Books and Odd Volumes wanted 94 Notices to Correspondents 94 Advertisements 94 Notes. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. The following "sententious truths" are extracted from Bishop Jewel's grand performance, _A Defense of the Apologie of the Churche of Englande_, fol. 1571, a work as remarkable for "the pomp and charms" of its eloquence, as for the profound erudition, and the consummate ability, with which its "good doctrine" is exhibited and enforced. In common, however, with the other productions of this illustrious champion of the Reformation, it has an additional and most attractive feature; one, indeed, which, less or more, characterises all the literary achievements of the gigantic geniuses of the Elizabethan period, the "very dust of whose writings is gold."[1] The "Defense" abounds with _proverbial folk-lore_ of the rarest sort; and this is so skilfully and appositely introduced, that the subject-matter presents itself to the reader's mind rather as a corollary, naturally deduced from a self-evident proposition--for who would think for a moment of questioning the truth of what has the semblance of a popular adage?[2]--than as a nicely managed argument, which receives no other help from the latter than that of illustration, employed for the simple and single purpose, not of strengthening such argument, but of rendering it comprehensible by the "meanest capacities." [Footnote 1: Bentley, of Bp. Pearson, in _Dissert. on Phalaris._] [Footnote 2: I have somewhere met with an amusing instance of this. It seems that Dean Swift, with a party of friends, were invited to view the garden of a gentleman, the walls of which were laden with peaches of a most tempting ripeness, but which they were strictly forbidden to touch. This injunction was followed, until Swift ('twas like him) at length put forth his hand and plucked, at the same time observing, with all becoming gravity, "As my deeply venerated grandmother used to say, 'Never fail to pluck a peach, Whene'er you find one in your reach.'" 'Twas enough. The authority of the adage was sufficient to overrule every other obligation; and the rest of the company, much to the disgust of the master of the garden, immediately proceeded, with infinite gusto, to follow the Dean's example, not for a moment doubting the propriety of the act. "The court awards it, and the law doth give it."]