A collection of English proverbs digested into a convenient method for the speedy finding any one upon occasion : with short annotations : whereunto are added local proverbs with their explications, old proverbial rhythmes, less known or exotick proverbial sentences, and Scottish proverbs / by J. Ray, M.A. and Fellow of the Royal Society.

Proverbs and Proverbial observations referring to Love, Wedlock and Women.

• LOve me little and love me long.
• Hot love is soon cold.
• Love of lads and fire of chats is soon in and soon out. Darbish.

  Chats, i. e. chips.

• ...Lads love's a busk of broom, Hot awhile and soon done. Chesh.
• Love will creep where it cannot go.
• ...

  Chi ha amor nel petto ha le sprone ne i fianchi. Italian.

  He that hath love in his breast hath spurs in his sides.

• ...Love and Lordship like no fellowship.

  Amor & seignoria non yogliono compagnia, Ital.

  A∣mour & feigneutie ne se tindrent jamais compagnie. Gall.

  The meaning of our English Proverb is, Lovers and Princes cannot endure rivals or partners.

  Omnisque potestas Impati∣cus consortis erit.

  The Italian and French, though the same in words, have I think a different sense, viz.

  Non bene con∣veniunt nec in una sede morantur Majestas & amor.

• ...

• Love is blind.
• Lovers live by love, as Larks by leeks.

  This is I conceive in derision of such expressions as li∣ving by love. Larks and leeks beginning with the same letter helped it up to be a Proverb.

• ...Follow love and it will flee, Flee love and it will follow thee.

  This was wont to be said of glory,

  Sequentem fugit, fu∣gientem sequitur.

  Just like a shadow.

• Love and pease-pottage will make their way.

  Because one breaks the belly, the other the heart.

• ...The love of a woman and a bottle of wine, Are sweet for a season, but last for a time.
• Love comes in at the windows, and goes out at the doors.
• Love and a cough cannot be hid.

  Amor tussisque non celatur.

  The French and Italians add to these two the itch.

  L'amour, la tousse & la galle ne se peuvent celer. Gall.

  Amor la rogna & la tousse non si ponno nascondere. Ital.

  Others add stink.

• ...Ay be as merry as be can, For love ne're delights in a sorrowfull man.
• Fair chieve all where love trucks.
• Whom we love best, to them we can say least.
• ...He that loves glasse without G. Take away L, and that is he.
• ...

• Old pottage is sooner heated, then new made.

  Old lovers fallen out are sooner reconciled then new loves begun. Nay the Comedian saith,

  Amantium irae amo∣ris redintegratio est.

• Wedlock is a padlock.
• Age and wedlock bring a man to his nightcap.
• Wedding an ill wintering, tame both man and beast.
• Marriages are made in heaven.

  Nozze & ma∣gistrato dal cielo e destinato. Ital.

• Marry in haste and repent at leisure.
• It's good to marry late or never.
• Marry your Sons when you will, your Daugh∣ters when you can.
• Marry your Daughters betimes, lest they marry themselves.
• I've cur'd her from laying i'th'hedge, quoth the good man when he had wed his daughter.
• Motions are not marriages.
• More longs to marriage, then four bare legs in a bed.
• Like blood, like good, and like age, make the happiest marriage.

  Aequalem uxorem quaere.

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

  Unequal marriages seldom prove happy.

  Si qua voles aptè nubere, nube pari. Ovid.

  Intolerabilius nibil est quam famina dives. Juvenal.

• Many an one for land takes a fool by the hand. i. e. marries her or him.
• ...

• He that's needy when he is married, shall be rich when he is buried.
• Who weds e're he be wise, shall die e're he thrive.
• It's hard to wive and thrive both in a year.
• Better behalf hang'd then ill wed.
• ...He that would an old wife wed, Must eat an apple before he goes to bed,

  Which by reason of its flatulency is apt to excite lust.

• Sweet heart and Honey-bird keeps no house.
• Marriage is honourable, but house-keeping's a shrew.
• ... We batchelours grin, but you married men laugh till your hearts ake.
• Marriage and hanging go by destiny.
• It's time to yoke when the cart comes to the caples, i. e. horses. Chesh.

