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risen from obscurity to power, have set noble examples.

Throw him into a river, and he will rise with a fish in his mouth. (Arabic.) Some men are so fortunate that nothing can sink them. Where another man would drown they find fish or pearls.

which sent forth phosphoric gleams. He stooped down to try and warm his hands at it; but finding the bleak winds whistling all round his legs, he made the sage observation above, which has passed into a proverb.

proverb fly; how excellent is the warning and the self-command it inculcates!

Entfloh'nes Wort, geworf'ner Stein, die kommen nimmermehr herein; the hasty word, The monkey feared transmigration, lest he and hasty stone, can never be recalled. How should become a gazelle. (Arabic.) The match-truthful, how home to the mark, does this less conceit of some people, and utter ignorance of themselves, either as to appearance or abilities, are finely expressed in the above. The baker's wife went to bed hungry. (Arabic.) How often is it seen, that those who follow a profession or trade, are among the last to display a special benefit from their calling! Our proverb, that "Shoemakers' wives are the worst shod," seems to be derived from the same source.

To-day a fire, to-morrow ashes. (Arabic.) Violent passions are the soonest exhausted; to-day all-powerful, to-morrow nothing, or the consequences.

Reading the psalms to the dead. (Arabic.) This is the original of our “Preaching to the dead," to express the fruitlessness of exhortations, applications, or petitions, to certain insensible people.

Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide; the scalded cat fears (even) cold water. This is Follow the owl, she will lead thee to ruin. a better version of the English proverb of "A (Arabic.) A most picturesque proverb, givburnt child dreads the fire." That the pro- ing its own scenery with it. But it strikes verb is by no means of general application, one as curious that this should come from the the experience of every one can avouch. It East which seems so familiar to our apprewould be the saving of many a child, of what-hensions. Not only are the habits of the owl ever age, who having been burnt should entertain a salutary dread of the fire ever after. But it is not so; witness how many are burnt i.e., ruined, wounded, shot, drowned, made ridiculous, who had all been previously well Two of a trade can never agree. It is cuwarned by "burning their fingers" with loss-rious, and, in most instances, highly gratifyes, injuries by land and sea, and failures in attempts involving dangerous chances.

the same, but the owl is equally regarded as the symbol of a purblind fool. Yet, on the other hand, the owl of classic times was a type of wisdom.

ing, to see how many of these sayings of our ancestors are becoming falsified by the great Crom a boo; I will burn. This Irish pro- advances made, of late years, in social feelverb, or saying, may serve in many respects ings and arrangements. Trades' unions, coas an adverse commentary on the preceding. operative societies-in fact, all our great There are people who are never at rest when companies prove how well two of a trade can they are out of hot water-nor contented agree; and so do all combinations of masters when they are in. "I will burn" is the motor of workmen. Yes, it will be said, but to of the Duke of Leinster. It would do ca- they "agree," and co-operate for their mutual pitally for Mr. Smith O'Brien. Perhaps, interests, and they do not agree with those however, it should not be read as a resolu- opposed to them. Of course not; the sensition to suffer, but as a threat to inflict a burn-ble thing, therefore, is obvious, to enlarge ing. Still, the vagueness of this threat-a dreadful announcement with no definite object would render it equally applicable.

Bis dat qui cito dat; he gives double who gives promptly. The truth of this is well illustrated by the converse it suggests; that he who long delays and tantalizes before giving, earns less gratitude than scorn. It requires more generosity and a finer mind to confer a favor in the best way, than to confer double the amount of the favor in itself.

I am

What I gain afore I lose ahint. (Scotch.) To be engrossed with a fixed object, is to forget what is going on all around us. closely engaged with what is passing before my eyes, while I am deceived and injured behind my back. This quaint old proverb has been ludicrously illustrated by a characteristic story. A Highlander, in a somewhat scanty kilt, was crossing a desolate moor one winter's night, and being very cold, he has tened to a light he saw at no great distance. It turned out to be a decomposed cod's head,

the sphere of good understanding and reciprocal fair dealing in matters of business, and thus to supersede the bad feeling and injury of greedy rivalries and selfish antagonisms.

There was a wife who always took what she had, and never wanted. (Scotch.) A good practical advice, showing the importance of using what you possess, instead of hoarding it, or reserving it, even when most needed, for some possible contingency, which may never occur. It seems to refer chiefly to articles of dress, clothing, domestic utensils, or other household matters.

Dat Deus immiti cornua curta bovi; God curtails the power to do evil in those who desire to do it."

