This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...in the Rendiconti della Reale Accad. dei Lincei, VIII, 245: Paitoni, Bibli0theca degli autori antichi greci e latini volgarizzati. Venez. 1766, I, 200). Exigencies of rime and metre alone would go far to explain the varying interpretations of the Italian and French versions, purporting to be translations of the Disticha.4 The popularization of these proverbs would likewise further lend flexibility to the manner of expression, causing the popular imitations to depart, in the way of vocabulary and metaphors, so far from the common model as to become almost unrecognizable. Denunciation of vices--intemperance, garrulity, prodigality, avarice, sloth, etc.---and praise of the opposing virtues, form the theme of most of the old proverbs. These themes are common to many minds working independently of each other, and are often couched in identical terms, so limited is language in vocabulary, scope, and variety. The Disticha, for example, apparently often gleaned from the Book of Proverbs, and in turn gave rise to similar proverb collections. The germal idea, then, underlying each of the Proverbia Vulgaria, apart from the manner of expression, is a common moral concept, and cannot well be laid directly to the influence of the Disticha. The author of our little poem termed his proverbs "vulgaria," and probably gathered most of them from popular speech, whatever be their ultimate origin. The Disticha are of a philosophical and spiritual value: the Proverbia V ulgaria, on similar themes, are presented under cover of homely metaphors that make appeal to the ordinary mind. The Proverbia Vulgaria are made somewhat unique by the fact that the compiler has adapted his proverbs to rimed couplets whose lezioni are diametrically opposed to each...