Page:The ancient language, and the dialect of Cornwall.djvu/71

51 also, the quaint adaptation of the name of a place of bad repute, to anything expressive of dirt and disorder, as " The place is like Lanson jail," meaning, what old Lanson jail was formerly, viz., dirty and disorderly. Then the fun and the fear in the following rhyme : '*Jack o'the lantern! Joan the wad Who tickled the maid and made her bad Light me home the weather is bad." Conchas *' PolperroJ'^ The terse proverb used of a good catch of pilchards is very Cornish like, " Meat, money, and light, All in one night." Ibid. and satirical sayings like the following, have the peculiar vein of Cornish fun and wit, and when uttered in the Cornish dialect sound droll enough. "He is like the Mayor of Calenick who walked two miles, to ride one." " Like Nanny Painter's hens, very high upon the legs " (said of a tall thin person). " He is like the Mayor of Falmouth, who thanked God when the town jail was enlarged." R. Hunfs " Romances of the West of England." But such " sayings " fall flat on paper, they have only to be heard spoken by a Cornishman in his native dialect, to be appreciated. If the reader desire more real and characteristic examples of the dialect, he should read the