Monis P. Tilley 5.28·48 2v. PREFACE. F OR many years I have published a Sheet Almanack, intended to be hung up in workshops and kitchens. This has been known as "John Ploughman's Almanack," and has had a large sale. It has promoted temperance, thrift, kindness to animals, and a regard for religion, among working people. The placing of a proverb for every day for twenty years has cost me great labour, and I feel that I cannot afford to lose the large collection of sentences which I have thus brought together: yet lost they would be, if left to die with the ephemeral sheet. Hence these two volumes. They do not profess to be a complete collection of proverbs, but only a few out of many thousands. The salt of proverbs is of great service if discreetly used in sermons and addresses; and I have hope that these SALT-CELLARS of mine may be resorted to by teachers and speakers, and that they may find them helpful. There are many proverb books, but none exactly like these. I have not followed any one of the other collections, although, of necessity, the most of the quaint sayings are the same as will be found in them. Some of my sentences are quite new, and more are put into a fresh form. The careful omission of all that are questionable as to purity has been my aim; but should any one of them, unknown to me, have another meaning than I have seen in it, I cannot help it, and must trust the reader to accept the best and purest sense which it bears; for that is what it |