  That is, It's time to marry when the woman woes the man.

• ... Courting and woing brings dallying and doing.
• ... Happy is the woing, that is not long in doing.
• ... Widows are always rich.
• ...He that woes a maid must come seldom in her sight. But he that woes a widow must woe her day and night.
• ...He that woes a maid must fain, lie and flatter: But he that woes a widow, must down with his breeches and at her.

  This Proverb being somewhat immodest, I should not have inserted, but that I met with it in a little book,

• ...

  entitled The Quakers spiritual Court proclaimed, written by Nathanael Smith, Student in Physick: Wherein the Author mentions it as Counsell given him by one Hilkiah Bedford, an eminent Quaker in London, who would have had him to have married a rich widow, in whose house in case he could get her, this Nathanael Smith had promised Hilkiah a chamber gratis. The whole narrative is very well worth the reading.

• It's dangerous marrying a widow because she hath cast her rider.
• ...He that would the daughter win, Must with the mother first begin.
• A man must ask his wife leave to thrive.
• He that looseth his wife and sixpence, hath lost a tester.

  Che perde moglie & un quatrino, ha gran perdita del quatrino.

  Ital.

• He that loses his wife and a farthing hath a great loss of his farthing.
• There is one good wife in the Countrey, and every man thinks he hath her.
• ... Wives must be had, be they good or bad.
• He that tells his wife news, is but newly married.
• ... A nice wife and a back door, do often make a rich man poor.
• ...Saith Solomon the wise, A good wife's a goodly prize.
• A dead wife's the best goods in a mans house.
• Long-tongued wives go long with bairn.
• ...A man of straw, is worth a woman of gold.

• ...

  This is a French Proverb.

  Un homme de paille vaut une femme d'or.

• One tongue is enough for a woman.

  This reason they give that would not have women learn languages.

• A womans tongue wags like a lambs tail.
• ...Three women and a goose make a market.

  This is an Italian one,

  Tre donne & un occa fan un mercato.

• A ship and a woman are ever repairing.
• ...A spaniel, a woman and a walnut tree, The more they're beaten the better still they be.
• ...

  Nux, asinus, mulier simili sunt l••ge ligata. Haec tria nil rectè faci••nt si verbera cessant. Adducitur à Cognato, est tamen novum.

• All women are good, viz, either good for some∣thing or good for nothing.
• Women laugh when they can, and weep when they will.

  Femme rit quand elle peut & pleure quand elle veut.

  Gall.

• Women think Place a sweet fish.
• A woman conceals what she knows not.
• Women and dogs set men together by the ears.
• As great pity to see a woman weep, as a goose go barefoot.
• ...

• Winter-weather and womens thoughts change oft.
• A womans mind and winter-wind change oft.
• ...There's no mischief in the world done, But a woman is always one.
• ... A wicked woman and an evil, Is three half pence worse then the Devil.
• The more women look in their glasses, the less they look to their houses.
• A womans work is never at an end. Some adde,
  And washing of dishes.
• Change of women makes bald knaves.
• Every man can tame a shrew, but he that hath her.
• Better be a shrew then a sheep.

  For commonly shrews are good housewives.

• Better one house fill'd then two spill'd.

  This we use when we hear of a bad Jack who hath mar∣ried as bad a Jyll. For as it is said of Bonum, quò communius cò melius; So by the rule of contraries, What is ill, the fur∣ther it spreads the worse. And as in a city it is better there should be one Lazaretto and that filled with the insected, then make every house in a town a Pesthouse, they dwelling dispersedly or singly: So is it in a neighbourhood, &c.

• Old maids lead apes in hell.
• Batchelours wives and maids children are always well taught.

  Chi non ha moglie ben la veste. Chi non ha figlivoli ben li pasce.

• Maidens must be seen and not heard.
• ...

• A dogs nose and a maids knees are always cold.
• Young wenches make old wrenches.
• ...As the goodman saith, so say we, But as the good woman saith, so it must be.
• Better be an old mans darling, then a young mans warling.
• A grunting horse and a groaning wife seldom fail their master.
• In time comes she whom Gods sends.
• He that marries a widow and three children, marries four thieves.
• Two daughters and a back door are three errant thieves.
• A black man's a jewel in a fair womans eye.
• ...Fair and sluttish, (or foolish) black and proud, Long and lazy, little and loud.

