There be of them that have left a name behind them, to declare their praises. And some there be which have no memorial; who are perished as though they had not been and are become as though they had not been born._ What! even of those who were _famous_ men?... _perished as though they had not been and become as though they had not been born_. The verdict is too hard. Granting that they missed genius, did they not live nobly, speak wisely, make many beautiful things, do generous deeds, giving of themselves the best they had to give? But ... _as though they had not been_. Surely they merited some kinder fate than that? And what of the multitudes of the unrenowned? If the famous are nothing, then the rest of men are less than nothing and vanity, and, dying, they certainly can leave no trace behind them, no word to carry the tale of how once they laboured, loved, hoped, endured. All their exquisite human longings, all their pleasant thinking, must be for ever lost? No! for proverbs are the memorial of ordinary men; their very accents; record of their intimate thoughts and judgments, their jests and sorrowings, their aspirations, their philosophy. And this even from distant ages! There are proverbs old as the Iliad. Men of genius have not a monopoly of immortal words. Perhaps at the start one man of keen wit was needed to invent the happy phrase or the smart saying, but before it became a proverb countless ordinary folk had to give it their approval. We know that every popular proverb has seemed good to a multitude of men. Essentially therefore it has become their utterance, and is filled with their personality. And, of course, proverbs are not only a memorial of the unknown dead; they are equally a language of the unknown and unlearned living. The humblest of men experience deep emotions which, however, they cannot articulate for themselves. Proverbs, we repeat, come to the rescue of the unlettered, supplying words to fit their thoughts, unstopping the tongue of the dumb. Just what effects this simple treasury of speech has had in history who can calculate, but that it has not been slight is dexterously suggested by these words of anger and chagrin which Shakespeare makes Coriolanus speak: “Hang ’em, They said they were an hungry, sighed forth proverbs; That _hunger broke stone walls_, that _dogs must eat_, That _meat was made for mouths_, that _the gods sent not Corn for the rich men only_; with these shreds They vented their complainings.”