"_Nine Tailors make a Man_" (Vol. vi., pp. 390. 563.).--I extract the
following humorous account of the origin of this saying from _The British
Apollo_ (12mo., reprint of 1726, vol. i. p. 236.):
"It happen'd ('tis no great matter in what year) that eight taylors,
having finish'd considerable pieces of work at a certain person of
quality's house (whose name authors have thought fit to conceal), and
receiving all the money due for the same, a virago servant maid of the
house observing them to be but slender-built animals, and in their
mathematical postures on their shop-board appearing but so many pieces
of men, resolv'd to encounter and pillage them on the road. The better
to compass her design, she procured a very terrible great
black-pudding, which (having waylaid them) she presented at the breast
of the foremost: they, mistaking this prop of life for an instrument of
death, at least a blunder-buss, readily yielded up their money; but
she, not contented with that, severely disciplin'd them with a cudgel
she carry'd in the other hand, all which they bore with a philosophical
resignation. Thus, eight not being able to deal with one woman, by
consequence could not make a man, on which account a ninth is added.
'Tis the opinion of our curious virtuosos, that this want of courage
ariseth from their immoderate eating of cucumbers, which too much
refrigerates their blood. However, to their eternal honour be it spoke,
they have been often known to encounter a sort of cannibals, to whose
assaults they are often subject, not fictitious, but real man-eaters,
and that with a lance but two inches long; nay, and although they go
arm'd no further than their middle-finger."