The Critic.

Otago Witness, Issue 1500, 14 August 1880, Page 23

The Critic.

SAYINGS, AND WHO FIRST SAID THEM.

Under this heading in last; week's Witness there appear one or two little inaccuracies which, on the principle of giving every man his due, are worthy of being corrected. There is something rather comical in the assertion that in the resolutions presented to the House of Representatives in December, 1790, the following "Sayings" appeared:— (1) "First in war, first in peace ;" (2) "Make assurance doubly sure ;" (3) " Christmas comes but once a year;" (4) "Count their chickens ere they are hatched;" and (5) "Look before you leap." These sayings are what an auctioneer would call amixed lot, and they claim different paternities. That given to the first ia quite correct, and referred to Washington. The second is Shakespeare's, and ia found in "Macbeth," act iv, scene t " Then live, Macdufli ; what need I fear of theo ? But yet I'll maJce assurance doubly sure, And take a bond of Fate : thou shalt not live ; That I may tell pale-hearted Fear, it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder."' Tho third Baying, "Christmas comes but once a year," is Tusaer's, and is found in his " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," chap, xii — " At Christmas play, and make good cheer, For Christinas combs but once a year." The fourth is from Butler's "Hudibras," part ii — "To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched." The fifth— " Look ere thou leap; see ere thou go," is also from Tusser's "Five Hundred Points." Excellent as the philosophy of some oi ( the3e maxima ia, and equally worthy as they ate of the attention of a nation or an individual, it is to be feared they were not all j embodied in the resolutions presented to the American House of Eepresentatives in 1790 ; but, undoubtedly, had our own M.H.R.'s of the last seven years fully understood the moral of the fourth and fifth aayingß, it would have been better for New Zealand to-day— and more creditable to themselves. M. Duntroon.

He was watching his neighbour's boy climb & tree, and he had a look of painful anxiety on his countenance. "Are you afraid the lad will fall and break his neck ?" was asked him. " No," he replied, " I'm deucedly afraid he won't." Miss Jones was about to marry a military officer, much to her mother's displeasure. " Why, my child," said the latter, " don't you know that war may be declared at any moment, and a bullet take him away for ever P" " Very well," was the answer, " a widow of seventeen, what could be more poetic ?"