NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1890, 10 February 1888, Page 32

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

"1 pray thee," said Portia to Nerissa, "oreniame them," when her companion spoke to her of suitors ; and as Nerissa mentioned each, Portia characterised them. The Englishman was a dumb show, badly put together ; the Scottish lord was a borrower and not a repayer; the German a drunkard; the Neapolitan talked of his horse only; and for the Frenchman, "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man." When Shakespeare put these characteristics into the mouth of the clever Portia, he was thinking of the many popular sayings concerning the types of humanity found in various countries, their several weaknesses, and their several virtues. In England, in France, in Germany — everywhere — each particular county or province has its characteristic whereby it is described in the circumjacent counties or provinces. These do not always consist of proverbial sentences, but in short designations, often in fancied likenesses drawn between those characterised and certain typical animals. So we are accustomed to hear ourselves spoken of, and, indeed, to individualise the generic Englishman as John Bull, and to speak of the Frenchman as Johnnie Crapaud. The Russian is a bear, and the Swabian, to other Germans, an ass. Even the heraldic symbols are, in some cases at least, intended to be typical— the English rose, the Scottish thistle.

The Emperor Charles V was wont to say, •'The Italian is wise, and looks it; the Spaniard looks wise, and is not; and the Frenchman is wise without looking it."

Another characteristic is: "The Frenchman takes the world by its cheerful side ; the Englishman looks on at it as at a tragedy." Maurice of Saxony likened the Frenchman, Spaniard, Italian, and German to various sorts of vermin; the Frenchman, he said, was a flea, never steady in one spot ; and the Spaniard, the devouring moth; the other similitudes are too unpleasant to be quoted. The French say of other peoples hard things : " Cheating as an American, drunken as a Swiss, jealous as a Spaniard, revengeful as a Corsican, quarrelsome as a German, proud as a Scotchman, and cold as a Dutch- 1 man."

Another French saying is, "The Italian is wise in time, the German at the time, the Frenchman after time." The Emperor Maximilian I said that " the King of France is a king of asses, for lie lades his subjects with heavy burdens ; the King of England is a king of men, for he lays on them nothing they do not consent to bear; but the Emperor is a king of princes who do nothing but follow their own caprices." A true saying ; one he had learned by experience. The German Emperor was a sovereign in name, but without power; he inherited a magnificent title, had splendid pretentions, but was flouted by every prince who pretended to owe him allegiance. _ To Maximilian several such characterisations are attributed. He is reported to have spoken first of the Englishman as a typical shopkeeper, an identification which the first Napoleon often had on his lips. Maximilian said, "An English shopkeeper, a Jewish usurer, an old nun, a German courtier, an ape, and a man of Basle are the devil's best Sarvants." In Spain it is said, " The Englishman is a drunkard, the Frenchman a scamp, the Dutchman a buttcrman, and the Spaniard a cavalier ; " and again, "It is best to be born in Italy, to live' in France, and to die in Spain." The Russians say, " Englishmen have their wifcs at their fingers' ends, Frenchmen at the end of their tongues." It is said in Poland, i( What the Italian infants, the Frenchman makes, the German sells, the Pole buys, and the Russians take from him."

The Italians say, "When trouble comes, the German drowns it in drink, the Frenchman talks it down, the Spaniard meets it with tears, the Italian goes to sleep till it is past." In Italy the ideally perfect woman is said to be a compound being, borrowing nor straight back from Germany, her feet from Genoa, her walk from Spain, and her wit from France. She must have Florentine ayes, golden hair from Padua, her profile from Ferranv, and her bust from Venice; moreover, she must have the delicate hand from Verona, and her complexion from Bologna, from Greece her ease of movement, hex teeth from Naples, and from Borne her dignity. There is an old Latin jingling piece of verse, printed in the beginning of the sixteenth century, something to the same effect, or rather a similar conceit. Aocording to that, the perfectly beautiful woman must have her head from Prague, her spine from Brabant, her hands from Cologne, her feet from the Rhine, and a Swabian bust. The saying of the Emperor Charles V, characterising the European languages, is well known, but will bear to be again quoted. «' Pray to God in Spanish, talk to ladies in Italian, chatter French with friends, twitter English with the birds, aud swear German with the horses."

