[Ads-l] Quote: Money is like muck, which spred abroad, doth good; but hoarded and heaped up, is like a stinking Dunghill

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Barry Popik already has an important entry on this topic from
September 2012 which I just came across. Apologies to Barry.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/money_is_like_manure_its_not_worth_a_thing_unless_its_spread_around

Looking at Barry's entry caused me to re-examine a confusing citation
I found during my research. I found a 1730 citation in a multi-volume
collection of "The Works of Francis Bacon". The details are given
further below. A version of the target quotation was attributed to
"Mr. Bettenham, reader of Grays-Inn". Barry has a 1740 citation for
the same quotation together with the assertion it appeared in 1625.

But I could not find a corresponding match in the EEBO database when I
looked for it earlier. So I began to suspect that the quotation
attributed to Bettenham was apocryphal. It seemed possible that
Bettenham attributed quotation was really from the 1700s and not the
1600s.

Finally, I just found the citation in EEBO in 1625. I missed it
because it employed variant spellings, e.g., "Mucke" instead of
"Muck"; "gaue" for "gave"; "vpon" for "upon".

[Begin excerpt]
Mr. Bettenham vsed to say; That Riches were like Mucke: When it lay,
vpon an heape, it gaue but a stench, and ill odour; but when it was
spread vpon the ground, then it was cause of much fruit.
[End excerpt]

Below is the 1730 citation:

[ref] 1730, The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St.
Alban and Lord High Chancellor of England, Volume 3, Section: A
Collection of Apophthegms: New and Old, Quote Page 279, Printed for J.
and J. Knapton, J. Walthoe, D. Midwinter, et al, London. (Google Books
Full View) link [/ref]

https://books.google.com/books?id=VHNUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22a+stench%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Mr. Bettenham, reader of Grays-Inn, used to say, that riches were like
muck; when it lay upon an heap, it gave but a stench and ill odour;
but when it was spread upon the ground, then it was cause of much
fruit.
[End excerpt]

Garson


On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 11:01 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks to Bonnie for her great help with the EEBO database. The QI
> website now has an entry on the topic in the subject line of this
> message.
>
> Riches Are Like Muck Which Stinks in a Heap But Spread Abroad Makes
> the Earth Fruitful
>
> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/05/muck/
>
> Garson
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 1:28 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wealth redistribution is a perennial topic of political debate. I
>> recently received a request to explore the provenance of the following
>> expression:
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> Money is like manure.  If you spread it around, it does a lot of good,
>> but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.
>> [End excerpt]
>>

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