PROVERBS.--Several common and proverbial expressions are taken from the shoemaker’s trade. “To stick to the last,” is used of perseverance in an undertaking till its completion. “Nothing is like leather,” signifies to cry up one’s own craft, as in the case of the currier, who would have defended the town with tanned cowhides. “_Urit pedem, calceus_,” I am in the shoemaker’s stocks. “_Ne sutor ultra crepidam_,” the shoemaker must not go beyond his last. These were the words of Apelles, a famous painter of antiquity, to a critical Crispin, who properly found fault with an ill-designed slipper. The artist amended his picture accordingly; but the cobbler, ascending to other parts, betrayed the grossest ignorance. “No man,” says a commentator on this proverb, “should pass his opinion in a province of art where he is without a qualification.”--“_Etre sur un grand pied dans le monde_,” to be on a great foot (or footing) in the world. This favorite French proverb originated at the time when a man’s rank was known by the size of his shoes. Those of a prince measured two feet and a half; a plain cit was allowed only twelve inches. A noble Roman being asked why he had put away his beautiful wife, put forth his foot, and showed his buskins. “Is not this,” said he, “a handsome and complete shoe? yet no man but myself knows where it pinches me.” Hence the saying, “None but the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.” As “tight as a bristle,” is still a common saying of anything that is attached dexterously, or that fits nicely, and is derived from the exactness required by the cobbler in fixing a bristle to the thread or _end_ with which he sews, that it may follow the awl the better. The waxed string pointed with bristle, as at present, was in use as early as the twelfth century. * * * * *