CLERGY,

It's kittle shooting at corbies and clergy.—Scotch.

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Crows are very wary, and the clergy are vindictive; therefore it is ticklish work trying to get the better of either. "One must either not meddle with priests or else smite them dead," say the Germans;1 and Huss, the Bohemian reformer, in denouncing the sins of the clergy in his day, has preserved for us a similar proverb of his countrymen : If you have offended a clerk kill him, else you will never have peace with him."2 The bites of priests and wolves are hard to heal" (German).3 "Priests and women never forget" (German). "How dangerous it was," says Gross, "to injure the meanest retainer of a religious house is very ludicrously but justly expressed in the following old English adage, which I have somewhere met with:

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1 Man muss mit Pfaffen nicht anfangen, oder sie todtschlagen. 2 Malum proverbium contra nos confinxerunt, dicentes, "Si offenderis clericum, interfice eum; alias nunquam habebis pacem cum illo."

3 Was Pfaffen beissen und Wölfe ist schwer zu heilen.

Pfaffen und Weiber vergessen nie.

'If perchaunce one offend a freere's dogge, streight clameth the whole brotherhood, An heresy! An heresy!""

There is an old German proverb to the same purpose, which Eiserlein heard once from the lips of an aged lay servitor of a monastery in the Black Forest: "Offend one monk, and the lappets of all cowls will flutter as far as Rome."1

What was good the friar never loved.

Popular opinion attributes to the clergy, both secular and regular, a lively regard for the good things of this life, and a determination to have their full share of them. No priest ever died of hunger" is a remark made by the Livonians; and they add, "Give the priests all thou hast, and thou wilt have given them nearly enough." "A priest's pocket is hard to fill," at least in Denmark; and the Italians say, that ". Priests, monks, nuns, and poultry never have enough.' "Abbot of Carzuela," cries the Spaniard, "you eat up the stew, and you ask for the stewpan.' The worst testimony against the monastic order comes from the countries in which they most abound: "Where friars swarm, keep your eyes open" (Spanish).5 "Have

1 Beleidigestu einen Münch, so knappe alle Kuttenzipfel bis nach Rom.

2 Præstesæk er ond at fylde.

* Preti, frati, monache, e polli non si trovan mai satolli. Abad de Carçuela, comistes la olla, pedis la caçuela. Frailes sobrand', ojo alerte.

neither a good monk for a friend, nor a bad one for an enemy" (Spanish). "As for friars, live with them, eat with them, walk with them, and then sell them, for thus they do themselves " (Spanish). The propensity of churchmen to identify their own personal interests with the welfare of the church are glanced at in the following:-"The monk that begs for God's sake begs for two" (Spanish, French). "Oh, what we must suffer for the church of God!' cried the abbot, when the roast fowl burned his fingers" (German).*

There's no mischief done in the world but there's a woman or a priest at the bottom of it.

1 Ni buen fraile por amigo, ni malo por enemigo.

2 Frailes, viver con ellos, y comer con ellos, y andar con ellos, y luego vender ellos, que asé hacen ellos.

Fraile que pide por Dios, pide por dos.

demande pour Dieu, demande pour deux.

Moine qui

40 was müssen wir der Kirche Gottes halber leiden! rief der

Abt, als ihm das gebratene Huhn die Finger versengt.

SEASONS. WEATHER.

If the grass grow in Janiveer,

It grows the worse for it all the year.

"When gnats dance in January the husbandman becomes a beggar" (Dutch). An exception to these rules is recorded by Ray, who says that "in the year 1667 the winter was so mild that the pastures were very green in January; yet was there scarcely ever known a more plentiful crop of hay than the summer following."

February fill dike, be it black or be it white.

All the months in the year curse a fair Februeer.
The hind had as lief see his wife on the bier

As that Candlemas day should be pleasant and clear.

Candlemas day is the 2nd of February, when the Romish Church celebrates the purification of the Virgin Mary. On that day, also, the church candles are blessed for the whole year, and they are carried in procession in the hands of the faithful. Then the use of tapers at vespers and litanies, which prevails throughout

1 Als de muggen in Januar danssen, wordt de boer een bedelaar.

the winter, ceases until the ensuing Allhallowmas : hence the proverb,

On Candlemas day

Throw candle and candlestick away.

Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," says there is a general tradition in most parts of Europe that inferreth the coldness of the succeeding winter from the shining of the sun on Candlemas day, according to the proverbial distich:

Si sol splendescat Maria purificante,

Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.

"If Candlemas day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight;

If on Candlemas day there be shower and rain,
Winter is gone and will not come again."

Another version of this proverb current in the north

of England is,

"If Candlemas day be dry and fair,

The half of winter's to come and mair;

If Candlemas day be wet and foul [pronounce fool],

The half of winter's gone to Yule."

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

March comes in with adder heads and goes out with peacock tails.

A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.

A dry March never begs its bread.

A peck of March dust and a shower in May

Make the corn green and the fields gay.

March winds and April showers

Bring forth May flowers.

-Scotch.