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A CURSORY HISTORY OF SWEARING.
A CURSORY HISTORY OF SWEARING.
BY JULIAN SHARMAN.
"Ha! this fellow is worse than me; what, does he
swear with pen and ink?"--_The Tatler_, No. 13.
LONDON:
J. C. NIMMO AND BAIN,
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1884.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
At the Scufflers' Club--A stranger at the gates--A somnolent
post-office--The best men in London--A sing-song--"Damn their
eyes!"--"Qui s'excuse s'accuse"--The philosophy of swearing--A
retrospect--"When that I was and a little tiny boy" 1
CHAPTER II.
The son of discord--Origin of swearing--Decline of lying as an
art--Growth of swearing as a science--The military oath--
Religious oath--John the Marshall--Fustian oaths--Legislation
begins--"Moralite des Blasphemateurs"--George Fox and Margaret
Fell--Oath of the King-Maker--Oath of the Bear-garden 22
CHAPTER III.
"Odd's bodikins"--In Socrates' thinking-shop--The British
shibboleth--Don Juan--Beaumarchais--Parny--Joan of Arc a
satirist of swearing--La Hire--Corbleu et Cie.--"Jarnicoton"--
"[Greek: Ma ton]"--'Jurons de Cadillac'--Little King Goddam--
Sir John Harrington--'Amends for Ladies'--"Don't care a damn" 38
CHAPTER IV.
Why has a dog a bad name?--Canine swearing--"Jarnichien!"--The
cast of the die--Dog oath of Socrates--A nation of swearers--
Aristophanes--The Rhodian cabbage--"Mehercule"--'Ship of
Fools'--Amenities of Roman swearing 60
CHAPTER V.
Mediaeval swearing--The monastic teaching--Cleric and lay--
Robert Crowley--Mystery of the five wounds--"God's bread!"--In
a Tuscan studio--Stephen Hawes--Thomas Becon--'Miroir du
Monde'--'Handlyng Sinne'--Chaucer's oaths--Plantagenet
swearing--"Ventre Saint Gris"--A royal scapegrace--"Bismillah!" 77
CHAPTER VI.
The genius of antiquity--A study in dust and cobwebs--The why
and the wherefore of swearing--A swearing _corps d'elite_--
"Swear me, Kate, like a lady"--The freemasonry of swearing--
Lord Thurlow--Sir Thomas Maitland--"By jingo!" 99
CHAPTER VII.
A bank of swearing--Legislation at work--"The sweirer's and
the Devill"--Aberdeen town records--Across the border--Before
the footlights--'Magnetic Lady'--The wits--Colman the
younger--A swearing bureau--Quarter Sessions--Statute of
William and Mary--Convictions--A carnival of swearing 115
CHAPTER VIII.
A saviour of society--Joseph Addison--A tradesman of the last
century--A clerical apologist--Swearing in earnest and at
play--An explanation offered--Blue laws of Connecticut--
Bobadil--'The Rivals'--'Covent Garden weeded'--Brantome's
oaths--Eccentricities of swearing--"Old Harry"--"The
dickens"--"The deuce"--"Le diable de Biterne" 139
CHAPTER IX.
Utilitarian view of swearing--One touch of nature--The
Shandean method--Code of Ernulphus--"Sacre froc d'Habacuc"--
Mr. William Barley--Philosophy of imprecation--"Bloody"--In
the Low Countries--'The Man of Mode'--Swift without his
waistcoat--Sanglant--Retrospect and ending 171
APPENDIX 193
A CURSORY HISTORY OF SWEARING.
CHAPTER I.
AT THE SCUFFLERS' CLUB.
"'Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,' said my uncle Toby, 'but
nothing to this.'"--_Tristram Shandy._
It lay in the heart of Bohemia. It was approached through a labyrinth of
streets that grew denser and darker as one neared the precincts of the
club. Could any of the brother Scufflers have seen the neighbourhood by
day, it would have presented an appearance dismal and sordid enough.
