oms. 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.

The Cheshire proverb on marriage, "Better wed over the mixon than over
the moor," that is, at home or in its vicinity; mixon alludes to the
dung, &c., in the farm-yard, while the road from Chester to London is
over the moorland in Staffordshire: this local proverb is a curious
instance of provincial pride, perhaps of wisdom, to induce the gentry of
that county to form intermarriages; to prolong their own ancient
families, and perpetuate ancient friendships between them.

In the Isle of Man a proverbial expression forcibly indicates the object
constantly occupying the minds of the inhabitants. The two Deemsters or
judges, when appointed to the chair of judgment, declare they will
render justice between man and man "as equally as the herring bone lies
between the two sides:" an image which could not have occurred to any
people unaccustomed to the herring-fishery. There is a Cornish proverb,
"Those who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the
rock"--the strands of Cornwall, so often covered with wrecks, could not
fail to impress on the imaginations of its inhabitants the two objects
from whence they drew this salutary proverb against obstinate
wrongheads.

When Scotland, in the last century, felt its allegiance to England
doubtful, and when the French sent an expedition to the Land of Cakes, a
local proverb was revived, to show the identity of interests which
affected both nations:

If Skiddaw hath a cap,
Scruffel wots full well of that.

These ar