But when the clay doth feed the sand,
Then it is well with Angleland.-BD. i. 335.

Whoso hath but a mouth,

Shall ne'er in England suffer drouth.

For, if he doth but open, it is a chance but it will rain in. True it is, we seldom suffer for want of rain; and if there be any fault in the temper of our air, it is over-moistness, which inclines us to the scurvy and consumptions: diseases the one scarce known, the other but rare, in hotter countries.-Ray: BC. 492 : BD. i. 335.

ENGLISH COUNTIES.

BEDFORDSHIRE.

Bedfordshire bull-dogs

Hertfordshire hedgehogs,

Buckinghams. great fools.-CH. iv. 507.

Hazlitt, Proverbs, quoting Heywood's Proverbs (1562), gives, "As plain as Dunstable by-way," adding-Quoted in a ballad printed about 1570. See Ancient Ballads and Broadsides, 1867, p. 1. Clarke (Paræmiologia, 1639, p. 243) has—

In the Dunstable highway

To Needham and beggary.

But it is there quoted differently. The meaning seems to be ironical, as Dunstable by-way was probably by no means plain.

Latimer (Sermons, 1549, repr. Arber, p. 56) says-"Howbeit there were some good walkers among them, that walked in the kynges highe waye ordinarilye, vprightlye, playne Dunstable waye."

"Wherein I iudge him the more too be esteemed, bicause hee vseth no going about the bushe, but treades Dunstable way in all his trauell." Gosson's Ephemerides of Phialo, 1586, Epist. Dedic. to Sydney.

The author of A Journey through England in the Year 1752 (privately printed 1869, 8vo, p. 75), testifies to the bad state of the roads in that part of the country nearly two centuries later, p. 74.

Despite the last evidence, I doubt an ironical meaning in the proverb, and fail to see such in either of the extracts.

BERKSHIRE.

Isley, remote amidst the Berkshire downs,

Claims three distinctions o'er her sister towns

Far famed for sheep and wool, tho' not for spinners,
For sportsmen, doctors, publicans, and sinners.

? modern. BP. i. 77.

One mile north-east of Newbury is Shaw House, built in 1581 by Thomas Dolman, a member of an old Yorkshire family who had settled in Newbury as a clothier, and, having made a fortune, retired here to live as a country gentleman. The proceeding was distasteful to the townsmen, and they expressed their feelings in these lines:

Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,
Thomas Dolman has built a new house,

And has turned away all his spinners.

To which he retorted in the haughty lines still remaining over the gateway

Edentulus vescentium dentibus invidet

Et oculos caprearum talpa contemnit.-BP. i. 66.

Newbury has long been noted for its corn market. The old custom that everything must be paid for on delivery, gave rise to the local proverb—

The farmer doth take back

The money in his sack.-BP. i. 63.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

BLEDLOW.

They that live and do abide

Shall see the church fall in the Lyde.

Bledlow Church, parish of Aylesbury, "stands near the edge of a rock, under which, in a deep glen overgrown with trees, and exhibiting some picturesque scenery, little to be expected from the character of the neighbouring country, issue some transparent springs, which form there a pool called the Lyde. They are said to wear away the rock, which has occasioned the . . . proverb." Lysons, Buckinghamshire, p. 516.

The church stands so near the edge that it seems in imminent danger. BP. ii. 161.

Brill upon the Hill,
Oakley in the Hole,

Shabby little Ickford,

Dirty Worminghall.

? Ashendon Hundred, West Bucks., six miles north-west-bynorth of Thame.

At Brill on the Hill The wind blows shrill,

The cook no meat can dress;

At Stow in the Wold The wind blows cold.

I know no more than this.

A nursery rhyme. AY. 301.

Stow in the Wold is in Gloucestershire.

Buckinghamshire bread and beef:

Here, if you beat a bush, it is odds you'll start a thief.

"The former as fine, the latter as fat, in this as in any other county." Fuller (1662): Ray.

