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"The crab of the wood is sauce very good

For the crab of the sea;

But the wood of the crab is sauce for a drab,

That will not her husband obey."

A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree,

The more they're beaten the better they be.

There is Latin authority for this barbarous distich.ssss1 The Italians say, "Women, asses, and nuts require rough hands."ssss1 Much wiser is the Scotch adage,—

Ye may ding the deil into a wife, but ye'll ne'er ding him out o' her.

Take your wife's first advice, and not her second.

The French make the rule more general—"Take a woman's first advice, &c."ssss1 There is good reason for this if the Italian proverb is true, "Women are wise offhand, and fools on reflection."ssss1 They have less logical minds than men, but surpass them in quickness of intuition, having, says Dean Trench, "what Montaigne ascribes to them in a remarkable word, l'esprit prime-sautier—the leopard's spring, which takes its prey, if it be to take it at all, at the first bound." "Summer-sown corn and women's advice turn out well once in seven years,"ssss1 say the Germans; and the Spaniards hold that "A woman's counsel is no great thing, but he who does not take it is a fool."ssss1 In Servia they say, "It is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife;" and they tell this story in elucidation of the proverb. A Herzegovinian once asked a Kadi whether a man ought to obey his wife, whereupon the Kadi answered that he needed not to do so. The Herzegovinian then continued, "My wife pressed me this morning to bring thee a pot of beef suet, so I have done well in not obeying her." Then said the Kadi, "Verily, it is sometimes right even to obey a sensible wife."