Amazon.com description: Product Description: That such an impression would be superficial and Inexact I should scarcely dare to assert, if I did not believe it to be the strict truth that hitherto full justice has not been done to what must be admitted to be a subject of high and national interest, and I err greatly if hitherto even approximate excellence has been attained. That popular phraseology which has subsisted among us time out of mind, and which may be said to constitute a kind of common speech, presents to our notice a theme peculiarly abounding in curiosity, interest and social illustration. The Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford-on-A von in the time of Charles II., observes in his diary: Six things required to a proverb; 1. Short; 2. plain; 3. common; 4. figurative; 5. ancient; 6. true. If we allow this to be a fair criterion or standard, it follows that in the existing collections are a very great number of articles which have no real title to a place there; and such is, indeed, the actual .fact. In Dr. Fuller s Gnomologia, 1732, there are 6496 sayings; but of these a considerable proportion would have to be eliminated to satisfy Mr. Ward spostulates; for there are, assuredly, many which do not fall under any of those heads.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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