Dealers in faded wardrobes,--merchants in tinsel and _rouge de
theatre_,--retailers of wigs and fleshings and all manner of stage
wares, seemed one with another to have made the locality their home. One
missed certainly the bone-sellers and refuse-sifters of the adjacent
Clare Market, and one was spared the cheap cosmetic shops and smug
undertakers of the neighbouring Soho. But you were recompensed, here in
the heart of mid-Bohemia, by the all-pervading odour of potations and
provisions,--of banquets long past, and of banquets that were yet to
come.
What wonderful odours are those that emanate from this quarter of the
town! The dank vapours of Covent Garden are sweet in the nostrils of
many a cockney reveller. There is no orange-peel so perfumed as the
Drury orange-peel that has been concentrating its fragrance round the
boards of Thespis since the days when Mohun and Hart, and Shatterel and
Betterton strutted on the bare planks of the Cockpit. No scent of
printer's ink is more refreshing than that which adheres to the yards of
flimsy playbill still hawked about by itinerant vendors. But the whole
place has through the day-time a blear-eyed, a drunk-over-night
appearance. It is like a man who is never at his best until he has
supped or dined. From morn till twilight it wears this sullen and
uncared-for look. Wait until nightfall, and it will positively glisten
with lamps and gleam with merriment. No wonder, therefore, that it has
been the birthplace of so many of those midnight carousing dens, into
one of which we are tremulously seeking to enter.
It was what is called a literary and theatrical club, the Scufflers. It
was literary in so far that the majority of its members lay down at
night with unrealised dreams of authorship. It was theatrical to the
extent that many a one was the possessor of an unacted drama coiled up
in his breast coat-pocket, and was to be seen surging about managers'
doors, only waiting the glance of favour to fall upon author and
manuscript. Nor was this literary impulsion entirely without
fruit-bearing. Scufflers had been known to rush breathlessly into the
club-room at the approach of midnight, and in an excited and panting
condition have been heard to sing out for pens and paper, as the morning
press would wait for no man. Personally the accomplishments of the
members were many and varied. The great _primus_ and leader of the club
was a man who was alleged to dash off a leading article, take a hand at
whist, and tackle a dish of kidneys at one and the same time.
We must now be supposed to have reached the entrance of the hostelry,
for indeed it was a Covent Garden tavern and nothing more.
We commence to grope our way along the mouldering, unlit passage that
gives access to the one apartment tenanted by the club, in which their
cheerful deliberations are now proceeding. Time cannot efface the
memory of that green-baize door at the end of this passage, where we
were very properly brought to a stand on that first evening of our
initiation. Never shall we forget how momentous seemed the issues that
were depending in that inner chamber, as the announcement that there was
a "stranger at the gates" was evidently being briskly canvassed there.
To have the unquestioned privilege of passing and repassing that mystic
portal, the barrier as it seemed between all the rhapsody and the syntax
of this weary world, promised to be one of those pleasures that would
well-nigh be imperishable.
The apartment entered, it was easy to discern the manner of men who had
placed their mark upon its walls and wainscots. There was no lack of
artist force in many of the daubs that were let into the panelling, to
remain rugged monuments of the skill of the frequenters of that chamber.
A piano there was that had seen better days, and was yet to see
considerably worse ones, if in our recollection of the ultimate
dispersal of the property of the club we are not mistaken. Then there
were the pipe-racks. Anything more eloquent can scarcely be imagined
than the story unfolded by these mute implements of smoking. Every pipe
possessed its decided characteristic and was distinctly different from
its neighbour. Some showed themselves as conceited pipes; some were
light and sparkish, others ponderous and clumsy. Leave yourself alone
with these sticks of briar or cherry-wood and you could readily have
brought to mind their absent owners,--the man who sang a good song, the
youngster given to practical jokes, the patriarch, strong in argument,
invincible in debate,--in fact you could easily have helped yourself to
an inventory of the members of the club. The rest of the furniture of
the room consisted of a large oblong table, surrounded by chairs of
various patterns, the former of which on the night we first beheld it
literally groaned with the weight of "rabbits" and foaming tankards.
Stay; food for the mind was not neglected, as how should it be? in that
assembly-room. By virtue of the care of a pile of fly-blown magazines,
and as far as we can remember of a few odd volumes of 'Ruff's Guide' and
a 'White's Farriery,' we became in course of time the elected librarian
of the Scufflers' Club.
Although not a flourishing community in the matter of finances, there
were instances in plenty of great kindness and liberality displayed by
Scuffler unto Scuffler. There were times when they brought out their
myrrh and cassia, their spikenard and oil of price. When, one bitter
winter morning, an unhappy Scuffler came shivering out of the debtors'
side of the City Prison, they did not beat about the bush and hesitate
at receiving him. Neither did they stand on any dignity or whisper any
threat of expulsion. They did nothing of this kind, they simply made him
drunk. It is, we hope, quite clear that these gentlemen were not
professors of any sort of austerity.
It may have already dawned upon the reader that there can hardly have
existed a fraternity boasting any such name as the one we have allotted
to it. In this much the reader is perfectly right. The club had a title
strikingly similar to that which we have adopted, and the thin disguise
has only been suggested from a circumstance that we may at once frankly
disclose. Suspended over the club chimney-piece was the usual
notice-board, a perfect encyclopaedia in its way, and covered with a
trellis-work of crimson tape for the purpose of retaining the various
_affiches_. In this way were displayed, from day to day, the cards and
letters intended for the members of the club. For so long a time did
they frequently remain exhibited, and so complete a disregard did the
owners manifest for their property, that the appearance of each packet
often grew quite familiar to the frequenters of the place. The
individuality of the writer might be often guessed from the evidence of
the various superscriptions, and when all other sources of amusement
failed the contents of this stationary post-office formed a fair staple
of banter and merry comment. There were to be seen perfumed and
coronetted envelopes addressed to quasi-fashionable members. These were
gentlemen who never seemed to call and claim their belongings. Then
there were letters reputed to emanate from the great publishing houses,
and there were missives surmounted with well-known theatrical monograms
that were alleged to forward brilliant offers of engagements. In fact it
was by the aid of such simple nest-eggs as these that the men managed to
establish reputations. But there was one class of correspondence that
obviously was not intended for much publicity. These were the letters
couched in feminine handwriting, none of the neatest, whose tremulous
writers, in addressing their envelopes, rarely succeeded in hitting off
the proper style and title of the club. The early looker-in might have
made a useful study of these shaky epistles,--scrawls painfully executed
by milliners and toy-women. It was on the cover of one of such
effusions, even worse written and worse spelt than they usually were,
that we first saw the inscription, the "Scufflers' Club."
Although some years have passed since first we were made free of that
circle, distinctly do we remember the manner of our greeting--"This,"
said our introducer, "is a room rendered famous by the celebrated
Addison." He emphasised the "celebrated" owing to an evident misgiving
that we might not perhaps be intimate with the name of that personage.
"Kitty Clive, the actress," he continued, "lodged in the upper
floors,"--which was true--"and Dr. Johnson is said to have worn away the
wainscot with his wig in the further corner,"--which was not. We were
already lingering over the notice-board and letter-rack, reminded
probably by the associations of a similar contrivance at Will's Coffee
House, when Parson Swift came in the mornings to seek for letters from
Stella, when the voice of our cicerone again summoned us. "Drop into a
seat," it whispered, "and I'll show you the best men in London."
The best men in London were engaged for the most part in imbibing
various amber-coloured fluids, and shouting out at intervals the burden
of a well-known chorus. An entertainment known as a "sing-song" was
vociferously going on. Vocalisation of a very fair order was being
given, whenever any one of the hearty Scufflers had sufficiently wetted
his throat to "oblige." We were in time to hear the 'Friar of Orders
Gray' performed very creditably, and 'When Joan's ale was new' brought
out a ringing chorus. We must have stayed some hours in listening to
this minstrelsy. Hospital songs, ditties well-known at Bartholomew's and
Guy's; poaching songs that bore the flavour of the honest shire of
Somerset; pieces from the comic operas; all were given with the utmost
good-humour and vivacity. But what seemed most to invigorate the spirits
of the Scufflers was a song that had been demanded more than once during
the evening and was at length only given after extreme pressure upon the
part of the audience. We do not know the name of the song; we are not
certain we should recollect the tune; but we are positive of the words,
such of them at least as formed the refrain of the melody. In every
stanza there was held up to reprobation some unpopular type. The severer
virtues were no less mercilessly handled, while all authority of the
more invidious kind, from that of the beak to that of the exciseman, was
subjected to the same unceremonious treatment. Every versicle--well do
we remember it--concluded with the exordium, "Damn their eyes!" Never
can we forget the rapturous reception that was accorded to this piece of
harmony. The men literally shrieked with delight. "Damn their
eyes!"--they grasped convulsively at tumblers and decanters and banged
them on the table. "Damn their eyes!"--they hurrahed, they shouted, they
raved, they swore. "Damn their eyes!"--they bestrode chairs and benches,
as they might have bestridden hobby-horses, and tournamented about the
room. Was this then the paean or war-song of the Scufflers' Club?
