"As I was finishing this worke, an oyster-wife tooke exception
against me and called me knave."--'_Lamentable Effect of Two
Dangerous Comets_,' 1591.
We trust that we have travelled thus far on our journey without wounding
the susceptibilities of any of our readers, and that thus it may
continue to the not distant end. In all probability our remarks and
illustrations will have been scanned by two totally diverse classes of
patrons, those to whom the topics suggested present much that is worthy
of attention, and those to whom this little treatise will appear to be
written in almost an unknown tongue. All that we can do is to claim the
indulgence of these latter. We hope that they at least will acquit us of
any intention of blemishing the fair front of human nature, or of
darkening any of the windows that administer to its requirements of
light and air. In fine, we trust that what has been said, has been
spoken fairly and frankly. Not, however, that we pretend that the views
we may have advanced have anything but a local application. There is a
swearing world, a place in which people habitually swear, but there is
also a non-swearing world in which they are partially if not totally
unacquainted with observances of swearing. To present a picture of the
former to the dwellers in the more opposite locality is to expect
approval of a marine painting from those who have never beheld the sea.
The reflections therefore that we may have been called upon to make by
the way, no less than the numerous instances we have found it as well to
refer to, must be taken as pertaining only to those troubled waters that
surge around the continent inhabited of swearers.
This careless, indulgent and pleasure-seeking portion of the world have
derived even comfort and convenience from a recognition of the best
regulated usages of swearing. Reputations for courage and audacity have
thus been hourly established by the careful insinuation of hideous
expletives. Friendships have been cemented by the force of this common
bond of union; strangers set at their ease; the weak and hesitating have
been galvanised into action. Judging from a purely worldly standpoint,
it would be inconsistent not to admit that society has been under deep
obligations to this especial form of wickedness. Swearing has in the
main been rendered agreeable and popular in so far that it has been
adopted to span over social distances and level social distinctions, to
create in fact a code of easy sympathy between otherwise thoroughly
unsympathetic men. The worst--and swearers are not necessarily the
worst--no less than the best of mankind endeavour to generate some
species of that "touch of nature" which we are told makes the whole
world kin. We must not therefore be too severe on finding that this very
creditable object is sometimes sought to be accomplished by somewhat
discreditable means.
As a few of our readers may by this time have harboured a conviction
that swearing is in some degree a social necessity, they will be able to
give full scope to the views upon this point of the excellent Mr.
Shandy.[53] The only compunction that seems to have been entertained by
this gentleman resided in the danger of expending small curses upon
totally inadequate occasions. He maintained, indeed, with the utmost
Cervantic gravity, that he had the greatest veneration for that student
of swearing who, in obvious mistrust of his own extempore powers,
composed forms suitable to all degrees of provocation, and kept them
framed over his chimney-piece for daily reference.
"I never apprehended," puts in Dr. Slop, "that such a thing was ever
thought of--much less executed."
"I beg your pardon," replies Mr. Shandy, "I was reading--though not
using--one of them to my brother Toby this morning, whilst he poured out
the tea."
The work of ingenuity in question turned out to be a decree of
excommunication, certainly a very ponderous and damnatory one, compiled
by Ernulphus, a learned bishop of Rochester. Mr. Shandy is understood to
account for the comprehensiveness of this anathema by assuming it to
have been designed as an institute or perfect digest of swearing. He
conjectures that upon a decline of vituperation Ernulphus had with great
learning collected all the known methods, for fear of their being
dispersed and so lost to the world for ever. The worthy Shandy would
even go so far as to maintain that there was no kind of oath that was
not to be found in Ernulphus. "In short," he would add, "I defy a man to
swear out of it."
This piece of quaintness, as we need hardly point out, only goes to the
fact that wide as is the range of imprecation, it must always come back
to that one monotonous symbol of despisal. The anathema of the good
bishop is pitched in many keys and sounds, like the collected utterances
of many throats. But even Ernulphus can scarcely have foreseen the
Rabelaisian refinements that would suggest themselves to the minds of
men as soon as literary demands were made upon the well-worn supply.
