A Venetian, being asked by a German where his countrymen got their lion with wings, replied: “We caught him in the same forest where you found your two-headed eagle.”
Linnæus hated Buffon. He used to say that Buffon’s eloquence would mislead the world so as to make it believe his lies. One day, being at dinner with the mother of the present King of Sweden (Gustavus III.), at her country-house at Drottningholm, he saw a portrait of himself and one of Buffon in the room. He rose from table, and begged she would take away one or the other, for he would not have his portrait in such company. When very old, he used to go out herborising with several hundred students of the University of Upsal. He had a trumpet with him, by which the signal was given to call his scholars around him when he found any plant particularly curious. They also brought to him all that they had collected, which he classified and explained to them, sitting down upon the grass. He was simple in his habits and behaviour. He could speak French very well, but would not, because he hated the nation. He also spoke German, and a little English. He was much beloved. When the funeral service was performed over him, the man who had been gardener for twenty years of the botanical nursery he had established, came and strewed his grave with boughs of cypress—which Linnæus had introduced into Sweden—and with the most curious exotics in the garden.
The Piedmontese called all the Genoese “Bacciacini,” that being a common name at Genoa. When they met any of the inhabitants of that city in the streets of Turin, they plagued them by calling out: “Bacciacini, dom, dom, dom”—imitating the sound of the great bell for assembling the Consiglietto.
An Italian at Vienna was telling a lady how long he had been travelling, and pronouncing French according to the manner of his nation, he said: “J’ai été un âne à Paris et un âne à Rome.” “Mon cher Abbé,” replied the lady, “il paraît que vous avez été un âne partout.”
M. Lageswärd said, in the presence of Baron de Wrangel, that the latter had the reputation in Sweden of being very fertile in point of gallantry. “Why, no, indeed, my dear friend,” answered the Baron; “I have really been very constant; but consider, when a man has been making love near sixty-five years, how many mistresses he must necessarily have had.”