That "Tenterden Steeple is the cause of the Goodwin Sands" is a proverb that was at one time often brought forth when any ridiculous cause was assigned as an explanation of anything. We have already seen how very colloquial Bishop Latimer could be on occasion, and he tells us that a "Mr Moore was once sent with commission into Kent to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin's Sands which had 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. Among the rest came one in before him, an old man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than a hundred years old. When Mr Moore saw this aged man he called him unto him and said, Father, tell me, if you can, what is the cause of the great arising of the sand here about this harbour, which stops 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 in all likelihood can say most of it. Yea, forsooth, good Mr Moore, quoth the old man, for I am well-nigh one hundred years old, and no man in this company anywhere near my age. Well then, quoth Mr Moore, how say you to this matter, what think you to be the cause? Forsooth, sir, I think that Tenterden Steeple is the cause of Goodwin's Sands. I remember the building of Tenterden Steeple, and before that was in building there was no manner of talking of any flats or sands that stopped up the haven, and therefore I think that the Tenterden Steeple is the cause of the decay and destroying of Sandwich Haven." This was the tale as the bishop told it, and the explanation seems particularly far-fetched; but one story is good until another is told, and though this as it stands supplied the material for the proverb, there is really a supplement. Time out of mind money was constantly collected to fence the eastern shore of Kent against the inroads of the sea, and such sums were deposited in the hands of the Bishop of Rochester. For many years, the work being so well done, no irruption took place, and the bishop diverted some of the money to the building of a steeple to Tenterden Church. People dwelt in a false security, and the dykes were gradually growing weaker, until at last the catastrophe came. The old man's tale was quite rational, had he been allowed to finish it, but the audience, impatient of his garrulousness, and ready for a laugh at his expense, did not give him an opportunity to do so. It was not the ignorance of the speaker but the impatience of the auditors that supplies the true moral of the story.
Any extended reference to old collections of proverbs, to county histories, to old plays, and such-like sources of information would readily yield a large harvest of these local allusions, but enough has been brought forward to illustrate the nature of them, and for our purpose a specimen twenty is as satisfying as an illustrative hundred.
FOOTNOTES:
[125:A] A South African species of this genus is called by the settlers and natives, "Waht en beetje"—wait a bit, because its crooked thorns catch their clothes as they journey.
[125:B] A quaint and true old proverb that says cheese and means it too is this, "The king's cheese goes half away in parings," so many dependants being ready to help themselves to a share of it.
[126:A] Holland's translation.
[129:A] The Italians have it, "Chi prende, si vende"—"He sells himself who accepts a gift."
"Easy it is
Of a cut loaf to steal a shive."—"Titus Andronicus."