NOB. CAES.
FL. IVL. CONSTANTIVS. NOB. CAES.
D. N. CONSTANTIVS. NOB. C.
D. N. CONSTANTIVS. NOB. CAES.

J. C. WITTON.

* * * * *

AS LAZY AS LUDLUM'S DOG.

(Vol. i., p. 382.)

I feel obliged by the extract from the _Doctor_ given by J. M. B. (Vol.
i., p. 475.), though it only answers by a kind of implication the Query
I proposed. That implication is, that, instead of Ludlum and his dog
being personages of distinction in their own way and in their own day,
the proverb itself is merely one framed on the principle of
alliteration, and without precise or definite "meaning." This is very
full of meaning, as anyone may convince himself by observing the active
energy of every muscle of all dogs in the act of barking. What can
typify "laziness" more emphatically than a dog that "lays him[self] down
to bark?"

A _jingle_ of some kind is essential to a proverb. If a phrase or
expression have not this, it never "takes" with the masses; whilst,
having this, and being capable of any possible and common application,
it is sure to live, either as a proverb or a "saw," as the case may be.
Alliteration and rhyme are amongst the most frequent of these "jingles;"
and occasionally a "pun" supplies their place very effectively. We find
these conditions fulfilled in the proverbs and saws of every people in
the eastern and western world, alike in the remotest antiquity and in
our own time. But are they therefore "without meaning?" Do not these
qualities help to give them meaning, as well as to preserve them through
their long and varied existence?

But there is another principle equally essential to the constitution of
a legitimate and lasting proverb; or rather two conjointly, _metre_ {43}
and _euphony_. These may be traced in the proverb as completely as in
the ballad; and precisely the same contrivances are employed to effect
them in both cases where any ruggedness in the natural collocation of
the words may present itself. For instance, change in the accent, the
elision or the addition of a letter or syllable, the lengthening of a
vowel, transposition, and a hundred other little artifices. The euphony
itself, though sometimes a little imperfect, is also studied with the
same kind of care in the older and purer proverbs of all languages.

Attention to metre and euphony will generally enable us to assign,
amongst the forms in which we pick up and note any particular proverb,
the original