The Spaniards say: "The Portuguese are lie-a-beds, the French sit-at-tables, and the Spaniards lounge-at-windows." Some names of plants and vegetables spring out of a misunderstanding. Jerusalem artichoke is not a native of the Holy Land ; Jerusalem is simply giroflc ; it is a corruption, just as asparagus becomes " sparrowgrass " ; but there is a sneer and real spite in the designation of a rat by a Bohemian as " a German mouse," and by a Slovak of a frog as " a German crab," and of a thistle as " a German rose." So also in Lithuania, a whirlwind is called " a German messenger." No love is implied by the Russian when he talks of foolish laughter as " the giggle of a German over a pancake. 1 ' It is said of Poland that it is "the hell of farmers, the paradise of Jews, the purgatory of the middle class, the heaven of the nobleman, aud the goldmine of the stranger," Germany ha 9 always been regarded as the ome of drjnkers— -though, not justly of

drunkards. We remember asking an officer who had gone to a new beer brewery to taste the ale, how he liked the brew. " Well," said he, " I did not care for it when I took my first glass, but at the thirteenth I began to understand it," — but he was as sober as we are whilst writing this-. German beer has very little alcohol in it. The French charge the Germans, in their proverbial sayings, with love of drink; and, as we have seen, Portia does the same. " Gcrmanisviverc ct bioere " is the Latin form of this charge ; and a Latin epigram says : Si lafcet in vino verum, utproverbia dicunfc, Invenib verum Teuto, vel inveniet. That is, if there be truth in the saying that "Truth lies in wine," sooner or later the German will have it. Dutchmen call the Englishman a steertonan — that is, a man with a tail — because in 1170, according to the legend, Thomas a Becket has cursed some men in Kent who cut off the tail of the horse on which he was riding, and ever after the men of Kent wore tails. And because the men of Kent, therefore all Englishmen. Ball, the Reformer in Edward Vl's time, refers to this story, and mentions also a variation of the scene and cause of this ignoble punishment. "John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby sayth, that for castyne of fyshe tayles at Augustyne, Dorsettshyre men had tayles ever after. But Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at Stroud, by Rochester, for cuttinge of Thomas Becket's horse's tail." Among the Germans, England is said to be the paradise of women and the purgatory of servants, but a far worse place than that for horses. About the French say the Italians : "They do not tell what they intend to do, nor read what is written, nor sing the notes set before them ;" and a German says : " A Frenchman is a good acquaintance, but a bad neighbour" — a truth which Prince Bismarck is never tired of impressing on the people, and urging them accordingly to enlarge the j standing army. The negroes in a French colony say : " Moucho (Monsieur) Connaitout pas commit tout"— -Mr Know-all don't know all. Perhaps the Greeks fare worst of all in the opinions of those who have to do with them, if we may judge by the sayings concerning them that pass from mouth to mouth. Among the Southern Slav races this is especially the case. They say. "Throe Turks and three Greeks make up six heathen ;" and " A crab is not a fish, nor a Greek a true man ;" and again, " A Greek speaks the truth once a year;" and once more, "A gipsy cheats a Jew, a Jew a Greek, and a Greek the devil."

The Venetians say, "He who trusts the ■word of a Greek is more fool than the madman." Even in Normandy the bad repute of the Greek has passed into a proverb, and he who obtains something quite unexpectedly is said to have "got paid by a Greek."

Holland and Flanders have both been places of refuge far bankrupt and fraudulent Frenchmen for a long time, and as such are regarded proverbially in France. "Go to Holland" means evade paying your debts. And to say of a man, " II est de Flandres " is the same as saying, "He is a ruined man."

Mynheer Van Dnnck, though he never was dvunk, sipped brandy and whisky daily, for aDutchman's draught must be deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee. That we all know, and to drink like a Dutchman is everywhere proverbial.

Of Italians it is said by the French, " Half one is too much in a house ; " and the Illyrian says of the Italian what the Englishman aud the German say of the Swiss, " He would sell his own father for gold." The Jew shares with the Greek the prerogative or being the best-abused of all peoples, proverbially.

The Pole says :— The German cheats the Pole, The Italian cheats the German, The Spaniard swindleß tho Italian, The Jew defrauds fche Spaniard, But only the devil can get the better of the Jew.

The German says, " The Jew cheats even whilst praying;" and the inhabitant of Lesser Russia, " The Jew did not learn to cheat, he was born with the faculty,"

"Rich as a Jew" is said everywhere. " Flies and Jews can never be driven away " is less known.

To build castles in the air is rendered in French, having a castle in Spain. Compliments that mean nothing are called Spanish coin; and in Italy, poison is designated euphemistically " Spanish figs," because Spaniards are supposed to poison those they desire to be rid of with fruit in which arsenic has been inserted.

The Swiss is not known proverbially for his patriotism, but for his mercenary nature. "No kreutzer, no Schwitzer," is a common saying in Germany; and "point d'arr/e?it, point de Suisse" is the French version of the same. One evening when a distinguished Genevan actress and a Swiss company were performing "William Tell" in Paris, they had an empty house. The actress came forward and said, "I see the proverb is reversed. To-day it is, No money, plenty of Swiss."

We speak of carrying coals to Newcastle when we wish to designate the absurdity of sending something to where there is superfluity ; in Russia they speak of sending snow to Lapland, and in Germany of despatching deals to Norway. In Holland, when they desire to say that a man is in his element, they describe him as being like a goat in Norway. — Itev. S. Baring.Gould, M,A., in " Cassell's Magazine."