to a child that came in at the window!" ("The
Family of Love," 1608). So, also, in "The Witches of Lancashire," by
Heywood and Broome, 1634: "It appears you came in at the window." "I
would not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap over the
hatch."

"It is a foul bird which defiles its own nest." This seems alluded to
in "As You Like It" (iv. 1) where Celia says to Rosalind: "You have
simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and
hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done
to her own nest."

"It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling." So Goneril, in "King
Lear" (iv. 2): "I have been worth the whistle."

"It is a wise child that knows its own father." In the "Merchant of
Venice" (ii. 2), Launcelot has the converse of this: "It is a wise
father that knows his own child."

"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good." So, in "3 Henry VI." (ii.
5), we read:

"Ill blows the wind that profits nobody."

And, in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3), when Falstaff asks Pistol "What wind blew
you hither?" the latter replies: "Not the ill wind which blows no man to
good."

"It is easy to steal a shive from a cut loaf." In "Titus Andronicus"
(ii. 1), Demetrius refers to this proverb. Ray has, "'Tis safe taking a
shive out of a cut loaf."

"It's a dear collop that's cut out of my own flesh." Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps thinks there may be possibly an allusion to this
proverb in "1 Henry VI." (v. 4), where the Shepherd says of La Pucelle:

"God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh."

"I will make a shaft or a bolt of it." In the "Merry Wives of Windsor"
(iii. 4) this proverb is used by Slender.[882] Ray gives "to make a bolt
or a shaft of a thing." This is equivalent to, "I will either make a
good or a bad thing of it: I will take the risk."

[882] A shaft is an arrow for the longbow, a bolt is for the
crossbow. Kelly's "Proverbs of All Nations," p. 155.

"It is like a barber's chair" ("All's Well that Ends Well," ii. 2).

The following passage, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2):

"Jack shall have Jill;
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again,
And all shall be well,"

refers to the popular proverb of olden times, says Staunton, signifying
"all ended happily." So, too, Biron says, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v.
2):

"Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill."

It