  Beautè & folie vont souvent de compagnie.

  Gall. Beauty and folly do often go hand in hand, are often match't together.

• Put another mans child in your bosom, and he'll creep out at your elbow. Chesh.

  That is, cherish or love him, he'll never be naturally af∣fected toward you.

• When the good man's from home the good wives table is soon spread.
• The good man's the last knows what's amiss at home.

  Dedecus ille domûs sciet ultimus.

• ...

• 'Tis safe taking a shive of a cut loaf.
• Wine and wenches empty mens purses.
• ...Who drives an Asse and leads a whore, Hath pain and sorrow evermore. The Italians add,

  & corre in arena.

  The French say,

  Qui femme croit & asne meine, son corps ne sera ja sans peine.

  i. e. He that trusts a woman and leads an asse, &c.

• I'll tent thee, quoth Wood, If I can't rule my daughter, I'll rule my good. Chesh.
• Ossing comes to bossing. Chesh.

  Ossing, i. e. offering or aiming to do. The meaning is the same, with Courting and woing brings dallying and doing.

• Free of her lips free of her hips.
• A rouk-town's seldom a good house-wife at home.

  This is a Yorkshire Proverb. A Rouk-town is a gossipping house-wife, who loves to go from house to house.

• Quickly too'd, [i. e. toothed] and quickly go,
• Quickly will thy mother have moe. Yorksh.

  Some have it quickly to'd, quickly with God, as if early breeding of teeth, were a sign of a short life, whereas we read of some born with teeth in their heads, who yet have lived long enough to become famous men, as in the Ro∣man History; M. Curius Dentatus, & Cn. Papyrius Carbo mentioned by Pliny, lib. 7. c. 16. and among our English Kings, Rich. 3.

• ...

• It's a sad burden to carry a dead mans child.
• A little house well fill'd, a little land well till'd, and a little wife well will'd.
• One year of joy, another of comfort and all the rest of content. A marriage wish.
• ...My son's my son, till he hath got him a wife, But my daughter's my daughter all dayes of her life.
• The lone sheep's in danger of the wolf.
• A light heel'd mother, makes a heavy heel'd daughter.

  Because she doth all her work her self, and her daugh∣ter the mean time sitting idle, contracts a habit of sloth.

  Mere pitieuse fait sa fille rogneuse, Gall.

  A tender mother breeds a scabby daughter.

• When the husband drinks to the wife, all would be well: When the wife drinks to the hus∣band, all is well.
• When a couple are newly married, the first moneth is honey-moon or smick smack: the second is, hither an thither: the third is, thwick thwack: the fourth, the Devil take them that brought thee and I together.
• Women must have their wills while they live, be-because they make none when they die.
• England is the Paradise of women.

  And well it may be called so, as might easily be demon∣strated in many particulars, were not all the world already therein satisfied. Hence it hath been said, that if a bridge were made over the narrow seas, all the women in Europe

• ...

  would come over hither. Yet is it worth the noting, that though in no Countrey of the world, the men are so fond of, so much governed by, so wedded to their wives, yet hath no Language, so many Proverbial invectives against women.

• All meat's to be eaten, all maids to be wed.
• It's a sad house where the hen crows lowder then the cock.

  Trista è quella casa dove le galline cantano e'l gallo tace. Ital.

• ...If a woman were as little as shee is good, A peas-cod would make her a gown & a hood.

  Se la donna fosse piccola come e buona, laminima foglia la farebbe una veste & una corona. Ital.

• Many women many words, many geese many t....
• ...

  Dove sonod nne & ocche non vi sono parole poche.

  Ital.

  Where there are women and geese there wants no noise.

• Not what is she, but what hath she.

  Protinus ad censum de moribus ultima fiet Quaestio &c. Juven.

To these I shall add one French Proverb.

• Maison faicte & femme à faire.

  A house ready made but a wife to make, i. e. One that is a virgin & young.

  Ne femina ne tela à lume de candela. Ital.

  Neither women nor linnen by candle-light.