"No doubt there was just occasion for this proverb at the original thereof, which then contained a satirical truth, proportioned to the place before it was reformed; whereof thus our great antiquary: 'It was altogether unpassable, in times past, by reason of trees, until Leofstane, Abbot of St. Albans, did cut them down, because they yielded a place of refuge for thieves.' But this proverb is now antiquated as to the truth thereof; Buckinghamshire affording as many maiden assizes as any county of equal populousness." Fuller, ut supra.

The second line forms part of the proverb, and completes the couplet, such as it is; but the two lines have been invariably separated. Hazlitt, Proverbs, p. 101.

BULSTRODE (family).

When William conquer'd English ground,

Bulstrode had per annum three hundred pound.-BP. ii. 161.

When the Conqueror gave away his (Bulstrode's) estate to a Norman follower, says the legend, he and his adherents, mounted upon bulls, resisted the invaders and retained possession. Afterwards, accompanied by his seven sons, mounted in the same fashion, he went under safe conduct to William's court, and the Conqueror was so much amused at the strangeness of the scene

that he permitted the stalwart Saxon to hold his lands under the ancient tenure, and conferred upon him and his heirs for ever the surname of Bullstrode. Historic and Allusive Arms: BO. 45.

COBB-BUSH HILL.

Or

If it hadn't been for Cobb-bush Hill,

Thorpe castle would have stood there still;

There would have been a castle at Thorpe still.

CE. viii. 387. Thorpe is called Thrup.

There were three cooks of Colebrook,

And they fell out with our cook,

And all was for a pudding he took

From the three cooks of Colebrook.

AV. 195, given as a nursery rhyme; there is probably, however, a story connected with it, but now forgotten.

GREAT MARLOW.

Here is fish for catching,

Corn for snatching,

And wood for fatching.

Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, ed. Bliss, p. 485. BC. 211.

Grendon Underwood,

The dirtiest town that ever stood.

Grendon Underwood or Grendon-under-Bernwood. Aubrey declares that Shakspeare picked up some of the humour of his Midsummer Night's Dream from the constable, when passing a night here on his way to London. BP. ii. 161, 162.

Little Brickhill, Great Brickhill,

Brickhill in the Bow;

Here stand three Brickhills

All of a row.-CH. iv. 507.

North and south (of Stoke Hammond) extend the three Brickhills, all occupying high ground. The ground at Bow Brickhill rises to the height of 683 feet. BP. ii. 168.

Or

*

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,

Hampden of Hampden did forego,

For striking the Black Prince a blow,

And glad was he to escape so.-CH. vi. 331.

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,

All for striking of a blow,
These Hampden did forego,
And glad he could escape so.

Id. 428, where Hampden and Henry, Prince of Wales, son to James I., are mentioned.

It is said that Sir Walter Scott obtained the title of his novel Ivanhoe from this rhyme.

The story goes that a Hampden struck the Black Prince a blow with his racket, when they quarrelled at tennis.

There is no foundation for the statement. Neither of the three manors mentioned ever belonged to the Hampdens. BP. ii. 166. Another rhyme on these places is

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,

Three dirty villages all in a row,

And never without a rogue or two :
Would you know the reason why?

Leighton Buzzard is hard by.-CE. v. 619.

The following, too, refers to these places :

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,

Three churches all of a row.-CH. iv. 507.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

Hungry Hardwick,

Greedy Toft,

Hang-up Kingston,

Caldecott naught.

"Caldecott" is pronounced Cawcote.

CE. viii. 305.

* Tring is in Dacorum Hundred, West Herts, twenty-five miles west of Hertford; was Treung, held by Rob. d'Eu at Domesday; was given by Stephen to Feversham Abbey, and by Henry VIII. to the Norths, and came to the Peckhams, Guys, Gores, etc., and Smiths of Sutton. Sharp, New Gazetteer, 1852.