There are, indeed, proverbs connected with the characters of eminent men. They were either their favourite ones, or have originated with themselves. Such a collection would form a historical curiosity. To the celebrated Bayard are the French indebted for a military proverb, which some of them still repeat, "_Ce que le gantelet gagne le gorgerin le mange_"--"What the gauntlet gets, the gorget consumes." That reflecting soldier well calculated the profits of a military life, which consumes, in the pomp and waste which are necessary for its maintenance, the slender pay it receives, and even what its rapacity sometimes acquires. The favourite proverb of Erasmus was _Festina lente_!--"Hasten slowly!"[38] He wished it be inscribed wherever it could meet our eyes, on public buildings, and on our rings and seals. One of our own statesmen used a favourite sentence, which has enlarged our stock of national proverbs. Sir Amias Pawlet, when he perceived too much hurry in any business, was accustomed to say, "Stay awhile, to make an end the sooner." Oliver Cromwell's coarse but descriptive proverb conveys the contempt he felt for some of his mean and troublesome coadjutors: "Nits will be lice!" The Italians have a proverb, which has been occasionally applied to certain political personages:-- _Egli e quello che Dio vuole; E sara quello che Dio vorra!_ He is what God pleases; He shall be what God wills! Ere this was a proverb, it had served as an embroidered motto on the mystical mantle of Castruccio Castracani. That military genius, who sought to revolutionise Italy, and aspired to its sovereignty, lived long enough to repent the wild romantic ambition which provoked all Italy to confederate against him; the mysterious motto he assumed entered into the proverbs of his country! The Border proverb of the Douglases, "It were better to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep," was adopted by every Border chief, to express, as Sir Walter Scott observes, what the great Bruce had pointed out, that the woods and hills of their country were their safest bulwarks, instead of the fortified places which the English surpassed their neighbours in the arts of assaulting or defending. These illustrations indicate one of the sources of proverbs; they have often resulted from the spontaneous emotions or the profound reflections of some extraordinary individual, whose energetic expression was caught by a faithful ear, never to perish!