a worm at one end and a fool at the other (1805) maggot variant (1788) and other citations

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Garson O'Toole wrote:
> ....
> However, a letter in the December 15, 1866 issue of "Notes and
> Queries" argues that Samuel Johnson did not create the joke because he
> was not critical of angling. Indeed, Johnson urged Moses Brown to
> publish the 1750 edition of "The Compleat Angler" by Izaak Walton. The
> letter writer suggests a much earlier provenance for the joke and
> points to Martial Guyet:
>
> … the other day I met with some French lines conveying an exactly
> similar sentiment. These were written by Guyet, who if he was Martial
> Guyet, died nearly a hundred years before the great lexicographer was
> born. They are as follows:-
>
> "Messieurs je suis pecheur, et pecheur a la ligne,
> J'en fais ici l'aveu. Ce cas semble peu digne
> De vos graves esprits: car on l'a dit souvent
> La ligne, avec sa canne, est un long instrument,
> Dont le plus mince bout tient un petit reptile,
> Et dont l'autre est tenu par un grand imbécile."
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=3mkJAAAAQAAJ&q=guyet#v=snippet&q=guyet&f=false
>
> I searched for these French words in the Google Books repository and
> found them in a work dated 1860. But I was unable to discover earlier
> citations.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=rWsCAAAAYAAJ&q=reptile#v=snippet&q=reptile&f=false
--

Earlier in the same poem (published 1860) I see mention of various
then-recent figures:

<<En prose, en poésie, on les compte par mille, / Laffitte,
Walter-Scott, Karr, Nodier, Béranger, / Pour charmer leurs loisirs,
s'amusaient à pêcher.>>

I suppose one can assume that this poem was not all that old in 1860,
and that the poet [named (or pen-named) "Guyet (de Lyon)"] was entirely
distinct from the Martial Guyet suggested.

-- Doug Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org