FORMING A NEW AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED EDITION OF London: JOHN CROCKFORD, 29, ESSEX STREET, STRAND. 1856. 270. C.217. PREFACE. THE present Editor has almost doubled the contents of a work, which, in its more imperfect form, was found so useful that it passed through many editions, and has been long out of print. It is hoped that this volume, which is almost a new work, will be found still more useful, and enjoy yet greater popularity than its predecessors. The Publisher begs to add that he will feel greatly obliged to readers who will supply any further materials that may occur to them for introduction into future editions. 29, Essex Street, Strand, April, 1856. INTRODUCTION. COLLECTIONS of gnomes, adages, sayings, and parables have been made from times immemorial in all countries and in all languages possessing some kind of literature. Among the most noted in the early times are those of Solomon, Sirach, Christ (in the mountain sermons), and others. Also the Indian, Arabian, and Persian literatures abound in such collections. The Edda has handed down under the name of Odin a variety of excellent gnomes of the North. In Greece, the gnomic poetry flourished about the sixth century before our era (at the time of the civil wars). The most remarkable are those by Solon, Theognis, Phocylides, Simonides, Pythagoras, and Xenophanes of Colophonia. Also the Latin "Disticha" of Dionysius, Cato, and others have descended to posterity, and been followed by similar ones, under various names and appellations, among all nations and in most modern languages. The necessity or desire to unravel the sense and meaning of those adages, as also of those words and phrases which |