The Welshman keeps nothing till he has lost it.—Welsh.
The older the Welshman, the more madman.—Welsh.
As long as a Welsh pedigree.
The Italianised Englishman is a devil incarnate.—Italian.[788]
This is the testimony of Italians. Of our country they say,—
England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of purses, and the hell of horses.—Italian.[789]
War with all the world, and peace with England.—Spanish.[790]
Beware of a white Spaniard and of a swarthy Englishman.—Dutch.[791]
Apparently because they are out of kind, and therefore presumed to be uncanny.
He has more to do than the ovens of London at Christmas.—Italian.
They agree like the clocks of London.—French, Italian.
Which clocks disagree to this day. (See Household Words, No. 410.) "The city time measurers are so far behind each other that the last chime of eight has hardly fallen on the ear from the last church, when another sprightly clock is heard to begin the hour of nine. Each clock, however, governs, and is believed in by, its own immediate neighbourhood."
Shake a bridle over a Yorkshireman's grave, and he will rise and steal a horse.
He is Yorkshire.
He is a keen blade. "He's of Spoleto" (E Spoletino), say the Italians.
The devil will not come into Cornwall for fear of being put into a pie.
Cornish housewives make pies of such unlikely materials as potatoes, pilchards, &c.