
“4238. Spare the Rod, and spoil the Child.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Babelogue, from Easter (1978)
Lyrics
“4238. Spare the Rod, and spoil the Child.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Love is a boy by poets styl'd;
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.”
Canto I, line 843
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)
“They spare the rod, and spoyle the child.”
Mysteries and Revelations, p. 5. (1649). Compare: "There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God, Than from theyr children to spare the rod." John Skelton, Magnyfycence, line 1954.
"Mr. Icky"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
“There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God,
Than from theyr children to spare the rod.”
Magnificence, A goodly interlude, line 1954 (published c. 1533), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: He that spareth the rod hateth his son, Proverbs xiii. 24; They spare the rod and spoyl the child, Ralph Venning, Mysteries and Revelations (second ed.), p. 5. 1649; Spare the rod and spoil the child, Samuel Butler: Hudibras, pt. ii. c. i. l. 843.
Walter Scott, manuscript note written in 1825; cited from J. G. Lockhart The Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896) p. 81 col. 2.
Criticism
Source: Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)
Letter to Ellen Hussey (5 April 1849), published in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë : With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends (1995), edited by Margaret Smith, Vol. II: 1848–1851, p. 195
Context: I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect... But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa's and Charlotte's sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practice – humble and limited indeed – but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God's will be done.