NATIONAL AND LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS. LOCAL ALLUSIONS.
A right Englishman knows not when a thing is well.
It would seem, too, that he does not know when a thing is ill; for the French say the English were beaten at Waterloo, but had not the wit to know it.
A Scotsman is aye wise ahint the hand.—Scotch.
A Scotsman aye taks his mark frae a mischief.—Scotch.
Scotsmen reckon aye frae an ill hour.—Scotch.
That is, they always date from some untoward event. "A Scottish man," says James Kelly, "solicited the Prince of Orange to be made an ensign, for he had been a sergeant ever since his Highness ran away from Groll."
The Englishman weeps, the Irishman sleeps, but the Scotsman gaes till he gets it.—Scotch.
Such, according to Scotch report, is the conduct of the three when they want food.
The Welshman keeps nothing till he has lost it.—Welsh.
The older the Welshman, the more madman.—Welsh.
As long as a Welsh pedigree.
The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.—Italian.[788]
This is the testimony of Italians. Of our country they say,—
England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of purses, and the hell of horses.—Italian.[789]
War with all the world, and peace with England.—Spanish.[790]
Beware of a white Spaniard and of a swarthy Englishman.—Dutch.[791]
Apparently because they are out of kind, and therefore presumed to be uncanny.
He has more to do than the ovens of London at Christmas.—Italian.
They agree like the clocks of London.—French, Italian.
Which clocks disagree to this day. (See Household Words, No. 410.) "The city time measurers are so far behind each other that the last chime of eight has hardly fallen on the ear from the last church, when another sprightly clock is heard to begin the hour of nine. Each clock, however, governs, and is believed in by, its own immediate neighbourhood."
Shake a bridle over a Yorkshireman's grave, and he will rise and steal a horse.
He is Yorkshire.
He is a keen blade. "He's of Spoleto" (E Spoletino), say the Italians.
The devil will not come into Cornwall for fear of being put into a pie.
Cornish housewives make pies of such unlikely materials as potatoes, pilchards, &c.
By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
You shall know the Cornish men.
Surnames beginning with these syllables—e.g., Trelawney, Polwhele, Penrose—are originally Cornish.
A Scottish man and a Newcastle grindstone travel all the world over.
Newcastle grindstones were long reputed the best of their kind. Another version of the proverb associates them with rats and red herrings, things which are very widely diffused over the globe, but not more so than Scotchmen.
Three great evils come out of the north—a cold wind, a cunning knave, and a shrinking cloth.
He's an Aberdeen's man; he may take his word again.—Scotch.
An Aberdeen's man ne'er stands to the word that hurts him.—Scotch.
The people of Normandy labour under the same imputation: "A Norman has his say and his unsay."[792] This proverb is said to have arisen out of the ancient custom of the province, according to which contracts did not become valid until twenty-four hours after they had been signed, and either party was at liberty to retract during that interval.
Gotham is a village in Nottinghamshire, declared by universal consent, for reasons unknown, to be the head quarters of stupidity in this country, on whose inhabitants all sorts of ridiculous stories might be fathered. The convenience of having such a butt for sarcasm has been recognised by all nations. The ancient Greeks had their Bœotia, which was for them what Swabia is for the modern Germans. The Italians compare foolish people to those of Zago, "Who sowed needles that they might have a crop of crowbars, and dunged the steeple to make it grow."[793] The French say, "Ninety-nine sheep and a Champenese make a round hundred,"[794] the man being a stupid animal like the rest. The Abbé Tuet traces back the origin of this story to Cæsar's conquest of Gaul. Before that period the wealth of Champagne consisted in flocks of sheep, which paid a rate in kind to the public revenue. The conqueror, wishing to favour the staple of the province, exempted from taxation all flocks numbering less than a hundred head, and the consequence was that the Champenese always divided their sheep into flocks of ninety-nine. But Cæsar was soon even with them, for he ordered that in future the shepherd of every flock should be counted as a sheep, and pay as one.
This proposition is commonly quoted as a flagrant example of bad logic, illustrating the fallacy of the reference post hoc, ergo propter hoc. A very quaint account of its origin is given in these words in one of Latimer's sermons:—"Mr. Moore was once sent with commission into Kent, to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin's Sands, and the shelf which stopped up Sandwich Haven. Thither cometh Mr. Moore, and calleth all the country before him; such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could of likelihood best satisfy him of the matter concerning the stopping of Sandwich Haven. Among the rest came in before him an old man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than an hundred years old. When Mr. Moore saw this aged man he thought it expedient to hear him say his mind in this matter; for, being so old a man, it was likely that he knew most in that presence, or company. So Mr. Moore called this old aged man unto him, and said, 'Father, tell me, if you can, what is the cause of the great arising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, which stop it up so that no ships can arrive here. You are the oldest man I can espy in all the company, so that if any man can tell the cause of it, you of all likelihood can say most to it, or at leastwise more than any man here assembled.' 'Yea, forsooth, good Mr. Moore,' quoth this old man, 'for I am well-nigh an hundred years old, and no man here in this company anything near my age.' 'Well, then,' quoth Mr. Moore, 'how say you to this matter? What think you to be the cause of these shelves and sands, which stop up Sandwich Haven?' 'Forsooth, sir,' quoth he, 'I am an old man; I think that Tenterton steeple is the cause of Goodwin's Sands. For I am an old man, sir,' quoth he; 'I may remember the building of Tenterton steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterton steeple was in building there was no manner of talking of any flats or sands that stopped up the haven; and therefore I think that Tenterton steeple is the cause of the decay and destroying of Sandwich Haven.'"
