“Of flattringe speeche, with sugred wordes beware, Suspect the harte, whose face doth fawne, and smile, With trusting theise, the worlde is clog’de with care, And fewe there bee can scape theise vipers vile: With pleasinge speeche they promise, and proteste, When hatefull hartes lie hidd within their brest.” According to the 2nd part of _Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 224, vol. v. p. 158), the king speaks favourably of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Margaret the queen declares to the attendant nobles,— “Henry my lord is cold in great affairs, Too full of foolish pity, and Gloucester’s show Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers, Or as the snake roll’d in a flowering bank, With shining checker’d slough, doth sting a child, That for the beauty thinks it excellent.” In Lady Macbeth’s unscrupulous advice to her husband (_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 5, l. 61, vol. vii. p. 438), the expressions occur,— “Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.” Romeo slays Tybalt, kinsman to Julia, and the nurse announces the deed to her (_Romeo and Juliet_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 69, vol. vii. p. 75),— “_Nurse_. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished; Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished. _Jul_. O God! did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood? _Nurse_. It did, it did; alas the day, it did! _Jul_. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!” Though not illustrative of a Proverb, we will here conclude what has to be remarked respecting Serpents. An Emblem in Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES” (112) and in Whitney (p. 166), represents a serpent that has fastened on a man’s finger, and that is being shaken off into a fire, while the man remains unharmed; the motto, “Who against us?”— Quis contra nos? [Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._] The scene described in the _Acts of the Apostles_, chap, xxviii. v. 3–6, Paradin thus narrates,— “_Saint Paul, en l’ iſle de Malte fut mordu d’vn Vipere: ce neantmoins (quoi que les Barbares du lieu le cuidaſſent autrement) ne valut pis de la morsure, secouant de sa main la Beste dans le feu: car veretablement à qui Dieu veut aider, il n’y a rien que puiſse nuire._” Whitney, along with exactly the same device, gives the full motto,— “_Si Deus nobiscum, quis contra nos?_” “His seruantes GOD preserues, thoughe they in danger fall: Euen as from vipers deadlie bite, he kept th’ Appostle Paule.”