An archaic use of but to introduce an inevitable accompanying circumstance.
1726 J. ARBUTHNOT (title) It cannot rain but it pours. 1770 C. BURNEY Music,
Men and Manners in France and Italy (1974) 22 July 54 The singers were the same as I
had heard at the Burletta. .. ‘It never rains, but it pours!’ 1857 TROLLOPE Barchester
Towers III. xii. A wife with a large fortune too. It never rains but it pours, does it, Mr.
Thorne? 1979 L. BARNEA Reported Missing vii. I listened to the radio. Ben Gurion had
suffered a stroke. .. It never rains but it pours. 2002 Washington Post 1 Mar. C5 When it
rains, it pours, and Matt Sullivan is being flooded out by women who want to have sex
with him. misfortuneIt is easier to RAISE the Devil than to lay him
1655 T. FULLER Church Hist. Britain x. iv. The Boy having gotten a habit of
counterfeiting.. would not be undeviled by all their Exorcisms, so that the Priests raised
up a Spirit which they could not allay. 1725 N. BAILEY tr. Erasmus’ Colloquies 202 ‘Tis
an old Saying and a true, ‘Tis an easier Matter to raise the Devil, than ‘tis to lay him.
1845 MACAULAY Works (1898) XII. 136 Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you
called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him? 2003 National Post’s
Financial Post & FP Investing (Canada) 5 May FP6 The latest revelation about Qwest
wasn’t the only reminder that, as Erasmus once said, it’s easier to raise the devil than to
lay him to rest. As a matter of fact, it was a banner week for fresh exposures of
transgressions by prominent sinners, corporate and human alike. good and evil;
prudenceransom see a PECK of March dust is worth a king’s ransom.
rat see the CAT, the rat, and Lovell the dog, rule all England under the hog.
reach see STRETCH your arm no further than your sleeve will reach.
reap see as you SOW, so you reap; they that SOW the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
There is REASON in the roasting of eggs
There is reason behind every action, however odd it may seem.