The genius of the French language seems more particularly to lend itself
to the fabrication of burlesque forms and subterfuges. Thus to affirm by
_le sacre froc d'Habacuc_, or by _la double-triple manche de serpe_, are
fair specimens of the ingenuity that has been lavished. Far less
offending have been the ludicrous forms of asseveration popular in the
lower ranks of French society, and one of which it is sufficient to
mention as occurring in a curious rhyme of the last century,[54] where
among other things is found characterised the pseudo-nuptials of a
certain abbess and a dignitary of the Church--
"Mais, _par la vertu d'un oignon_,
Ils sont maries environ,
Comme l'est l'eveque de Chartres
Avec l'abbesse de Montmartres."
It is not improbable that a great deal of the aversion that is
associated with the practice of swearing is due to the custom of those
novelists who are in the habit of screening their oaths behind the most
transparent of disguises. To denote an expletive by its initial letter
followed with a dash is really to attract undue attention to that which
the writer acknowledges himself ashamed of printing. The contrivance
serves no useful purpose, and, if we are not mistaken, the more robust
of modern novelists have eschewed it altogether. Very different in this
respect is the device adopted by Dickens in one of the most entertaining
of his romances. Readers of 'Great Expectations' will remember the
description of Mr. William Barley. This presents us with a picture of a
water-logged old ship's captain, who, as he lay through the long hours
of the day and night upon his uneasy mattress, never ceased to hold
communion with himself in anything but a strain of piety--"Ahoy! bless
your eyes, here's old Bill Barley! Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of
his back, by the Lord! Lying on the flat of his back, like a drifting
old dead flounder; here's old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless
you!" Of course the point of this monologue lies in the fact that the
supposed blessings are really substituted by the novelist for desires of
a very opposite description.
There are few pictures we would less willingly omit from the gallery of
the author's creations. We have here the portraiture of one among that
godless but soft-hearted race of veterans who have alternately bullied
and blustered, or cried and whimpered, throughout many ages of fiction
and melodrama. And in depicting this type of character writers have
invariably felt it their bounden duty to give full prominence to this
fateful gift of swearing. With much discretion the novelist has in the
present instance invented a subterfuge, which, while it does not rob Mr.
Barley of his idiosyncrasies of speech, leaves an amused and not an
offensive impression behind it. We are, in fact, called in to assist at
a very quiet piece of human contradiction. We are presented to the prone
Barley in his state of helplessness and suffering, and at the same time
are given to understand that the sufferer derives comfort and
consolation from nothing so much as a downright plunge into the torrent
of bad language.
In these wandering musings of the complaining old sea-captain there is
suggested one of the many spells that are exercised by the force of
imprecation. There is no paucity of men, whether dejected, dissatisfied
or penurious, who are wont to apostrophise some imagined effigy of
themselves, or to construct some idealised fabric as a monument of their
lives, and stalk it abroad for their own and for other men's wonderment.
And the means they employ to spirit up these creations are not
dissimilar to those in use by Mr. Barley. By declaiming loudly against
the ravages of a hard fate that lays them on their backs "like an old
dead flounder," the mind is assisted to form a notion of the victims in
their prime. By deploring the hardships of fallen fortune the eye of the
sympathiser is carried instinctively back to bygone days of
supposititious enjoyment. Imprecation is seldom absent from these
incursions, being, in fact, urgently needed to do duty for closer
argumentation. Again, as there are men so genial that they swear as a
challenge to discontent, so there are men so discontented that they
swear as a challenge to geniality.
This more unsociable aspect of the subject brings us perforce to the
consideration of a term of swearing that contains no element of
geniality. Of itself it can be accounted nothing but a mere outcome of
bombast and vulgarity, appealing as it does to no known passion of the
human mind. And yet so widespread is its influence, and so powerful its
dominion, that it has been rung out and has reverberated probably more
than any other in the great "fisc and exchequer" of abuse.
The expletive that it now behoves us to consider is one which has never
been adequately treated in a book. We cannot disguise to ourselves that
there is much in its unfortunate associations to render its occurrence
still exceedingly painful. Originating in a senseless freak of language,
it has by dint of circumstances become so noisome and offensive, that
were it not for the undue power and influence it has usurped, we should
hardly be disposed to treat of it at all. But when we mention that it is
the ungainly adjective "bloody" that will occupy our attention for the
next few pages, we must be allowed to add that it is with the view of
stripping the term of its infamous significance, and if possible of
dispelling from it the cloud of ill favour and of ill fame, that we
venture with less reluctance to grapple with it.
