ever more
Was complimented so before;
For though I knew in years long past
An amiable enthusiast,
Who copied out in his MS.
My whole Proverbial, as for press,
Until he half believed that he
Was the real Simon M.F.T.,--
Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes,
Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,--
And, years ago, your friends for fame
Have given you Martin Tapper's name,
Because you constantly were heard
Quoting Proverbial word for word!
So then, by heart, as by the pen,
'I live upon the mouths of men,'
Ev'n as Ennius lived of old,
A life worth more than gems or gold."

Two more strange anecdotes may here find their place (others will occur
elsewhere in this volume hereafter) respecting "Proverbial Philosophy."
Joseph Durham, the sculptor, a great friend of mine, had been known to
me for some years, and one day he gave me a curious little book, very
ancient and dingy-looking, entitled "Politeuphuia, Wits' Commonwealth:
London, 1667;" with this explanation, that he had picked it up at an old
bookstall, and, finding it was written somewhat in proverbs gave it to
me, adding, in his shrewd way, the humorous fancy that (until he had
read it and couldn't discover a line or thought of exact similarity)
possibly he might have checkmated me by showing me the mine from which I
had dug my wisdoms! As I have before me a memorandum pasted into the
booklet itself (it is a minute duodecimo) I will here quote exactly what
I wrote in it at the time: the date being Albury House, May 24, 1865:--

"This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very
scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a
copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor
heard of it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of
my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings
of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so
throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and
remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment
also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all
through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is
the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of
the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly
acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism