NOW don’t let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the
oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own;
and because we have the spirit to swear them,——imagine that we have had
the wit to invent them too.
I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except
to a connoisseur:——though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in
swearing,——as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c. &c. the
whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and
trinkets of criticism,——or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a
pity——for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_;—their
heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that
eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of
genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and
tortured to death by ’em.
—And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night?—Oh, against all
rule, my lord,—most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the
adjective, which should agree together in _number, case_, and _gender_,
he made a breach thus,—stopping, as if the point wanted settling;—and
betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern
the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three
seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.—Admirable
grammarian!——But in suspending his voice——was the sense suspended
likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the
chasm?——Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?——I look’d only at
the stop-watch, my lord.—Excellent observer!
And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?——Oh!
’tis out of all plumb, my lord,——quite an irregular thing!—not one of
the angles at the four corners was a right angle.—I had my rule and
compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.—Excellent critick!
——And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at——upon taking the
length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon
an exact scale of _Bossu_’s——’tis out, my lord, in every one of its
dimensions.—Admirable connoisseur!
——And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way
back?—’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid
in any one group!——and what a price!——for there is nothing of the
colouring of _Titian_—the expression of _Rubens_—the grace of
_Raphael_—the purity of _Dominichino_—the _corregiescity_ of
_Corregio_—the learning of _Poussin_—the airs of _Guido_—the taste of
the _Carrachis_—or the grand contour of _Angelo._—Grant me patience,
just Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting
world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst——the cant of
criticism is the most tormenting!
I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on,
to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the
reins of his imagination into his author’s hands——be pleased he knows
not why, and cares not wherefore.
Great _Apollo!_ if thou art in a giving humour—give me—I ask no more,
but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire
along with it——and send _Mercury_, with the _rules and compasses_, if
he can be spared, with my compliments to—no matter.
Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and
imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these
two hundred and fifty years last past as originals——except _St. Paul’s
thumb_——_God’s flesh and God’s fish_, which were oaths monarchical,
and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths,
’tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;—else I say, there
is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been
copied over and over again out of _Ernulphus_ a thousand times: but,
like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of
the original!—it is thought to be no bad oath——and by itself passes
very well—“_G—d damn you._”—Set it beside _Ernulphus_’s——“God almighty
the Father damn you—God the Son damn you—God the Holy Ghost damn
you”—you see ’tis nothing.—There is an orientality in his, we cannot
rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention—possess’d more
of the excellencies of a swearer——had such a thorough knowledge of the
human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints,
and articulations,—that when _Ernulphus_ cursed—no part escaped
him.—’Tis true there is something of a _hardness_ in his manner——and,
as in _Michael Angelo_, a want of grace——but then there is such a
greatness of _gusto!_
My father, who generally look’d upon every thing in a light very
different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an
original.——He considered rather _Ernulphus_’s anathema, as an institute
of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of _swearing_
in some milder pontificate, _Ernulphus_, by order of the succeeding
pope, had with great learning and diligence collected together all the
laws of it;—for the same reason that _Justinian_, in the decline of the
empire, had ordered his chancellor _Tribonian_ to collect the _Roman_
or civil laws all together into one code or digest——lest, through the
rust of time——and the fatality of all things committed to oral
tradition—they should be lost to the world for ever.
For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath
from the great and tremendous oath of _William_ the conqueror (_By the
splendour of God_) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (_Damn your
eyes_) which was not to be found in _Ernulphus._—In short, he would
add—I defy a man to swear _out_ of it.
The hypothesis is, like most of my father’s, singular and ingenious
too;——nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.