With the full knowledge of the abhorrence it has imparted in our day, it
is difficult to imagine any unsullied spring-time in the history of so
sordid a word. It is the single particle of objuration that has not
dared assume, as others have so frequently done, a jaunty or a
rollicking demeanour. Not in the wildest days of Eastcheap revelry did
it resound in any one key of vinous harmony. While other epithets may
from time to time have received the sanction of conviviality, here is a
word that is nothing unless discordant and acrimonious. It is the apt
accompaniment of a whining tongue, the fit complement of a verjuice
countenance. Dirty drunkards hiccup it as they wallow on ale-house
floors. Morose porters bandy it about on quays and landing-stages. From
the low-lying quarters of the towns the word buzzes in your ear with the
confusion of a Babel. In the cramped narrow streets you are deafened by
its whirr and din, as it rises from the throats of the chaffering
multitude, from besotted men defiant and vain-glorious in their drink,
from shrewish women hissing out rancour and menace in their harsh
querulous talk.
And yet to look back no further than to the youth of Shakespeare, the
word had no application beyond such as was seemly, and its history was
simple and spotless and without reproach. The one play of 'Macbeth'
contains an unusual number of instances of its occurrence, all written
without any suspicion of an _equivoque_ and dwelt upon with an
undoubting sincerity that has become barely possible in a modern work.
Indeed into such ill company has fallen this true-minded adjective, that
it is no longer competent to be admitted to its proper place in an
ordinary publication. Now and again strong protest has been made against
the hard sentence passed upon so well-meaning a term, and authors of
taste have demanded its restitution to its former intellectual
companionship. In one of her "Letters to the Author of Orion," Mrs. E.
B. Browning throws reserve upon the subject altogether to the winds, and
insists upon embracing and cherishing this ill-starred word as a long
lost acquaintance. But when Shakespeare wrote of
"The bloody house of life,"
there was no need for hesitation in shaping it. It was as unsullied and
as transparent as any that might have been placed upon Imogen's lips or
thrown by Hamlet into Ophelia's lap.
To account for the moral kidnapping that the word has undergone, it
behoves us, strangely enough, to set face towards the Netherlands, and
to hark back there to the campaigns of Flushing and Deventer, where Ben
Jonson and others of his countrymen are shouldering their pikes under
the generalship of Vere and Stanley. We shall then find it to have been
one of the doubtful advantages that were gained by long years of Low
Country soldiering. With the winds and tides that brought home the
shoals of broken veterans, there was wafted to this country the flavour
of foreign oaths, and among them the renown in speech of the German
"blutig." Now "blutig" happened to be an inconsequent sort of particle
that was employed in all the dialects of Germany to denote a sense of
the emphatic. It had been chosen throughout the German fatherland to
minister to the wants of those defective degrees of comparison which are
usually, however, found to be more or less admirably fitted to their
purpose. It thus constituted itself a fourth degree, or
extra-ultra-superlative. Like all verbal contrivances of this kind, it
was more especially favoured among the less cultivated students of the
forms of grammar, and seems at last to have become recognised as a
convenient make-weight with which a reprobate soldiery were accustomed
to balance their assertions.
It will be at once seen that this alien growth was capable of being
readily transplanted to our soil in the shape of its literal
counterpart. The circumstance of the words being so nearly identical is
sufficient to account for the work of transposition being swiftly and
effectually done. But beyond the mere accident of the respective tongues
offering an exact literal equivalent, there was nothing in common
between the German "blutig" and the English correlative term. As
evidenced by the purity of its antecedents, the latter derives nothing
of the opprobrium that has devolved upon it by reason of any hereditary
defects, far less on account of any of its inherent properties.
