We forbear to comment on _outs with_, because the intelligent critic immediately perceives that it has the same sort of merit ascribed to _ups with_. What our hero dignifies with the name of his bread-earner is the knife with which, by scraping shoes, he earned his bread. Pope’s ingenious critic, Mr. Warton, bestows judicious praise upon the art with which this poet, in the Rape of the Lock, has used many “periphrases and uncommon expressions,” to avoid mentioning the name of _scissars_, which would sound too vulgar for epic dignity--fatal engine, forfex, meeting-points, &c. Though the metonymy of _bread-earner_ for a shoeblack’s knife may not equal these in elegance, it perhaps surpasses them in ingenuity. _I gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread-basket._[49] Homer is happy in his description of wounds, but this surpasses him in the characteristic choice of circumstance. _Up to Lamprey_, gives us at once a complete idea of the length, breadth, and thickness of the wound, without the assistance of the coroner. It reminds us of a passage in Virgil-- “Cervice orantis _capulo tenus_ abdidit ensem.” “Up to the hilt his shining falchion sheathed.” Let us now compare the Irish shoeblack’s metaphorical language with the sober _slang_ of an English blackguard, who, fortunately for the fairness of the comparison, was placed somewhat in similar circumstances. Lord Mansfield, examining a man who was a witness in the court of King’s Bench, asked him what he knew of the defendant. “Oh, my lord, I knew him. _I was up to him_.” “Up to him!” says his lordship; “what do you mean by being up to him?” “Mean, my lord! why, _I was down upon him_.” “Up to him, and down upon him!” says his lordship, turning to Counsellor Dunning, “what does the fellow mean?” “Why, I mean, my lord, as deep as he thought himself, _I stagged him_.” “I cannot conceive, friend,” says his lordship, “what you mean by this sort of language; I do not understand it.” “Not understand it!” rejoined the fellow, with surprise: “_Lord, what a flat you must be!_” Though he undervalued Lord Mansfield, this man does not seem to have been a very bright genius. In his cant words, “_up to him, down upon him, stagged him_,” there are no metaphors; and we confess ourselves to be as great _flats_ as his lordship, for we do not understand this sort of language. “True no meaning puzzles more than wit,” as we may see in another English example. Proverbs have been called the wisdom of nations; therefore it is fair to have recourse to them in estimating national abilities. Now there is an old English proverb, “Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands.”