Page images
PDF
EPUB

gentle and simple) and far from being transmitted by electrical wit-is merely fixed for transmission in a rude and scarcely intelligible daub.'

[ocr errors]

We think this description, ingenious as it is, must be held open to controversy on the point-or shall we say want of point which it attributes to proverbs. The more or less appropriateness or picturesqueness of such sayings (springing though they probably do from the vulgar, nay the more for that very reason), will depend on the national character, and we think these qualities are eminently observable in the proverbs of this country. We all know the loose-fish, Rip-Van-Winkle who wanders about neglecting his own family, and foolishly mixing himself up in the amusements or the abundance of others. The Hindostanee says, "Mister pestle leaps for joy in strangers' houses," alluding to the instrument used for bruising grain, which is borrowed round half the village in harvest home. Can there be a more perfect simile? "An old mare with a red bridle" is at least as suggestive of tasteless ostentation ("out of keeping") as Sir Walter Scott's Frenchman" with diamond breast-pin in a dirty shirt." "The grocer's owl" is an amusing concretion of unconscious folly, taken from a native Joe Miller's narrative of a bunya who wishing for a hawk was sold an owl, which he took home and elaborately displayed in the front of his shop to the wonder of customers and passers by. How many owners of impossible horses; how many parents of impracticable children, are like the poor Epicier and his owl! "The waters overflow the low wall," is a picture extremely typical of the dangers which beset humility in a wicked world. How natural that an inhabitant of the plains should, as his caravan for the first time approached Hurdwàr, have driven home a lesson of humility with this illustration-"The camel knows itself when passing under a mountain." Which now, candidly, is the better: "You can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear," or "A cat's dreams are of cat's meat?" The poor villagers trudging through the dried-up fields in the hot months get a kind of heel-crack, whence this admirable saying, "He whose heel has never cracked, what knows he of another's pain?" We can think of no proverb in English which corresponds to this, but we fancy there is room for such it is as old as Aristotle, who defines sympathy by saying it is produced by fancying what our own feelings would be were we situated as is the object of our compassion. So Dido in Virgil-" Not unacquainted with evil, I have learned how to help the wretched." Another parallelism with Roman philosophy is the saying variously read, but implying that "a sinner's boat will sink sooner or later;" remember Horace's fragilem phaselum. "Theriacum (antidote) is being fetched from Isàk, meantime the patient dies," is a sharper chrystal than if we say "Delays are

dangerous." This will be recognized as pointed by those who have seen something of the wastes about Muttra and Delhi; "Where there are no trees Palma Christi (the castor oil plant) goes for a tree." "Tis a parallel to the Roi des aveugles in which form also it is current in the East. St. James's "Resist the devil," seems closely connected with the Indian "Beat a spirit and he will vanish." "Throwing of dust never hid the moon" is happy as a rebuke to those who abuse their superiors in knowledge or virtue.

Now we challenge for these proverbs a very large measure of picturesque and pointed illustrativeness: this character has been previously claimed for the Persian proverbs, many of which are current in Hindostan, either in their own original garb or slightly altered; those purely Hindui in origin are not so universally metaphorical but are certainly none the less popular. Among a grave people, be they Hindoo or English, we must not always expect the same liveliness of fancy as among more imaginative races; nor always reject a proverb because of its apho.. ristic form. The Hindee word Kahawut, and our own "Saw" are both proofs that such may be of the most popular character; and so many trivial sayings of our countrymen will at once recur to memory that an appeal to etymology is hardly necessary. Thus too in Hindostan, sayings similar in form to our "Live and let live," or "More haste less speed," "Waste not want not," will be found plentifully scattered. These are of course always put in a quaint form, very compact, often rhymed, and obviously calculated to aid the memory. Few proverbs have probably sprung up since the introduction of the printing press on any large scale into the civilization of any nation, though lines from favorite poets in some degree supply the place.

(Jaisa dam, waisa kam) "like work like pay," or vice versa seems a fair equivalent to our "No song no supper," but is not so metaphorical. "As you brew so you must drink," is not so literal as (Jaisa kuroge waisa paoge) which might almost be rendered in the words of our Lord "With what measure ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again," but that it is still more aphoristic. "God rights him that holds his peace," this is a grave fact, not a lively catch-word. Religious sentiments are indeed often expressed with much propriety in these sayings. Thus to one about to commit a crime; "Fear the wrath of God." Again, "God only knows the things of God," reads like a text from our Scriptures; it exists in the most familiar Hindui. "When God is kind all are favorable" is almost as solemn as the similar remark of the Psalmist, "Men will praise thee when thou doest well for thyself." This is not so sound in its theology, "If I go and die at Benares what thanks owe I to Ram"? (viz. for my salvation, for which I have provided

[ocr errors]

myself at considerable expense, going to the holy city by Railway, and by garee-dawk or by steamer as the case may be, and paying my way like a man. The idea of "going farther and faring worse," is ludicrously expressed by a popular anecdote which sets forth how a Chowbé (or reader of the four Védas) went to a certain king in the hope of being nominated a Chhuhbé (or reader of six, which do not exist,) but being accidentally addressed at Court as Dobé went off in doubt as to whether he were entitled to any spiritual rank at all. The Mussulmans have absurdly mixed up different things in the following saying "If Jesus' ass went to Mecca, on his return he would still be an ass," implying our "bred in the bone that never comes out of the flesh."

