Collection of Scotch Proverbs by Pappity Stampoy
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page 5 of 67 (07%)
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p. 17), "Eat and drink measurely, and defie the mediciners" (p. 18),
and "Put your hand into the creel, and you will get either an adder, or an Eele" (p. 43) do not appear in the 1641 edition, but may be present in a later one. In any event, _The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs_ vouches for the currency of the last two proverbs in the sixteenth century. Pappity Stampoy may have followed his source in rejecting the "Proverbiale speeches" (Beveridge, pp. 46-50) or may have discarded them on his own responsibility. As F. P. Wilson points out, he showed ingenuity of a sort. "The thief jumbles the order of the first 81 proverbs given in Fergusson under the letter A; then, having put his reader off the scent, he gives the remaining proverbs under this letter in Fergusson's order. Under another letter he may give a run of proverbs in reverse order." [6] Pappity Stampoy, who was scarcely an honorable man, soon got a Roland for his Oliver. As Wilson says, the _Adagia Scotica or a Collection of Scotch Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Collected by R. B. Very Usefull and Delightfull_ (London: Nathaniel Brooke, 1668) "Turns out to be a page-for-page reprint ... provided with a new title and the initials of a new collector in order (is it unjust to say?) to deceive customers." Apart from its rarity, Pappity Stampoy's little book has both a curious interest and a value of its own. Bibliographers have failed to decipher the pseudonym, or to identify the printer. Some lucky chance may supply the answers to these questions. The collection has some value to a student of proverbs for a few scantily recorded texts that have presumably been taken from the 1659 edition of Fergusson. Although they do not appear in the old standard collections made by Bohn, Apperson, and Hazlitt, Morris P. Tilley, who has used R. B.'s collection, has found |
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