As with the morning light we came to reflect upon the midnight orgie, we
felt we had opened a chapter in a strange history, and that history a
history of swearing.
We can hardly bring our pen to write the very title of this book without
being reminded of an incident that has amused while it has displeased
us. It is now very many years ago that a kind relative brought the
present writer, then a child at a dame's school, a handsome copy of the
'Vicar of Wakefield,' and thenceforward for a time that bitter
schoolhouse bade fair to be made bright and joyous with the doings of
the simple men and women whose story the gentle Goldsmith has recorded.
What possible objection could be uttered against so innocent a tale?
None the less however did our worthy preceptress take occasion to
remonstrate. "Does not that book concern females?" asked she. Our friend
could have had no reply prepared that was fitted to so insidious a
reproach. "Ah! well," was the quiet rejoinder, "but poor Goldsmith did
not mean badly."
If such, then, be the measure dealt out to the more disciplined
champions in the strife with human error, what sort of accord will be
given to the present unharnessed and ill-caparisoned writer, who
attempts, let it be hoped not ill-naturedly, to cope with one of the
more rosy-faced forms of sinfulness. That he will be assailed from the
higher latitudes of prudery he has a right to expect. That the very
novelty of the venture will pass as an affront to some portion of his
readers there is only reason to anticipate. That even the more indulgent
will cast looks of suspicion upon his pirate ensign is a circumstance he
can conceal as little as he can regret it.
As the matter stands, a poor devil of an author is proposing an
expedition into regions that, despite many hundred years of literary
enterprise, are still remote and untravelled. It were not surprising
therefore at the outset that his readers should inquire if he is sincere
and reliable, or whether on the contrary he is counterfeiting honesty
with a sanctimonious face. It were perhaps right they should be assured
that the trip is really intended for their welfare, and that the skipper
is not given to risk the safety of his craft for a mere capful of wind.
But conceding that it is natural to raise these doubts at the threshold
of the journey, the author has it in his power to give little or no
assurance of the sincerity of his undertaking. Whatever notion he may
entertain of his own, or of other people's morality, he has no opinion
whatever of their professions of it. He refrains therefore from giving
any warranty of the soundness of his wares.
Save but for this. He has often been vexed, and puzzled as well as
vexed, at one great discord that has been sent upon the world. Yielding
and kindly as it may have been to them, men have not scrupled to cast
defiance and calumny upon this forbearing earth and to hurl hissing
curses at its abundance and its pervading spirit of forgiveness. Not
since the labour of men's hands began have they ceased to furrow it with
menace and sow it with imprecation, cursing while their very corn ripens
under midsummer skies, cursing as they gather in their store of wine and
victual. What does it mean? What _can_ it mean? Whence has it arisen,
and whither does it tend? These are among the questions that have
influenced the mind of the writer in considering the purview of his
book.
The misfortune that is often experienced in handling any subject lying
wide of the beaten track does not necessarily arise from the inherent
viciousness of the subject itself, but from the fact that a large number
of people have previously arrived at painful impressions concerning it.
It is therefore an obligation cast upon a writer to treat these
preconceived notions with the utmost tenderness and respect. Personally
one may hold the art of swearing in perfect indifference, being neither
among the number of swearers oneself nor having any very strong feeling
of reprobation towards its more active adherents. But despite a certain
inclination that we feel to apologise for what we hold to be the
silliest of vices, we are forced to recollect that to many the offence
will always appear in anything but a trivial light. It is therefore
obligatory upon us to abstain as far as possible from referring to
expressions that are calculated to alarm. At the close of the last
century there existed a religious sect who were in favour of abandoning
the use of clothing. Blake, the poet, was one of these enthusiasts, and
his wife also. The holders of this convenient doctrine were in the habit
of presenting themselves in their households as naked as they were born.
In so acting we may be sure they were only in keeping with their sober
convictions, and that they were ready to maintain in argument the
thorough soundness and consistency of their views. For aught we know to
the contrary, this naked doctrine may of itself have been right, but the
misfortune which continued, and for the matter of that still continues,
to be felt, was that by far the larger portion of humanity retained a
decided prejudice in favour of apparel. So long as the disciple of the
Adamite school was contented to denude himself in his own particular
circle there may have been no positive harm, but it would scarcely have
been open to a member of that fraternity to have walked down Fleet
Street like an ancient Briton. The thinker also who takes upon himself
to theorise in a manner apart from any considerable section of humanity,
is no less bound to entertain a fitting respect for the notions, even to
the mistaken notions, with which that section is animated. Whatever his
own disposition towards an absolute freedom of expression, he is under
the obligation of attiring his ideas in the manner habituated to the
tastes of his listeners.
Happily, however, there is possible a middle course. We need not grovel
in the sinks and cellars, neither need we ruminate upon the house-tops.
We can settle ourselves as it were, in that easy, neutral smoking-room
of literature, where we can put off broadcloth for fustian; and utter
our heresies with still a chance left us of being forgiven. Here we may
expect to meet only with that mature and seasoned criticism that holds
the scale very evenly between the outspoken and the insolent. While by
no means to be accounted friendly towards the vile excrescences of
swearing, the ordinary man of the world is not to be repelled by every
street oath, or put to lasting confusion by every passing word of
unseemliness. To put it upon no higher ground than that of mere custom,
it were too arrogant to assume abhorrence of a practice that is as trite
and customary as the incidents of one's daily rounds. Besides, there is
another explanation for the supineness that is exhibited towards errors
of this description. It could be shown how, by a slight mental process,
the extravagances and the follies of other men are capable of offering a
subtle compliment to a person's understanding. They set it off. They
adorn what he fancies to be his intellectual superiority, and he is not
indisposed in consequence to extend a feeble patronage towards the very
vices which, did he not experience ever so slight a benefit from them,
he would otherwise be foremost in decrying. Again, it were too obviously
inconsistent to take our repose in a tavern and yet direct our homilies
at tavern habits, at the enormity of tobacco-smoking or of drinking
drams. And yet it may be possible for most of us to go back to no
distant time when we sickened at the scent of the finest Virginian and
the juice of the juniper was bitter. It was not a great while ago
certainly!
A great while ago! Say, courteous and gentle--nay, uncourteous and
ungentle reader--can you so far travel back in your recollection as to
recall your first parting from all that was homely and kindly and
familiar? Do you remember the first separation from the half-score of
faces that to you had peopled the earth and represented the whole sum
and mystery of living? Can you now realise that desolate night, closing
in upon the blank, colourless day, the lonely stages, the harsh grating
of the wheels, all the impressions in fact of that long, pitiful journey
that once came as a barrier between you and childish innocence? And then
the arrival at that strange school; how hollow the laughter of the men,
how shrill the chirp and twitter of the women! Do you remember the
comfortless morrow that brought the first contact with your boy
associates? They were probably harmless and good-natured enough, those
uncouth, ill-fashioned boys, and doubtless there were among them many
who would have been quick to requite a wrong and eager to soothe any
injury. But how they pained you with their jests; how they bruised you
in their boisterous play; how old they looked to your young eyes; how
full of wiles and intrigue and savagery! And then their talk! not the
mild caressing talk of the lips you loved, of the forms you knew, but
loud and brazen, and savouring of cunning and high-handedness. And in
their quarrels and their games, they swore--those boys swore; not all of
them be it hoped, but the great giants and paladins among them who
seemed to bear rule and mastery with whips and thongs. Many a time
before, perhaps, you may have been seized with faintness and aversion at
some imagined evil, that might as well have been enacted in some distant
planet. But now the horror was no longer slumbering or remote; it was
awake and crying at your door. Now, and within a few hours, were
disclosed the sources of all the aimless brutalities, all the
self-asserting iniquities that have played such havoc in an erring
world. And, as these knowing fellows chattered over their scraps of
worldly wisdom, and as their puny curses were bandied round, it seemed
as if some great treason were being poured out, a trespass alike against
God in heaven and the folks at home.
