vi.
tion so far as to say, that they very seldom act up to the full extent of the spirit in which some of their purer and wiser precepts are framed; and that they are more like the Athenians who knew what was right, than the Spartans who practised it. This fact, however, by no means invalidates the truth of the general position, that there must ever be a close connection between the popular maxims, and the manners of a nation. They have in reality a reciprocal action on each other; the modes and sentiments of one generation giving birth to certain maxims, which maxims contribute in their turn to influence and mould the manners of the next.
Considered in this connection, the following Proverbs and Moral Sentences may possess some claim to the attention of the curious. If in the original language they can pretend to any merit of their own, it arises chiefly from the brevity and pointedness of expression,—a merit which wholly evaporates in the process of translation. Denuded of their native dress, they in most instances degenerate into little better than mere truisms;—truisms, however, which while they may excite the scorn of the ignorant and the unthinking, are of such utility and importance in the conduct of life, as to have made it the study of the Moralist, in every country, to inculcate them with the greatest effect; by clothing them in such forcible and striking language, and condensing them into so laconic a form, as
