Proverb: Two Blacks make not a White (antedating 1713)

[Wilson Gray]

Well, that's self-evident, regardless of its dating. ;-)

-Wilson

On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 1:22 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Proverb: Two Blacks make not a White (antedating 1713)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The online Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs includes "Two blacks don't
> make a white" and the reference says it is "Similar to two wrongs
> don't make a right." The first cite given in Oxford database is an
> explanatory statement in 1721:
>
> 1721 J. Kelly Scottish Proverbs 321 Two Blacks make no White. An
> Answer to them who, being blam'd, say others have done as ill or
> worse.
>
> The topic of the 1713 cite below is argumentation over church policy.
>
> Cite: 1713, "Miscellany Numbers; Relating to the Controversies About
> the Book of Common-Prayer, &c" by Robert Calder, Observations upon Mr.
> Anderson's Excursions and Digressions, Page 47, Edinburgh.
>
>  Pag. 5. You say That we are vastly more guilty than ye in this
> Matter; so the Church of England is not innocent, for this you
> instance Bishop Wettenhall.
>  Sir you forgot your self in the preceeding Page, that retorquere non
> est respondere, that is, two Blacks make not a White.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=s6IOAAAAQAAJ&q="two+blacks
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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