On May 31, 1817, Napoleon is reported to have said to Barry O’Meara,—
You were greatly offended with me for having called you a nation of shopkeepers. Had I meant by this that you were a nation of cowards, you would have had reason to be displeased.... I meant that you were a nation of merchants, and that all your great riches arose from commerce.... Moreover, no man of sense ought to be ashamed of being called a shopkeeper.—Voice from St. Helena.
Only a pauper.
The lines—
Rattle his bones
Over the stones,
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns,
are from the Pauper’s Drive, by Thomas Noel.
Taking time by the forelock.
Spenser says, Sonnet lxx.:—