If Ben Jonson, who must have been brought face to face with this
treasure in its natural home, does not seek to commend it to the keeping
of his audiences, we may be sure that in his time at least it had
attained no perceptible degree of literary currency. The comic
dramatists were agreed at this period as to one canon of dramatic
representation. They were accustomed to interlace the serious business
of the comedy with mirth-moving interludes in which the more farcical
characters of the piece were met together for the purpose, as it seemed,
of besprinkling one another with the most aggravating and unpardonable
abuse. The ingenuity of writers was ransacked to furnish material for
this spirited by-play. Collections of all nationalities, and the
reserves of all professions and handicrafts, were studiously drawn upon
to furnish subject-matter for these wordy encounters. So far as they
could help themselves, these shameless dramatists left no word unsaid
that could increase the strife of tongues and raise a smile at the
energy or possibly the grossness of the jargon. But as yet the epithet
in question found no place in the prompt-book, and continued to be
omitted from their vocabularies. Had Bohemian society even partially
adopted it, it would be difficult to imagine the humours of the
Artillery Garden, or the disorders of Ruffians' Hall and Turnbull
Street,[55] being glibly depicted by these outspoken playwrights without
recourse being had to the services of this unconscionable adjective.
Shakespeare, himself probably the greatest exponent of the arts of
scurrility, is totally exempt from any blameworthy intention in applying
the word in the manner he so frequently uses it. But as years wore on
the relish of foreign and far-travelled terms grew upon the public taste
with surprising rapidity. A novelty must be extremely popular to enable
it to become vulgar, and must even be liked before it can be thoroughly
hated. "Bloody" was no exception to the rule, and enjoyed a brief day of
estimation and patronage. Men of refinement and high culture adopted it
rather as an article of scholarly adornment. Dryden uses it in this way,
as does Swift. Play-writers heralded it on the stage, bestowing upon it
the passport of literary sanction. In Sir George Etheredge's comedy,
'The Man of Mode,' a play that was witnessed by society with unbounded
approval, the final stage in the process of abduction is plainly
indicated. Says one of the characters, referring to the importunities of
a tipsy vagrant, "Give him half-a-crown!" to which the other replies,
"Not without he will promise to be bloody drunk!"
In this way it would seem that the ball was set rolling. How the game
has continued to be played we are most of us aware. It calls for no
particular skill on the part of the players, neither does the sport
appear to decline for want of appreciation. That it was received at its
first incoming with a kind of _eclat_ is not so surprising as is the
strange attachment that for upwards of two centuries has been manifested
by some ranks of society towards this discreditable word. Its first
flush of approval may have been due to a certain element of
whimsicality. This at least is a sensation frequently conveyed by the
occurrence of any meaningless affectation. But, however this may be, it
certainly was not at the first outset the mere grovelling and
unmitigated blackguardism which it was very shortly to be. Dean Swift,
full of wit and penury, writing from his London lodging to Stella in her
comfortable Irish home, breaks into frequent outbursts at the scantiness
of his comforts. One October, when removed to Windsor, he is
particularly tried by the severity of the autumnal weather, but the
terms in which, addressing a well-bred woman, he expresses his
discomfort are striking, as showing the strange vicissitudes that
language may undergo. "It grows bloody cold," he writes--and one may
well imagine the chilled extremities of the reverend Dean--"it grows
bloody cold, and I have no waistcoat."
In support of the view that there is nothing in the inherent properties
of the word, or even in the range and frequency of its use, to account
for the degraded position it has occupied in modern times, we have only
to inquire whether any similar treatment has been the fate of the
equivalent word in the language of France. What do we find? The French
_sanglant_ has even a wider sphere of application, and in its legitimate
sense is even a greater favourite than our own adjective, but no such
evil days have overtaken it. It can be used literally, as in the case of
_viande sanglante_, or metaphorically, as in _un sanglant affront_ or
the aphorism _la sanglante raillerie blesse et ne corrige pas_, but not
at any time is it found to deviate from the paths of decency.
Everything, we consider, favours the idea we have formed of our stately
English word proceeding soberly and reputably upon its honest course
only to become the victim of this species of subversive horse-play at
the hands of professed word-corrupters. Appreciative of the objurgatory
advantages of the German _blutig_, they were indifferent to any affront
they might pass upon the English tongue. From that time forward the word
was branded as infamous. The manly ring that of right belonged to it, as
instanced in such widely different productions as 'Piers Ploughman,'[56]
or the 'Philaster' of Beaumont and Fletcher,[57] was becoming no longer
possible. In recent days people have sometimes tried to reconcile these
opposite tendencies and to endow the word with some amount of literary
grace. The best attempt we have noticed in this direction is in a decree
of the Government of Paraguay, which in August 1869 instructed its
resident in this country that the presence of Francisco Lopez on
Paraguayan soil was "a bloody sarcasm to civilisation." The gentleman
who penned this document may have been influenced by the example of
Montaigne[58] who admitted that he was accustomed to swear "more by
imitation than complexion."
