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 dedit_, "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.