There is honor among thieves. This is, no doubt, quite true, though you must be a thief yourself to derive much benefit from it. They stand by their order. The suggestion issince there is honor towards each other among the most unprincipled classes, surely Mr. Sweepstakes, and Mr. Moses Battledore, who

seum contains many such little pitchers, as well as the Foundling Hospital.

are both respectable members of society, and belong to clubs, would not cheat me. But this does not logically follow; for we by no The ox that ploughs must not be muzzled. means know how far the respectable indivi- (Arabic.) The laborer ought to be allowed dual makes his view of his own interest an freedom of speech, or at least free breathing. excuse to himself for an occasional exception | We have a nautical saying akin to this—“ Ä to the code of morality he professes. There's sailor never works well if he does not grumhonor among thieves; and there are thieves (here and there) among honorably-connect- Three united men will ruin a town. (Araed men, "all honorable men." Life is a bic.) The power of combination was never mingled yarn" of good and evil; and so- more excellently expressed. ciety is a motley aggregate of all sorts of yarns.

ble."

He begins the quarrel who gives the second blow. (Spanish.) There are but few who A rose-bud fell to the lot of a monkey. possess the requisite degree of wise and kind(Arabic.) The monkey appreciated the rose-ly forbearance and magnanimous self-combud quite as much as swine appreciate the pearls which are said to be cast before them. Of what use to a fool is all the trouble he gives himself? (Chinese.) None whatever; but his folly may cause a vast deal of trouble to people of sense. One false move of an utterly incompetent man in office, and the force of the saying becomes very expansive.

There are no lies so wicked as those which have some foundation. (Chinese.) A saying which is but too true, and which ought to be universally understood in society, as some protection against slander.

Many preparations before the sour plum sweetens. (Chinese.) Great results do not hastily ripen; great and important changes must undergo a gradual process.

Spare the rod and spoil the child. This seems to be derived from the old Spanish proverb, which we find in Don Quixote, "He loves thee well who makes thee weep." They are unkindly and dangerous maxims, which tend to inculcate severity, and to justify harsh treatment upon the plea of future advantage. We readily admit that nothing can well be worse than a "spoilt child," nor can a more injurious system exist than that of pampering or spoiling except the direct opposite, that of frequently causing tears.

mand implied in this saying. To strike again, or rather (as the blow is figurative) to retort an angry word, is natural to most men; to preserve a reproving silence, or administer a dignified rebuke, is in the power only of great characters, and not with them at all times. But it is quite possible, as we live in a very pugnacious world, that such forbearance should not be thrown away upon every one, or the small majority of the magnanimous would soon be beaten out of existence. The above proverb, we belive, is originally Spanish, and, coming from a people so proverbially revengeful, seems very extraordinary, and only to be accounted for as the result of an abstract thought of some lofty-minded hidalgo, speculating on friendship. Don Quixote might have said it.

A stitch in time saves nine. One of the most sensible and practical of all proverbs, as every body's experience can avouch. Yet, in defiance of all their own experience, how many people we often see who constantly neglect the stitch in time! They do not forget it, or overlook it; and when they do, if you point it out to them, they still neglect it.

Chi non sa niente, non dubita di niente; he who knows nothing, doubts of nothing. The converse is equally true. He who knows much, is careful how he doubts of any thing. This is peculiarly inculcated, at the present time, by the extraordinary discoveries and success of science.

A tea-spoonful of honey is worth a pound of gall. An indiscriminate use of the sweets of life is a stupidity and an injury; but the judicious use of them is of far more service in the production of good results, than the bitter lessons which are often considered to be of most advantage. It is better to soften the heart than to harden it. "A soft word turn-Wriod elapsed from that primal time when

eth away wrath."

From the Ladies' Companion.
A CHAPTER ON WATCHES.
E have no means of telling how long a pe

What the ant collects in a year, the priest the "evening and the morning made the first eats up in a night. (Arabic.) The tithe-day," ere man's ingenuity devised a means of taxes, and other revenues of the state-clergy, calculating the passing by of those precious derived from the industry of the working classes, are not very tenderly dealt with in this proverb.

