Among the Symbols of Pythagoras, I read the following:
"[Greek: Omôrophious chelidônas mê echein]."
To the same effect (but, strange to say, without any reference to Pythagoras' dictum), we find it in the _proverbia_ of Polydore Virgil (A.D. 1498):
"Hirundo garrula semper, _i.e._ garruli et tumigeri homines recipiendi non sunt."
I find no original for the former part of the inscription. Probably MR. WOODWARD will agree with me, that it is difficult to decide whether a greedy or a gossipping guest would be the worst household infliction; but as a careful householder might well deprecate either, as matter of curiosity perhaps he would refer to the original inscription again, and decide whether he has or has not omitted an "n."
"Through this wide opening gate None come too soon, none go too late. And yours."
_Cross and Pile_ (Vol. vi., pp. 386. 513.).--The _pile_ is invariably on the obverse or _head_ side of a coin; and _pile_ or _poll_ both mean the head, from whence the "poll tax" and "poll groat"--a tax paid by the head, or a personal tax, of which we have an historical example of its collector in the case of Wat Tyler.
Ruding, in _Annals of the Coinage_, vol. ii. p. 119., 8vo., edit. 1819, states that Ed. I. A.D. 1304, in the delivering out the stamps for the coinage, orders that three _piles_ and six _crosses_ shall be given. It is well known to all numismatists that all, or most early coins, both Saxon and English, had a head on the obverse and a cross on the reverse--the latter being placed on the coins as symbolical of Christianity.
_Pile_ also means the hair, or any filament: as the "pile of velvet, the nap of woollen cloth," &c. And Jamieson, in his _Scotch Dictionary_, says:
"PILE. The soft hair which first appears on the chins of young men."
Coles, Ashe, Webster, and others give the same meaning.
The superstitious effect of the cross as a charm or amulet is well known; from whence the saying:
"I have never a cross in my purse to keep the Devil away."
"Priests were coin-proof against the Devil, they never being without money; of course, always had a cross in their pocket."--Gilpin's _Beehive of the Romish Church_, 1636, p. 251.
And Nash, in the Supplication of Pierce Penniless to the Devil, makes Pierce to say: