Charles Lamb’s rebuke to a man who by self-assertion pronounced himself devoid of any peculiarity, ought not to be omitted. ‘Wh-which hand do you b-b-blow your n-n-nose with?’ inquired Lamb.
‘With my right hand, to be sure.’
‘Ah!’ said Lamb pensively, ‘that’s your pe-pe-pe-peculiarity. I b-b-blow mine with my hand-kerchief.’
The nose is quite a proverbial topic; for example, ‘To turn up the nose,’ ‘Put his nose out of joint,’ ‘Paid through his nose,’ and ‘Putting his nose to the grindstone,’ ‘Led by the nose,’ with many others equally felicitous. ‘Driving hogs over Swarston Bridge’ is a Derbyshire polite way of expressing snoring; and several stories are told respecting pig-drivers. A small boy was once asked: ‘Is your elder brother musical?’
‘Yes, sir; ’e is that.’
‘Can he play?’
‘O yes, sir; ’e plays beautiful.’
‘On what instrument does he perform?’
‘Why, sir, ’e plays on his nose!’
A celebrated divine was preaching before the king and court in Stuart times, when the monarch and several noblemen ‘nodded gentle assents’ to all he said, for ‘they slumbered and slept.’ The divine, wishful to reprove, but fearful to offend, at last summoned courage to shout to one of the somnolent nobles: ‘My lord, my lord, don’t snore so loud, or you’ll waken His Majesty!’