The walls have ears. (Arabic.) This is one of the many instances of our homeliest proverbs in every-day use, being derived from the East. No doubt the saying, that "Little pitchers have great ears" (in allusion to the sharpness of hearing in children), is also derived from the domestic utensils of foreign countries in ancient times. The British Mu

moments of which his duration is composed, in order to economize them to the purposes of life. Shadows by day and stars at night appear to have indexed the flight of time for the ancient Hebrews; though it is very evident that long before the sun-dial of Ahar was made memorable by the Prophet Isaiah, the Chaldeans, accustomed to calculate eclipses, and other astronomical phenomena, must have been in possession of some much more accurate instrument for its computation.

astonished the Emperor Charles V. with those seemingly living toys with which he was wont to surround himself after dinner, and watch the beating and revolving of their curious machinery, those rude prototypes of our subject, which are said to have resembled small table clocks rather than watches, and yet were true specimens, we imagine, since they continued going in a horizontal position, which is the only mechanical distinction between a watch and clock-up to this period, we were about to say, clocks appear to have endured a very ascetic existence, living in tall houses, built on purpose for them, or shut up in church towers and monastic buildings

"Fell sickerer was his crowning in his loge,

As is a clock, or any abbey orloge," wrote Chaucer in the fourteenth century. | And it is not until nearly the end of the fifteenth that we find them domesticated in houses.

Days, months, and years, are constantly referred to in the books of the Old Testament, but nothing is said of more minute divisions of time, save that of the day into the natural ones of morning, noon, eventide, and night, until Judea became tributary to Rome, when three of the Evangelists, in describing the crucifixion, and the supernatural darkness subsequent to that event, remark that it lasted from the sixth hour to the ninth; and it is on record, that the Clepsydra, or water-clock, (said by Vitrivius to have been invented by one Ctesibius of Alexandria, in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes), was introduced at Rome by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, in the 595th year of the city, and consequently many years before the birth of Christ. This simple time-keeper was so constructed, that the water issued, drop by drop, through a hole in the vessel, and fell into another, in which a light floating body marked the height of the water as it rose, and by this means the time that had elapsed. These instruments, we are told, From a description of some, which appear were set full of water in the courts of judi- in an inventory of articles in the king's palcature, and by them the lawyers pleaded; in aces of Westminster and Hampton Court, order, as Phavorinus tells us, to prevent bab-copied by Strutt, the pendules of the period bling, and cause those who spoke to be brief must have been equally ornate with those in in their speeches. Hour, or sand-glasses, are modern drawing-rooms, and much more curialso said to have originated at Alexandria, ous. Thus one, we are told, not only showed and to have been introduced into domestic the course of the planets, and the days of the use amongst the Romans eight years after-year, but was richly gilt, and enamelled, and wards, or 158 years before the Christian era. ornamented with the king's (Henry the The earliest attempt at measuring time in Eighth's) coat of arms; it also possessed a this country appears to have been on the part chime. of Alfred the Great, by means of waxen tapers. The exact period when those direct ancestors of our subject, clocks, or, as they were primitively called, horologes, came into use, is one of those things over which time has cast so thick a veil, that not even the researches of the encyclopædists can penetrate it. By some, the invention of clocks with wheels is ascribed to Pacificus, archdeacon of Verona, as early as the ninth century. And though we read that clocks (without water) were set up in churches toward the end of the twelfth, the author of the "Divina Commedia" is the first writer on record, who distinctly applies the term horologium to a clock that struck the hours; and he was born 1265, and died 1321.

In 1288, during the reign of the 1st Edward, the English Justinian, as he has been called, it is said that a fine levied on a lord chief justice was applied to the purpose of furnishing the famous clock-house near Westminster Hall with an horologe, which it is farther stated was the work of an English artist.

Mention is also made of the setting up of a clock in Canterbury Cathedral about the same period, and in that of Wells in 1325. So that those three Dutch horologiers, from Delft, who came over (as Rymer tells us) at the invitation of Edward III. in 1368, were not, as some imagined, the introducers of the art, though they very possibly helped us to improve it. Up to the time when Henry de Wic

Speaking of this monarch reminds us, that previous to the scattering of the treasures of Strawberry Hill, there was preserved in the library there a little clock, of silver gilt, the gift of Henry, on the morning of his marriage, to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. It was elaborately chased and engraved, and adorned with fleurs-de-lys, and other heraldic devices, and had on the top a lion supporting the arms of England. The gilded weights represented true-lovers-knots, inclosing the initials of Henry and Anne; and one bore the inscription, "The most happye," the other the royal motto. Though more than three hundred years had passed since the tragic ending of time with its original possessor, it was still going when the ivory hammer of the famous Robins struck it down to another new and more fortunate owner. About this period watches are said to have been in use; and in the Holbein chamber of the collection just mentioned, a bust of the royal wife-slayer, carved in box-wood, represented him with a dial suspended on his breast. The earliest watch known was one in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum, which bore date 1541; but from various imperfections in the workmanship, they were not very generally used till towards the end of Elizabeth's reign.