After all, this is not so palpable a non sequitur as it appears, for, says Fuller, "One story is good till another is told; and though this be all whereupon this proverb is generally grounded, I met since with a supplement thereunto: it is this. Time out of mind, money was constantly collected out of this county to fence the east banks thereof against the irruption of the sea, and such sums were deposited in the hands of the Bishop of Rochester; but because the sea had been quiet for many years without any encroaching, the bishop commuted this money to the building of a steeple and endowing a church at Tenterden. By this diversion of the collection for the maintenance of the banks, the sea afterwards broke in upon Goodwin Sands. And now the old man had told a rational tale, had he found but the due favour to finish it; and thus, sometimes, that is causelessly accounted ignorance of the speaker which is nothing but impatience in the auditors, unwilling to attend to the end of the discourse."
A loyal heart may be landed under Traitors' Bridge.
Every one who has passed down the Thames from London Bridge knows that archway in front of the Tower, under which boats conveying prisoners of state used to pass to Traitors' Stairs.
A knight of Cales, a gentleman of Wales, and a laird of the north countree;
A yeoman of Kent, with his yearly rent, will buy them out all three.
"Cales knights were made in that voyage by Robert, Earl of Essex, to the number of sixty, whereof (though many of great birth) some were of low fortunes; and therefore Queen Elizabeth was half offended with the earl for making knighthood so common. Of the numerousness of Welsh gentlemen nothing need be said, the Welsh generally pretending to gentility. Northern lairds are such who in Scotland hold lands in chief of the king, whereof some have no great revenue. So that a Kentish yeoman (by the help of a hyperbole) may countervail," &c.—(Fuller.) "A Spanish don, a German count, a French marquis, an Italian bishop, a Neapolitan cavalier, a Portuguese hidalgo, and a Hungarian noble make up a so-so company" (Italian).[795]
The Italians are wise before the fact, the Germans in the fact, the French after the fact.—Italian.[796]
The Italians are known by their singing, the French by their dancing, the Spaniards by their lording it, and the Germans by their drinking.—Italian.[797]
Where Germans are, Italians like not to be.—Italian.[798]
Italy, heads, holidays, and tempests.—Italian.[799]
A gentleman, who visited Dublin in the O'Connell times, gave it as the result of his experience there that Ireland was a land of groans, grievances, and invitations to dinner.
He that has to do with a Tuscan must not be blind.—Italian.[800]
There is a double meaning in the original. The same Italian word means Tuscan and poison.
It is better to be in the forest and eat pine cones than to live in a castle with Spaniards.—Italian.[801]
Because the frugal Spanish soldiers could subsist on diet on which men of other nations would starve. For them "Bread and radishes were a heavenly dinner" (Spanish).[802]
Abstract from Spaniard all his good qualities, and there remains a Portuguese.—Spanish.
Every layman in Castile might make a king, every clerk a pope.—Spanish.
If the overweening pride of the Spaniard appears in these two proverbs, the candour of the following must also be acknowledged:—
Succours of Spain, either late or never.—Spanish.[803]
Things of Spain.—Spanish.[804]
That is, abuses, anomalies, and faults of all kinds. See "Ford's Handbook," passim.
When the Spaniard sings, either he is mad or he has not a doit.—Spanish.[805]
A Pole would rather steal a horse on Sunday than eat milk or butter on Friday.—German.[806]
Poland is the hell of peasants, the paradise of Jews, the purgatory of burghers, the heaven of nobles, and the gold mine of foreigners.—German.[807]
A Polish bridge, a Bohemian monk, a Swabian nun, Italian devotion, and German fasting are worth a bean.—German.[808]
If the devil came out of hell to fight there would forthwith be a Frenchman to accept the challenge.—French.[809]
When the Frenchman sleeps the devil rocks him.—French.[810]
The Italians weep, the Germans screech, and the French sing.—French.[811]
This is found word for word in Italian also, though it seems devised for the special glorification of Frenchmen. The Portuguese say,—
The Frenchman sings well when his throat is moistened.—Portuguese.[812]
The Germans have their wit in their fingers.—French.[813]
That means they are skilful workmen.
The emperor of Germany is the king of kings, the king of Spain king of men, the king of France king of asses, the king of England king of devils.—French.[814]
This was the proverb of the Douglases, adopted by every Border chief to express, as Sir Walter Scott observes, what the great Bruce had pointed out—that the woods and hills were the safest bulwarks of their country, instead of the fortified places which the English surpassed their neighbours in the art of assaulting or defending. The Servians have a similar saying: "Better to look from the mountain than from the dungeon."
He that has missed seeing Seville has missed seeing a marvel.—Spanish.[815]
See Naples and die.—Italian.[816]
There is but one Paris.—French.[817]