How could one know at that young age that all one heard was not really
villainous, that much of it indeed was mere _brusquerie_, rough-ridden
perhaps, but brisk and spirited? How should one understand that the
tones which seemed so harsh and jarring belonged in truth to a very code
of sprightliness? But a few weeks more perhaps, and you too had taken
the ring of this brazen metal. You had perceived upon what measure of
aggression, upon what rasping unkindnesses, the applause of your fellows
was bestowed. To violate every rule with fearless indifference, to be
abreast with every move that was daring or was dexterous, these were the
feats by which approval was won. In the matter of swearing you might
have remained only an unwilling dabbler, only a mixer and meddler in the
luxury, were it not that occasion came when you were solemnly arraigned
for the offence, and straightway branded as a culprit. It is in this way
that offences come. So you may have received your punishment and have
revolted under it; and perhaps you may have had a right to revolt. For
our spiritual pastors, in judging of our virtues, too often endowed us
with the capacities of children, and in judging of our vices they
endowed us with the capacities of men.
In that our early play-time, of which we have been speaking, we
distinctly call to mind two errant school-fellows, brought together by
kindred tastes, though differing in temper and disposition. Each is of
an age when the world resembles only some May-day morning, and at the
moment we are recalling them they have no other occupation than that of
dreamily rambling through the fields and lanes, delighted with the
breezy country-side, and luxuriating in their own boyish outpourings.
They had conceived this mutual liking because each felt the other to be
in true sympathy with nature, and to be capable of discerning the
wonderful enchantments of poetry and cadence. They had found a warm and
unselfish delight in ministering to the other's appreciation. They could
drink in great draughts of beauty from the chalice so unsparingly held
out by Shelley or Goethe, by Wordsworth or Byron. They could revel in
the rugged measures of 'Marmion,' in the whirl and clatter of the 'Last
Minstrel.' They could be gay with the loves of the Two Gentlemen, or
kindle at the woes of Imogen or the sorrows of Effie Deans.
And so, in such senseless manner, they are now skirting the golden
harvest-fields, recalling perhaps the bright fancy that has given the
'Skylark' to the world, or mindful of "liquid Peneus" and "darkened
Tempe." Presently there burst out of the thicket two ruffians, with rags
torn and bespattered, caked with summer's dust and mildewed by winter's
rain. As they approached their voices sounded devilish and unearthly.
They raised one long plaint of deep-toned, hard-set blasphemy. Their
every word was shotted with an oath. Hoarse with brandy, bitter with
malevolence, they cursed at the plenty of the harvest,--at the patient
cattle grazing in the fields,--at the crimson poppy blowing in the
ditch,--at the buzzing insects, at the ripening orchards. They cursed at
the luck of the skittle-alley; they cursed at the insolence of the
rulers of the land. When the devil made war with heaven, this must have
been the roar of his artillery.
We looked at our friend--for this has become a personal narrative, as
may already have been conjectured--and we marked the pain and sorrow of
heart that had visibly overcome him. Silently he seemed to implore
protection from the great span of universe surrounding us--for it was he
who was the gentler and more loyal spirit of the two. Then, as the
curses and ribaldry died away, he emerged slowly as from beneath a
stupefying load. Presently he fell to talking of the strange
perverseness with which men have always clung to this undying evil, and
cited the Levitical story of "the son of the Israelitish woman,"--the
impious oaths demanded of old time by emperors and satraps, and the
resistance of the martyred Polycarp.
Who knows but that at that moment we may have thought our friend little
better than a fool, and his words the drivel of idiotcy? We have said
somewhere, speaking of morality, that we have no opinion of professions
of it. It must be known that he was mild and retiring and submissive. He
could not give blow for blow as other boys could; he could not cheat or
lie or gamble as other boys did. He was more awkward of limb and coarser
dressed. Anyhow, we have set down here some of our first impressions of
swearing, and now we are cursorily writing its history.