Shakspeare frequently mentions the clock, and in "Twelfth Night" he makes Malvolio exclaim, in his babblings of fancied greatness Sickerness-steady, secure,

"While I, perchance, wind up my watch, | had no minute hand; a piece of catgut supor play with some rich jewel," an expression that would lead us to suppose that they were even then regarded rather as toys or ornaments than things of necessary use.

Archbishop Parker, in 1575, left by will to the Bishop of Ely his staff of Indian cane, with a watch in the top of it; a position that savors more of whim than utility. Yet the excellence of some of these ancient timekeepers is remarkable; for Derham, in his "Artificial Clockmaker," nentions a watch of Henry VIII., which was in order in 1714, and of which Dr. Demanbray had often heard Sir Isaac Newton and Demoivre speak; and the old wooden-framed clock of Peterborough Cathedral, which, instead of the usual key or winch, is wound up by long handles or spikes -a sufficient proof of its antiquity still strikes, says Denison, upon a bell of considerable size.

Guy Fawkes carried a watch in a more practical spirit than Malvolio or Archbishop Parker; Stowe tells us, one was found upon him which he and Percy had bought the day before, "to try conclusions for the long and short burning of the touch-wood with which he had prepared to give fire to the train of powder" a proof that even in the third year of the reign of James I. watches were not commonly worn, or the circumstance would not have been mentioned.

plied the place of a chain; it required winding up every twelve hours, had no balance spring, and appeared never to have had one; and it shut like a hunting-watch without any glass.

But to compensate for this interior rudeness in its construction, the lid and bottom of the case, as well as the dial-plate, were of silver, very neatly engraved, with pieces of Scripture history in the centre, and in the compartments the four Evangelists, and St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, and St. Jude: it had no date.

The reign of Charles II., who (like his namesake the emperor, in whose time they first appeared) is said to have been very partial to these instuments, was remarkable for the improvements made in them. Spring pocket-watches were invented by Hooke, 1658; and repeaters were introduced, one of the first of which Charles sent as a present to Louis XIV. of France. According to some authorities, reproduced would be the juster phrase here, for it is stated in "Memoirs of Literature," that some of the most ancient watches were strikers, and that such having been stolen both from Charles V. and Louis XI. whilst they were in a crowd, the thief was detected by their striking the hour!

Perhaps the most remarkable repeating watch extant, is that in the Academy of In the next reign, however, we find the Sciences at St. Petersburg, and which, like London "Clock-Makers' Company," incor- the old Nuremberg watches, is about the size porated 1631—a sign of the increased use of of an egg: within is represented the holy sethese instruments, and the growing import-pulchre, with the sentinels, and the stone at ance of their manufacture; and as this char- the mouth; and while the spectator is admirter prohibits the importation of clocks, ing this curious piece of mechanism, the stone watches, and alarms, it proves that we had is suddenly removed, the sentinels drop down, even then artists sufficiently skilful in the the angels appear, the women enter the tomb, various manipulations requisite in the con- and the same chant is heard which is perstruction of these articles, to render us inde-formed in the Greek Church on Easter Eve. pendent of foreign workmanship.

It is a singular feature in the history of this branch of art, that it has remained until very lately concentrated in the metropolis; besides which, Liverpool and Coventry are said to be the only places in England where a complete watch can be manufactured. At the latter place the business has only been introduced since the commencement of the present century, but the number of persons employed are said to equal the number in London.

Germany, by the way, has always been famous for the manufacture of clocks and watches, these latter claiming Nuremberg for their birthplace; and from this circumstance, and their oval shape, Dopplemayer tells us they were originally known as Nuremberg animated eggs.

At present this branch of horometry is chiefly to be found on the other side of the Alps, at or near Geneva, and at Chaux de Fond, in the principality of Neufchatel, where vast numbers of watches are manufactured. But the wooden clocks, which tick on every cottage wall, and which are erroneously call

all made in the Black Forest, the village of Freyburg being the centre of the manufacture, whence it is said 180,000 wooden clocks on an average are yearly exported.

But before passing from this event in the history of our subject (the incorporation of a company for the protection of their manu-ed Dutch, are in fact German, and are nearly facture in the reign of Charles I.), we may as well describe a watch of the period, which a few years before the publication of the "Encyclopædia Londinensis" (in 1811) had been in the possession of the proprietor. It was dug up but a few years previously, near the site of the ancient castle of Winchester, where it had probably lain from the time of Cromwell, who, it is well known, destroyed that edifice. It was of an octagon form, and

The Swiss, or Geneva watches, as they are commonly called, owing to the poverty of the workmen, the employment of women, and the subdivision of labor, which is carried to even a greater extent than with us, sell at a much lower price than those made in Eng

as lightly on the frame; but all its emotions help to wear this out.

