"To whom of old this proverbe well it serves, While grasse doth growe the silly horse he sterves." In the more modern guise this is "While the grass is growing the steed is starving." It may at first sight appear a little hard to brand the horse as silly, since he can in no way be held responsible for the backward condition of the meadow, but we must remind our readers that "silly" is one of the words that has greatly changed its significance--it originally meant harmless or innocent. "Money," we are told, "will make the mare to go," and the finding of "a mare's nest" is a feat that is still now and then performed. "Why doest thou laugh? What mare's nest hast thou found?" --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _Bonduca_. In France it is the rabbit's nest, "nid le lapin," that people sometimes discover. It is a curious thing that the fidelity and affection of the dog get little or no recognition in proverb-lore. This may possibly arise from the fact that in the East, the original source of many of our proverbs, the dog is held in no esteem. He is an outcast, the scavenger of the streets. "Him that dieth in the city shall the dogs eat"; and "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" was the indignant outburst of Hazael. In classic days it was said of a morose, ill-conditioned person, "A black dog has walked over him," and at the present day such a person is said to have "the black dog on his back." The dog of the fabulist that dropped the substance for the shadow was held up as a warning in his greed and folly, and "to dog" a person is not to lavish canine affection on them by any means; while a favourite piece of nursery teaching was, and perhaps still is, that "Dogs delight to bark and bite." "Every dog," we are told, "has his day," and "Love me, love my dog," has sometimes been made a stipulation. Latimer puts it more pleasantly, "Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound"--from his regard for me he will for my sake look kindly on what he knows to be dear to me. To him who is hungry any food is welcome--"À la faim il n'y a point de mauvais pain," and therefore "Hungry dogs will eat dirty pudding." "Let sleeping dogs lie" is excellent counsel; the precept is not in the interest of the sleepers but of those injudicious enough to disturb their slumbers. "It is nought goode," writes Chaucer in his "Troylus and Cryseyde," "a sleping hound to wake," and again in the "Frankeleine's Tale," "Wyf, quod he, lat slepen that is stille"; while Shakespeare writes, in "Henry VIII.":-- "This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best Not wake him in his slumber."