We have given what we believe to be the rational explanation of this
most unwarrantable abduction of the word from its ancient uses. The
English language, whose handmaid it was, has never put in a claim to the
return of its services, and the professors of that language continue to
be scared when they meet with the vulgar changeling at the corner of the
street. The principal reason for abhorrence is probably founded upon
misapprehension. It is assumed that the expression bears the savour of
irreligion. The old Catholic oath of "blood and wounds" has been
advanced as the origin. So far from this theory being well founded, we
rather find the whole brood of Catholic oaths to have been swept away by
the besom of the Reformation long before this expletive had raised its
head. Neither are we able to support the contention that it takes its
rise in the archaic "woundy," which perished in the same fires. It is
quite clear that in this instance there is a marked and deep interval
between the outgoing of the old form of scurrility and the advent of the
new.
Without being understood to array ourselves on the side of this baneful
expression, we desire to acquit it at once of all suspicion of
irreligion. The men who originated it had furthest from their minds any
inroad upon Catholic fervour. It was simply an imported ware, smuggled
over in a soldier's knapsack. It was left to linger for a time upon the
lips of sutlers and tapsters, and became the plaything of sergeants and
backswordsmen, the broken companions who had smelt powder in the German
wars. It took will and way from the mere caprices of imitation, that
sufficed in time to render it palatable to the wiser and more sober of
men. From the time of Dean Swift downwards, it has mostly suffered from
being lamentably unfashionable. Association, which can do so much to
influence and so little to regulate our dislikes, has insisted in
linking this expletive with the classes that are taken to be the more
sordid and malignant.
It may certainly come into play now and again among those people who are
not averse to perpetrating a joke at the expense of a little casual loss
of refinement. On these few occasions indeed it would even appear to be
tinctured with some slight leaven of good-nature. Thus, the sailor
appellation of Admiral Gambier--"old bloody Politeful"--must not be
inveighed against too hardly. Neither need we be too squeamish over a
once famous (or infamous) _bon mot_ that passed current in a fashionable
club where a certain learned and witty serjeant was wont to repair for
his nightly rubber. One evening, after meeting with a stranger at the
card-table who held a remarkable number of trumps, he had impatiently
inquired who had been his antagonist. On being told that the player was
Sir So-and-So, Bart., the serjeant is reported to have at once rejoined
that "he might have known the fellow to have been a baronet by his
bloody hand!"
But there is a deeper and more solemn aspect in all this than any that
we have suggested or advanced. No statistics, could any be collected, no
known or imaginable facts, could be trusted to convey the faintest
notion of the large place that is occupied in public morals by the
presence of this solitary piece of imprecation. Those who have
opportunities of judging, will be bound to admit that they see in it the
plaything and fondling of whole sections of citizen society. In
innumerable households, in countless families, if we may so designate
those fetid accumulations of humanity that we must here be understood to
indicate, there is not an hour of the day--not a moment of the day--in
which this virulent and acrid malediction does not send out its empty
challenge. How can this moral choke-damp, with all its fatal
incrustations, fail to eat away the supports and very framework of the
dwelling. It is hard perhaps to pass so heavy a sentence upon seemingly
so slight an offence, but we are forced to believe that the very
existence and presence of this evil, in its more rampant and impudent
state, is of itself conclusive upon the point of good or evil
government, upon the question of the predominance of human charity or of
the blackest intensity of malice.
Neither is it the least regrettable circumstance that, considered as a
piece of mingled vileness and effrontery, the word has been, and for the
matter of that is still likely to be, a most telling and signal success.
