It is evident, however, that the earliest writings of every people are marked by their most homely, or domestic proverbs; for these were more directly addressed to their wants. Franklin, who may be considered as the founder of a people who were suddenly placed in a stage of civil society which as yet could afford no literature, discovered the philosophical cast of his genius, when he filled his almanacs with proverbs, by the ingenious contrivance of framing them into a connected discourse, delivered by an old man attending an auction. "These proverbs," he tells us, "which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, when their scattered counsels were brought together, made a great impression. They were reprinted in Britain, in a large sheet of paper, and stuck up in houses: and were twice translated in France, and distributed among their poor parishioners." The same occurrence had happened with us ere we became a reading people. Sir Thomas Elyot, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, describing the ornaments of a nobleman's house, among his hangings, and plate, and pictures, notices the engraving of proverbs "on his plate and vessels, which served the guests with a most opportune counsel and comments." Later even than the reign of Elizabeth our ancestors had proverbs always before them, on everything that had room for a piece of advice on it; they had them painted in their tapestries, stamped on the most ordinary utensils, on the blades of their knives,[30] the borders of their plates,[31] and "conned them out of goldsmiths' rings."[32] The usurer, in Robert Greene's "Groat's worth of Wit," compressed all his philosophy into the circle of his ring, having learned sufficient Latin to understand the proverbial motto of "Tu tibi cura!" The husband was reminded of his lordly authority when he only looked into his trencher, one of its learned aphorisms having descended to us,-- The calmest husbands make the stormiest wives.