In the dawn of its appearance, in an age when every science that set men wondering was in some degree regarded as the work of magic, what a sensation must these "animated eggs" have occasioned, and how suggestive! unless the fanciful belief of some of the early fathers of the church, who averred that gems and precious metals were first made known to mortals by fallen angels, who also inspired the desire to profit by, and be adorned with them, had any thing to do with the tabooing of evil by holy signatures-how suggestive are the quaint gravings of saints and scriptural subjects on the cover of the watch dug up at Winchester, of the antique

symbols, and so converting them into amulets; a custom which the Greeks and Romans borrowed from the Egyptians, and which the early Christians perpetuated after them.

We have seen the watch, originally oval, take an octagon form; after which it subsided into its present shape, the only variation being in size, and degrees of roundness.

land; but an English watch has hitherto been a desideratum in every part of the world. Here, at present, the term watch-maker is no longer applicable, every portion of the instrument being the work of a different artisan, and the separate parts are often sent hundreds of miles, to meet in the metropolis, and make a whole of excellent workmanship. There are innumerable places in which some branch or other of the manufacture is carried on; but the best movements are made at Prescot, in Lancashire, while the town of Whitchurch, in Hampshire, is employed wholly in making hands. In London, Clerkenwall Green has long been the resort of artificers employed in the various nice and delicate manipulations requisite in the construction of our subject: here, slide-makers, jewellers, motion-makers, custom of inscribing trinkets with sacred wheel-cutters, cap-makers, dial-plate-makers, the painter, the case-maker, the joint-finisher, the pendent-maker, the engraver, the piercer, the escapement-maker, the spring-maker, the chain-maker, the finisher, the gilder, the fusee-cutter, the hand-maker, the glass-maker, and pendulum spring wire-drawer, are all located; for, owing to the minute division of labor, which tends greatly to facilitate its ex- At present watches are frequently made ecution after the movements (which have not thicker than a crown piece, and yet perpreviously passed through thirteen workmen's form their functions with exactness; nay, hands in the provinces) are received in town, there are some with perfect works, compressthe watch progresses through those of these ed into a smaller compass than a shilling! A other twenty-one artificers before it comes friend of the writer's saw one, not long since, forth complete. set in a ring, the hands and figures being comOwing to this delicate and varied work-posed of brilliants, upon a dial of blue enamanship, materials originally not worth six-mel; and at the recent exhibition one filled pence are frequently converted into watches the place usually occupied by a seal at the worth a hundred pounds and more, so costly end of a pencil-case, and another appeared may their appendages be made. But in all as an appendage to a lady's bracelet. There these different branches of a business which was also a large silver watch, such as marimaintains thousands of families, the only partners are fond of wearing, immersed in a vase of it which falls to women in this country is of water, and yet impervious to any ill effects. the polishing of the cases, which the case- Our subject is one which grows under our makers' wives are sometimes employed to do. hands, and we might go on ad libitum dePerhaps no object of man's ingenuity has scribing their different idiosyncracies; for been made the exponent of so many grave watches, like individuals, have their several morals as the watch. Poets and philosophers temperaments and ways of going. We have have managed that its beatings should be all met with fast watches and slow ones, and only a little less gloomy to the imagination some (a disposition they are apt to contract than the associations of a passing bell; but from their wearers) are very irregular-vaPaley has thrown a glory round this gloom, rieties of character, which so puzzled their and aggrandized it from a peevish reminder first owner, the Emperor Charles V., who of passing time into a fair argument of a Cre- amused himself on his retirement to the moator's presence, in the delicate and wonder-nastery of St. John, by endeavoring to keep ful machinery of nature, which could no more come by chance than could this little instrument have been formed without a contriver.

What the author of the "Old Church Clock" has said of that branch of our subject, may be equally applied to this-"there is no dead thing so like a living one." Day by day, year by year, its iron heart throbs on, some of them surviving, as we have seen, for centuries, though they are said to beat 17,160 times in an hour. Well would it be for us if the time-keeper in our bosoms, beating momently the escape of our allotted term, acted

in order these by-gone companions of his dinner-table, that they produced a reflection on the absurdity of his attempts to keep together the powers of Europe, when even these little pieces of mechanism baffled him.

AMERICAN Women have less courtesy than any others in the world. A thousand rules of deference are established by concessions of the other sex, which they enforce with ungracious arrogance, as if they were but recognitions of "inalienable rights." This is their offence to all well-bred Europeans.-Correspondent London Morning Post.

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