song we have

given at p. 160.



Friday night's dream

On the Saturday told,

Is sure to come true,

Be it never so old.



When it gangs up i' sops,

It'll fall down i' drops.



A North country proverb, the sops being the small detached clouds

hanging on the sides of a mountain. Carr, ii. 147.



To-morrow come never,

When two Sundays come together.



This is sometimes addressed to one who promises something "to-morrow,"

but who is often in the habit of making similar engagements, and not

remembering them.