T He former Edition of this Collection of English Proverbs falling into the hands of divers ingenious persons, my worthy friends, in several parts of this Kingdom, had as I hoped it would this good effect, to excite them, as well to examine their own memories and try what they could call to mind themselves that were therein wanting, as also more carefully to heed what occurred in reading, or dropt from the mouths of others in discourse. Whereupon having noted many such, they were pleased for the perfecting of the work frankly to communicate them to me. Michael Biddulph Gent. As for locall Proverbs of lesser extent, proper to some Towns or Villages, as they are very numerous, so are they hard to be procured, and few of them, could they be had, very quaint or significant.
The Duc de Liancourt, like many critics, was struck by this trait. The moment was peculiarly ill-chosen for such a claim, because Europe was on the verge of an outburst of genius. Goethe and Schiller, Mozart and Haydn, Kant and Fichte, Cavendish and Herschel were making way for Walter Scott, Wordsworth, and Shelley, Heine and Balzac, Beethoven and Hegel, Oersted and Cuvier, great physicists, biologists, geologists, chemists, mathematicians, metaphysicians, and historians by the score.