Proverbs form a branch of that great mass of folk-lore that is more especially the possession of the humbler denizens of our towns and rural districts, and seem to have comparatively little sympathy with the great ones of the earth. In "Eastward Hoe," written in 1605, we have a quaint illustration of their use--where Touchstone declares, "I hired me a small shop, fought low, tooke small game, kept no debt-booke, and garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good wholesome thriftie sentences, as 'Touchstone, keepe thy shoppe and thy shoppe will keepe thee,' 'Light gaines make heavie purses,' ''Tis good to be merrie and wise.'" A great use was made of proverbs and mottoes during the middle ages on jewellery, pottery, furniture, and in fact wherever they could be applied. "Proverbs," Whateley very happily says, "are somewhat analogous to those medical formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready made up in the chemists' shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct prescription." The uneducated are quite willing to be supplied with happy arguments ready made,[20:A] and having tested their efficacy, are well content to abide by them. Motherwell very aptly observes that "A man whose mind has been enlarged by education, and who has a complete mastery over the riches of his own language, expresses his ideas in his own words, while a vulgar man, on the other hand, uses these proverbial forms which daily use and tradition have made familiar to him, and when he makes a remark which needs confirmation, he clinches it by a proverb." It is of course obvious here that the word vulgar is not used in the offensive sense that has in these latter days been associated with it. With the uneducated and poorer folk an axiom never becomes hackneyed. In all such matters they are very conservative, and do not readily forsake the old paths. Rustic humour, rustic customs, rustic remedies, all conform to this well-nigh immutable law. Years ago, when we lived in a little Wiltshire village, the leading farmer had a black horse with a broad blaize of white running from between its ears to the nostrils, and anyone meeting the carter leading this animal to plough or stable would accost him as follows: "That harse of yourn looks pretty baad!" to which the carter would reply, "Yees, he looks pretty white about the faace, doant he?" Should this horse, or such a horse, be still to the fore, we do not for a moment doubt--it is only eighteen years since we left--that this formula is still flourishing in perennial youth. Everyone knew just what to say and when to slowly chuckle, and so everybody was entirely satisfied, and the sally was a guaranteed success. It had ripened with age, and had long passed the troublesome experimental stage.