Those who have followed the writer at all closely will have already
noticed the irresistible impulse of succeeding generations to secure to
themselves the strongest possible anathema with which to carry on all
manner of petty hostilities. But until the expletive that is now passing
under our consideration was fairly launched upon society, no great
measure of success can be said to have crowned their endeavours. The
swearing of the pre-Reformation era may be adjudged the nearest approach
to maledictory perfection, but even that system, admirable as it may
have been from the point of view of an accomplished Boanerges of the
time, was at best but an unstable and fluctuating one, and depended for
its efficiency upon the swearer's own powers of invocation. As a rule no
two oaths were alike, and men gave you the idea of thinking before they
swore. So various a code could hardly be expected to meet with general
success, it being as impossible for an individual to invent a really new
oath--a new "bloody," for example--as it is said to be impossible to
invent a new proverb or a new rhyme for the nursery. Imitations can of
course be easily contrived, but the genuine product only arises through
the seemingly spontaneous consent of approving multitudes. It was
precisely in this way that the present abomination was generated. Not
proceeding from any one man's store of virulence, but resulting from a
long process of evolution and development, it at last springs into
sudden life, in obedience, it would almost seem, to a nation's clamours.
But no sooner was it called into this sphere of activity, than it
became, we repeat, a gigantic success. It is the crown and apex of all
bad language, the coping-stone of all systems of verbal aggression and
abuse. By consent, as it were, of the general conscience it is allowed
to have surpassed in vileness and intensity anything of the kind that
has been intense or vile. That this stream of pollution should continue
to flow, uninterruptedly and with increasing volume, through its inky
channel, is one of the gloomiest and grimmest of the minor features of
our social life.
APPENDIX.
_Page 73. Feminine Oaths._--Among the number of feminine expletives may
be reckoned Ophelia's adjuration "by Gis." The derivation has been a
source of trouble to the commentators, who profess to see in it a
corruption of Saint Cecily, an abbreviation of Saint Gislen, or else, as
is more probable, a phonetic form of the letters I.H.S. But whatever its
derivation, the oath was commonly attributed to the female sex. Thus, in
Preston's 'Cambyses,' 1561, it is so employed; and again in the
pre-Shakespearian play of 'King John' the nuns swear by Gis, and the
monks, by way of distinction, take their oaths by Saint Withold. In
'Gammer Gurton's Needle' the oath is placed in the mouth of the old
housewife.
_Page 84. Foreign Oaths._--We learn from Miss Bunbury's 'Summer in
Northern Europe,' that the most common form of swearing in Sweden is a
contraction of "God preserve us," and that hardly a sentence can escape
from the lips of the lower orders without being supplemented by this
expression--"bevars," the lengthened form of which is "Gud bevarva oss."
Another form of imprecation is "Kors" or "Kors Jesu," the Cross of
Jesus, which the same writer intimates is in great request among the
educated orders in Sweden.
_Page 85. Pre-Reformation Swearing._--The testimony of Elyot in 'The
Boke named the Governour,' written in 1531, is very conclusive upon the
question. He says: "In dayly communication the mater savoureth nat,
except it be as it were seasoned with horrible othes. As by the holy
blode of Christe, his woundes whiche for our redemption he paynefully
suffred, his glorious harte, as it were numbles chopped in pieces.
Children (whiche abborreth me to remembre) do play with the armes and
bones of Christe, as they were chery stones. The soule of God, whiche is
incomprehensible, and nat to be named of any creature without a
wonderfull reverence and drede, is nat onely the othe of great
gentilmen, but also so indiscretely abused, that they make it (as I
mought saye) their gonnes, wherwith they thunder out thretenynges and
terrible menacis, whan they be in their fury, though it be at the
damnable playe of dyse. The masse, in which honourable ceremony is lefte
unto us the memoriall of Christes glorious passion, with his corporall
presence in fourme of breade, the invocation of the thre divine persones
in one deitie, with all the hole company of blessed spirites and soules
elect, is made by custome so simple an othe that it is nowe all most
neglected and little regarded of the nobilitie, and is onely used among
husbandemen and artificers, onelas some taylour or barbour, as well in
his othes as in the excesse of his apparayle, will counterfaite and be
lyke a gentilman."--ii. 252, _ed. Croft_.
So also Roger Hutchinson in his 'Image of God,' 1550:--"You swearers and
blasphemers which use to swear by God's heart, arms, nails, bowels,
legs, and hands, learn what these things signify, and leave your
abominable oaths."
