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[32] Furthermore, Jeoffry himself is the "most famous cat in the whole history of English literature." [33] Smart is fond of his cat and praises his cat's relationship with God when he says (B695–B768): "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
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The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow – William Cowper, English poet (1731–1800) [27] The labourer is worthy of his hire; It is the last straw that breaks the camel's back; The law is an ass (from English writer Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist) The leopard does not change his spots
The proverbs are in alliterative verse, but the verse does not adhere to the rules of classical Old English poetry. Caesurae are present in every line, but the lines are broken in two (cf. Pearl ). The collection shows signs of transition in verse form from the earlier Anglo-Saxon alliterative form to the new Norman rhyme form, for rhyme ...
Having first referred to a child's coming of age, the poem describes a number of (particularly fatal) misfortunes which may then befall one: a youth's premature death, famine, warfare and infirmity, the deprivations of a traveller, death at the gallows or on the pyre and self-destructive behaviour through intemperate drinking.
As people from across Europe read the proverbs it contained, they often translated them into local languages, spreading them across Europe. This is the source of many English proverbs, including "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" from "In regione caecorum rex est luscus".
The Durham Proverbs is a collection of 46 mediaeval proverbs from various sources. They were written down as a collection, in the eleventh century, on some pages (pages 43 verso to 45 verso, between a hymnal and a collection of canticles) of a manuscript that were originally left blank.
The "copybook headings" to which the title refers were proverbs or maxims, often drawn from sermons and scripture extolling virtue and wisdom, that were printed at the top of the pages of copybooks, special notebooks used by 19th-century British schoolchildren. The students had to copy the maxims repeatedly, by hand, down the page.