On the whole it must be admitted that our kind correspondent has hit the mark. But Indian proverbs are more appropriate and picturesque than ours when they aim (as they so often do) at that style; and are generally more compact and pointed than ours when they are content with the sententious forms. What can beat this, Kám kurey dám" "Wealth works the world," far shorter, neater and more to the purpose than our attempt at the picturesque in " Money makes the mare to go." And yet it is a mere sober assertion literally true; only by its nature of almost universal application. But it may fairly be doubted if the proverbs of this, more than of any other country, ever arose (except in rare cases when a popular thought has been congealed by some great poet) from the wisdom of one or his wit either. The physical birth of a proverb it may be almost impossible to trace, but we shall readily account for it on the same principles that give rise to a paper currency in money. A certain habit of mind causes a certain view among the majority of a nation on some particular subject; and insensibly a short phrase grows rather than is formed, which (more or less completely, but the more so, the likelier to succeed) expresses that view. It then receives the public stamp, and henceforth circulates in society as the representative of thoughts which perhaps might have filled an essay or a volume.

:

We have done our best to give a fair view of the Proverbial Philosophy and morality of Hindostan. We have have had no case to make out, no à priori views of native character to establish our object has been honestly to be guided by the two considerations of vogue and neatness. Wherever we have found a proverb tallying with one of our own country it has been a pleasure to place them side by side. The reader is dominus litis: we leave the decision in his impartial hands. The community of origin between the Hindoos and their rulers, vouched for by marked similarities of philology, of jurisprudence, of republican habits, and of physical conformation, will derive we believe, farther support

from the comparison of the proverbs. Sharing the odd characteristic of indifference to metaphor, grave, sententious, and practical, the Hindee kahawuts ought, we think, to plead for a friendly regard towards the race among whom they are current; while the Mohammedan "Musùl" in their allegorical character remind us of the Eastern origin of our own holy religion, the divine Founder of which thought it no scorn to speak to the heart of the people-his favorite audience-in the familiar strain of allusion which is still so dear to the Oriental mind. Our humble record, read in the spirit of this brotherhood, may not have been altogether vainly penned.

ART. III-1. Flora Indica: being a Systematic Account of the Plants of British India. By J. D. HOOKER, M. D., F.R.S. and THOMAS THOMSON, M. D., F.L.S., Surgeon H. E. I. C. S. Vol. I. London, 1855.

2. Illustrations of Himalayan Plants, from Drawings made for the late J. F. CATHCART, Esq., B. C. S. The Descriptions by J. D. HOOKER, M.D., F.S.S. Folio. London, 1855. 3. Himalayan Journals; or Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim, and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, &c. By J. D. HOOKER, M. D., R. N. F. R. S., with Maps and Illustrations. A new edition. 8vo. 2 vols. London, 1855. 4. Western Himalaya and Thibet: a Narrative of a Journey through the Mountains of Northern India, during the years 1847-8. BY THOMAS THOMSON, M. D., F.L.S., Surgeon, Bengal Army. 8vo. London, 1855.

5. Geographie Botanique Raisonnée. By M. ALPHONSE DECANDOLLE. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1855.

6. Report of the Royal Botanic Garden at Paradenia. 1854. 7. Hortus Mudraspatensis-Catalogue of Plants indigenous and naturalized in the Agri-Horticultural Society's Garden, Madras. 1853.

8. Report of the Government Botanical and Horticultural Garden, Ootacamund. 1853-54 and 55.

TIME was when the whole pursuits of botanists did not extend beyond a systemless partial acquaintance with a few plants, considered scarcely under any other point of view than that of their medicinal virtues, and these usually the results of superstitious premises; but the difficulties of the study increased with the more interesting form it assumed in the present century—when an intimate knowledge of structure and close attention to the affinities of plants were introduced in the teaching of our colleges, then botany advanced from its humble state to rank among the sciences, and now the limits are become so extended, the assemblage of published species so vast, that to cultivate the science in all its departments and to assign the character by which an individual plant may be distinguished from other vegetables, requires the study of a life time, and the ordinary limit of man's existence will hardly suffice.

In the work of Hooker and Thomson before us, we have a great desideratum, a comprehensive book containing sound principles, skilfully arranged and carefully executed.

Dr. Hooker, son of the distinguished Director of the Botanical Gardens at Kew, and trained in pure botany by his father, has long devoted his energies to the elucidation of botanical difficul

« PreviousContinue »