_Page 93. Oath by the Swan._--It was also the custom during the middle
ages to serve with great pomp a pheasant, or some other noble bird, on
which the knights swore to visit the Holy Land. In 1453, Philip the
Good, Duke of Burgundy, vowed, _sur le faisan_, to go to the deliverance
of Constantinople. His example was followed by the barons and knights
assembled, who, in the words of Gibbon, "swore to God, the Virgin, the
ladies and the pheasant."
_Page 107. A swearing corps d'elite._--So long ago as the reign of Henry
VIII. the expression "to swear like a lord" had become proverbial:--"For
they wyll say he that swereth depe, swereth like a lorde."--'_The
Governour_,' _by Sir T. Elyot_, 1531, _ed. Croft_, i. 275.
That the habit was making headway in high places may also be inferred
from a bequest in one of the wills preserved in Doctors' Commons, in
which the testator bequeathed a legacy of twenty shillings on condition
that the legatee should desist from swearing. The will is that of Sir
David Owen, a natural son of Owen Tudor, and is dated 1535.
_Page 121. Sir David Lindsay._--Some idea of the fecundity of the old
poet in the matter of expletives is conveyed by the catalogue of oaths
culled from the 'Satyre of the Three Estaitis' and added to Chalmers'
edition of Lindsay, published in 1806. The list is as follows:--
"Be Cokis passion.
Be Godis passion.
Be Cok's deir passion.
Be Cok's tois.
Be God's wounds.
Be God's croce.
Be God's mother.
Be God's breid.
Be God's gown.
Be God himsell.
Be greit God that all has wrocht.
Be him that made the mone.
Be the gude Lord.
Be him that wore the crown of thorn.
Be him that bare the cruel crown of thorn.
Be him that herryit hell.
Be him that Judas sauld.
Be the rude.
Be the Trinity; Be the haly Trinity.
Be the sacrament; Be the haly sacrament.
Be the messe.
Be him that our Lord Jesus sauld.
Be him that deir Jesus sauld.
Be our Lady; Be Sainct Mary; Be sweit Sainct Mary; Be Mary bricht.
Be Alhallows.
Be Sanct James.
Be Sanct Michell.
Be Sanct Ann.
Be Sanct Bryde; Be Bryde's bell.
Be Sanct Geill; Be sweit Sanct Geill.
Be Sanct Blais.
Be Sanct Blane.
Be Sanct Clone; Be Sanct Clune.
Be Sanct Allan.
Be Sanct Fillane.
Be Sanct Tan.
Be Sanct Dyonis of France.
Be Sanct Maverne.
Be the gude lady that me bare.
Be my saul.
Be my thrift.
Be my Christendom.
Be this day."
Against this list we may place a similar catalogue of objurgations
extracted from the old play of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' acted at
Cambridge in 1566. This work, ascribed to John Still, Bishop of Bath and
Wells, very plainly depicts the condition of rustic manners at the
period at which it was written:--
"By the mass (occurs 22 times).
Gog's bones (4 times).
Gog's soul (9 times).
By my father's soul (2 times).
Gog's sacrament (2 times).
By my troth.
By God.
By sun and moon.
Gog's heart (6 times).
By God's mother.
Gog's bread (8 times).
By'r Lady (2 times).
By the cross.
By our dear lady of Boulogne.
Saint Dunstan.
Saint Dominic.
The three kings of Cologne.
By God and the devil too.
By bread and salt (2 times).
By him that Judas sold.
Gog's cross (2 times).
By Gog's malt (2 times).
Gog's death.
Gog's blessed body.
By God's blest (2 times).
By Gis.
By Saint Benet.
By my truth.
By Cock's mother dear.
By Saint Mary.
Gog's wounds (2 times).
By Cock's bones.
By All Hallows.
By my fay.
By my father's skin.
By God's pity (2 times).
Gog's sides (2 times)."
_Page 169. The deuce!_--A specimen from the English version of 'Havelok
the Dane,' edited by Sir F. Madden from the manuscript in the Laudian
Collection in the Bodleian Library, may be appended:--
"'Deus!' quoth he, 'hwat may this mene!'
He calde bothe arwe men, and kene
Knithes, and serganz swithe sleie,
Mo than an hundred."--l. 2114.
