National humour, frequently local and idiomatical, depends on the artificial habits of mankind, so opposite to each other; but there is a natural vein, which the populace, always true to nature, preserve, even among the gravest people. The Arabian proverb, “The barber learns his art on the orphan’s face;” the Chinese, “In a field of melons do not pull up your shoe; under a plum-tree do not adjust your cap;”—to impress caution in our conduct under circumstances of suspicion;—and the Hebrew one, “He that hath had one of his family hanged may not say to his neighbour, hang up this fish!” are all instances of this sort of humour. The Spaniards are a grave people, but no nation has equalled them in their peculiar humour. The genius of Cervantes partook largely of that of his country; that mantle of gravity, which almost conceals its latent facetiousness, and with which he has imbued his style and manner with such untranslatable idiomatic raciness, may be traced to the proverbial erudition of his nation. “To steal a sheep, and give away the trotters for God’s sake!” is Cervantic nature! To one who is seeking an opportunity to quarrel with another, their proverb runs, Si quieres dar palos a sur muger pidele al sol a bever, “Hast thou a mind to quarrel with thy wife, bid her bring water to thee in the sunshine!”—a very fair quarrel may be picked up about the motes in the clearest water! On the judges in Gallicia, who, like our former justices of peace, “for half a dozen chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes,” A juezes Gallicianos, con los pies en las manos: “To the judges of Gallicia go with feet in hand;” a droll allusion to a present of poultry, usually held by the legs. To describe persons who live high without visible means, Los que cabritos venden, y cabras no tienen, de donde los vienen? “They that sell kids, and have no goats, how came they by them?” El vino no trae bragas, “Wine wears no breeches;” for men in wine expose their most secret thoughts. Vino di un oreja, “Wine of one ear!” is good wine; for at bad, shaking our heads, both our ears are visible; but at good the Spaniard, by a natural gesticulation lowering on one side, shows a single ear.
Proverbs abounding in sarcastic humour, and found among every people, are those which are pointed at rival countries. Among ourselves, hardly has a county escaped from some popular quip; even neighbouring towns have their sarcasms, usually pickled in some unlucky rhyme. The egotism of man eagerly seizes on whatever serves to depreciate or to ridicule his neighbour: nations proverb each other; counties flout counties; obscure towns sharpen their wits on towns as obscure as themselves—the same evil principle lurking in poor human nature, if it cannot always assume predominance, will meanly gratify itself by insult or contempt. They expose some prevalent folly, or allude to some disgrace which the natives have incurred. In France, the Burgundians have a proverb, Mieux vaut bon repas que bel habit; “Better a good dinner than a fine coat.” These good people are great gormandizers, but shabby dressers; they are commonly said to have “bowels of silk and velvet;” this is, all their silk and velvet goes for their bowels! Thus Picardy is famous for “hot heads;” and the Norman for son dit et son dédit, “his saying and his unsaying!” In Italy the numerous rival cities pelt one another with proverbs: Chi ha a fare con Tosco non convien esser losco, “He who deals with a Tuscan must not have his eyes shut.” A Venetia chi vi nasce mal vi si pasce, “Whom Venice breeds, she poorly feeds.”
There is another source of national characteristics, frequently producing strange or whimsical combinations; a people, from a very natural circumstance, have drawn their proverbs from local objects, or from allusions to peculiar customs. The influence of manners and customs over the ideas and language of a people would form a subject of extensive and curious research. There is a Japanese proverb, that “A fog cannot be dispelled with a fan!” Had we not known the origin of this proverb, it would be evident that it could only have occurred to a people who had constantly before them fogs and fans; and the fact appears that fogs are frequent on the coast of Japan, and that from the age of five years both sexes of the Japanese carry fans. The Spaniards have an odd proverb to describe those who tease and vex a person before they do him the very benefit which they are about to confer—acting kindly, but speaking roughly; Mostrar primero la horca que le lugar, “To show the gallows before they show the town;” a circumstance alluding to their small towns, which have a gallows placed on an eminence, so that the gallows breaks on the eye of the traveller before he gets a view of the town itself.
The Cheshire proverb on marriage, “Better wed over the mixon than over the moor,” that is, at home or in its vicinity; mixon alludes to the dung, &c., in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is over the moorland in Staffordshire: this local proverb is a curious instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of that county to form intermarriages; to prolong their own ancient families, and perpetuate ancient friendships between them.
In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indicates the object constantly occupying the minds of the inhabitants. The two Deemsters or judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will render justice between man and man “as equally as the herring bone lies between the two sides:” an image which could not have occurred to any people unaccustomed to the herring-fishery. There is a Cornish proverb, “Those who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock”—the strands of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not fail to impress on the imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects from whence they drew this salutary proverb against obstinate wrongheads.
When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which affected both nations:
| If Skiddaw hath a cap, Scruffel wots full well of that. |
These are two high hills, one in Scotland and one in England; so near, that what happens to the one will not be long ere it reach the other. If a fog lodges on the one, it is sure to rain on the other; the mutual sympathies of the two countries were hence deduced in a copious dissertation, by Oswald Dyke, on what was called “The Union-proverb,” which local proverbs of our country Fuller has interspersed in his “Worthies,” and Ray and Grose have collected separately.
I was amused lately by a curious financial revelation which I found in an opposition paper, where it appears that “Ministers pretend to make their load of taxes more portable, by shifting the burden, or altering the pressure, without, however, diminishing the weight; according to the Italian proverb, Accommodare le bisaccie nella strada, ‘To fit the load on the journey:’” it is taken from a custom of the mule-drivers, who, placing their packages at first but awkwardly on the backs of their poor beasts, and seeing them ready to sink, cry out, “Never mind! we must fit them better on the road!” I was gratified to discover, by the present and some other modern instances, that the taste for proverbs was reviving, and that we were returning to those sober times, when the aptitude of a simple proverb would be preferred to the verbosity of politicians, Tories, Whigs, or Radicals!
There are domestic proverbs which originate in incidents known only to the natives of their province. Italian literature is particularly rich in these stores. The lively proverbial taste of that vivacious people was transferred to their own authors; and when these allusions were obscured by time, learned Italians, in their zeal for their national literature, and in their national love of story-telling, have written grave commentaries even on ludicrous, but popular tales, in which the proverbs are said to have originated. They resemble the old facetious contes, whose simplicity and humour still live in the pages of Boccaccio, and are not forgotten in those of the Queen of Navarre.