Note 40 — THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS.
Reading edition
Since the appearance of the present article, several collections of Proverbs have been attempted. A little unpretending volume, entitled “Select Proverbs of all Nations, with Notes and Comments, by Thomas Fielding, 1824,” is not ill arranged; an excellent book for popular reading. The editor of a recent miscellaneous compilation, “The Treasury of Knowledge,” has whimsically bordered the four sides of the pages of a Dictionary with as many proverbs. The plan was ingenious, but the proverbs are not. Triteness and triviality are fatal to a proverb.