The old saying, "As coy as Croker's mare," may refer to some incident of which all knowledge is now lost; but as we sometimes find it rendered, "As coy as a crocker's mare," it has been, with great reason, suggested that this crocker is simply a crock-dealer, a retailer of earthenware round the country, to whom the possession of a restive animal would mean the smashing up of his stock and his consequent ruin. In a play of the year 1566, where a widow of somewhat flippant mood appears, we are told that "Of auncient fathers she took no cure nor care, She was to them as koy as a croker's mare." A proverb that has a curious history is, "Two heads are better than one, said Weymark." Three-fourths of this is of great antiquity, and, we may take it, rank in significance with "In the multitude of counsellors there is safety," and other proverbs of that type. Whence, then, came the added fourth, and why? One theory is that it is a mere accretion, but this probably everyone, except the broacher of the idea, will feel to be very unlikely. Weymark is a distinctly peculiar name, and there must surely be some allusion to some one so called. It has been suggested that we should read it as way-mark,[149:A] a mark to guide the traveller: that we should understand that two heads are better than one to guide us on our earthly journey, but in this case why the word "said"? In the "Anglorum Speculum," A.D. 1684, we get on to firmer ground; we there read that "One Wiemark was called to account for saying the head of Sir Walter Raleigh (beheaded that day) would do very well on the shoulders of Sir Robert Naunton; and having alleged in his own justification that two heads were better than one, he was for the present dismissed. Afterwards Wiemark being, with other wealthy persons, called on for a subscription to St Paul's, first subscribed a hundred pounds at the Council Table, but was glad to double it after Mr Secretary had told him two heads were better than one." We can readily understand that this jeering addition to the old saw quickly found acceptance when the incident got abroad. The expression, "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow," has an extended range over our old literature, but its meaning is very enigmatical. Heywood writes, "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow, Went that sow back at that bidding, trow you?" In John Grange's "Golden Aphroditis" (1577) we read, "Yet wrested he so his effeminate bende to the siege of backwarde affection, that both trumpet and drumme sounded nothing but baccare, baccare." Wherever we find this baccare--in "Roister Doister," "The Dial," "Repentance of Mary Magdalene," the "Scourge of Folly," "Mydas," or elsewhere--its significance is always "Stand back." Its spelling is very variable.[150:A] Who Mortimer was, it is hopeless to conjecture, or on what occasion he found it necessary to curb the impatience of his sow.