[628] A whetstone was anciently the name given in derision to a liar. The reason of it is explained in the following rhymes under an old engraving in the Bridgewater collection, representing a man with a whetstone in his hand:—
“The whettstone is a man that all men know,
Yet many on him doe much cost bestowe:
Hee’s us’d almost in every shoppe, but why?
An edge must needs be set on every lye.”
How old is this connexion between lies and whetstones may be seen from Stow:—“Of the like counterfeit physition have I noted (in the Summarie of my Chronicles, anno 1382,) to be set on horsebacke, his face to the horsetaile, the same taile in his hand as a bridle, a collar of jordans about his necke, a whetstone on his breast, and so led through the citie of London with ringing of basons, and banished.”—Stow’s Chronicle, Howe’s edition, 1614, p. 604. It is a curious coincidence that in France and Germany a knife—the Rodomont knife—was handed over to outrageous liars. A vestige of this custom was still preserved at the university of Bonn at the end of the last century, where, when one of the company at the students’ mess drew the long bow a little too strongly, it was customary for all who sat at the table, without making any remarks, to lay their dinner knives on the top of their glasses, all pointing towards the offender.
[629] London Gazette, Dec. 23-26, 1700.
[630] Ibid., Jan. 10-14, 1678.
[631] James Christopher le Blond, a Fleming by birth, obiit 1740, made preparations to copy the Hampton Court tapestry cartoons. For this purpose he built a house in Mulberry Gardens, Chelsea, but the project failed.
[632] A Walk from London to Fulham. By the late T. C. Croker. 1860.
[633] Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i.
[634] “The ox gives the shoemaker leather of which he makes boots to be worn. As a grateful return I have ordered the ox to be portrayed here in boots and spurs.”