Phraseology and Culture in English

2. Collections of English proverbs: Strategies for arrangement 
Other than the perfectly random or unpredictable sequencing of compiled 
“data,” from the sixteenth century till the present, two principal arrange-
ments have been adopted: alphabetical and topical – the latter, of course, 
having some “analytical” value; by venturing a sort of taxonomy, it suggests 
relationships of a semantic nature (loosely speaking, at least). The original 
motive in grouping proverbs by topic, however, was simply to provide writ-
ers and speakers with material for “amplifying” their discourse – somewhat 

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Charles Clay Doyle 
in the way that preachers or banquet speakers in a later age could resort to 
books (or web sites) that make available anecdotes, exempla, and quips on 
various subjects or themes. Accidentally (as it were), that arrangement also 
assisted a person who knew a particular expression in locating it – in order 
to verify its customary form, compare analogous expressions, and peruse 
whatever additional information an entry might show. The arrangement is 
convenient even for modern researchers seeking to ascertain what the cul-
ture of a past time “had to say” about given subjects. 
Two of the most extensive English proverb collections from the early 
decades of the seventeenth century followed the topical arrangement, oth-
erwise without glosses or commentary: Thomas Draxe’s Bibliotheca scho-
lastica instructissima. Or A Treasurie of Ancient Adages (1616) and John 
Clarke’s Paroemiologia Anglo-Latina. Or Proverbs English and Latin (1639). 
The intended educational function of both collections is apparent from the 
titles: Draxe was presenting schoolboys or older rhetoricians with sayings 
to use for “amplificatio,” while Clarke was showing a similar readership, 
more specifically, how to translate English proverbs and use them to am-
plify discourse in Latin. The majority of expressions in Draxe’s volume are 
Latin (a few Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish), but some 2,500 English 
proverbs are interspersed – those being distinguished (ironically?) by italic
type. The sayings in all languages appear in groups beneath alphabetized 
topical headings in English (even though the preface appears in Latin!): 
“Abilitie or power”; “Absence”; “Absurdities”; “Abuse”; “Advancement”; 
and so on. Clarke gave, beneath alphabetized headings in Latin, about 4,000 
English proverbs, with Latin translations or counterparts. 
Languages that adopt a graphic alphabet have historically enjoyed con-
siderable advantages in the storing, processing, and retrieval of information 
and texts – advantages that are, perhaps, only now receding with the avail-
ability of electronically searchable data stored in computerized forms. For 
most of history, a dictionary (or telephone directory) without the alphabeti-
cal sequencing of entries would have had little utility. Even Erasmus, 
whose unpredictable arrangement of adages was so notable (possibly even 
designed), in his later editions attached an alphabetical index of the say-
ings, in their Latin and (often) their Greek forms. 
Draxe in 1616 had claimed (on the title page) that his proverbs were 
“ranked in Alphabeticall order,” but he evidently meant only that the topi-
cal headings were alphabetized. Two years earlier, William Camden had 
added a section titled simply “Proverbs” to the 1614 edition of his Re-
maines Concerning Britaine. It was a straightforward collection of 389 

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Collections of proverbs and proverb dictionaries
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sayings without glosses (expanded to 571 in the 1623 edition), introduced by 
a single sentence: “Whenas Proverbs are concise, witty, and wise Speeches 
grounded upon long experience, conteining for the most part good caveats, 
and therefore both profitable and delightfull; I thought it not unfit to set 
downe heerre Alphabetically some of the selectest, and most usuall amongst 
us, as beeing worthy to have place amongst the wise Speeches.” The very 
first printed collection to present English proverbs in alphabetical order, 
however, was published by the Dutchman Jan Gruter (or Janus Gruterus) in 
Frankfurt-am-Main in 1611, as part of volume 2 of his Florilegium ethico-