Madden also refers the exclamation, _dash you_ or _dase you_, from the
Anglo-Saxon imprecation _datheit_ which had been caught up from the
Norman _deshait_.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND
CHARING CROSS.
Footnotes:
[1] Ducange.
[2] The laws of Hoel the Good.
[3] Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester.
[4] Ducange.
[5] Mezeray, ii. 121.
[6] Sloane MS. No. 2530, xxvi. D.; a manuscript giving details of the
grades of students and masters of fence, and of the ceremonial attending
taking their degrees. The oath runs, "First you shall swear, so help you
God and halidome, and by all the christendome which God gave you at the
fount stone, and by the cross of this sword which doth represent unto
you the cross which our Saviour suffered his most painful deathe upon,"
&c.
[7] Socrates' oath, _by the cabbage_, [Greek: ma ten kramben] is given
in Athenaeus, ib. ix. p. 370.
[8] Aristophanes, 'The Birds.'
[9] Plutarch, Quaestion. Rom., p. 271.
[10] 'Mariage de Figaro,' iii. 5.
[11] MS. Bibliotheque nationale. 'Collection Complete des Memoires,'
vol. viii.
[12]
"_Williams._ Ah, damnation! Goddam!
_Blondel._ Goddam! Monsieur est Anglais apparemment."
'_Coeur de Lion_,' 1789.
[13] 'Notes on Ancient Poetry,' ed. 1770.
[14] One of the last cases where the use of the word produced some
coolness on the part of the persons concerned, occurred when a certain
bishop in a northern diocese was reported by the local newspaper to have
said in a sermon, "that he would not preach in that damned old church
any more." The bishop wrote to the paper that he had said "damp old
church." The editor, however, declined to question the accuracy of his
reporter.
[15] See passage from Roger de Collerye, given by Littre.
[16] 'L'agreable conference de Piarot et Janin.' Paris, 1651.
[17] "[Greek: SO] Ne ton kuna, amphignoo mentoi o Pole]"
&c.--'_Gorgias._'
[18] "On Tuesday, March 31, he and I dined at General Paoli's.... We
talked of the strange custom of swearing in conversation. The general
said that all barbarous nations swore from a certain violence of temper
that could not be confined to earth, but was always reaching at the
powers above. He said, too, that there was a greater variety of swearing
in proportion as there was a greater variety of religious
ceremonies."--Boswell's '_Life of Johnson_,' p. 235.
[19] Letter from Lynceus at Rhodes to Diagoras at Athens, in 'Journal
des Savants,' 1839, p. 37.
[20] Aldus Gellius, xi. 6. We find these oaths so distributed in Terence
and Plautus, the women swearing by Castor and the men by Hercules.
[21] Herodotus, bk. iv. 67. It was the _hearth_ of kings of Scythia that
was dealt with in this way.
[22] For an able article on the Five Wounds as represented in Art, see
Journal of Brit. Arch. Association for Dec. 1874, by the Rev. W. Sparrow
Simpson.
[23] 'Roba di Roma,' by W. W. Story, 1863. The writer adds, "A curious
feature in the oaths of the Italians may be remarked. _Dio mio_ is
usually an exclamation of sudden surprise or wonder; _Madonna mia_, of
pity and sorrow, and _per Christo_ of hatred and revenge. It is in the
name of Christ, and not of God as with us, that imprecations, curses,
and maledictions are invoked. The reason is very simple. Christ is to
him the judge and avenger of all, and so represented in every picture he
sees, from Orcagua's and Michael Angelo's Last Judgment down, while the
Eternal Father is a peaceful old figure bending over him."
[24] 'The Conversyon of Swerers,' 1540.
[25] The identity of ideas that we have referred to as invariably
occurring in mediaeval writings, whenever they happen to turn upon a
similar theme, may be shown by comparison of the following extracts.
They are taken from writers of different times and countries, and who
are not directly plagiarising one another. Dan Michael, in the 'Ayenbite
of Inwyt' (modernised), has:--
"These (Christians) are worse than the Jews that did crucify him. They
broke none of his bones. But these break him to pieces smaller than one
doth swine in butchery."
Robert of Brunne, in the 'Handlyng Sinne,' writes:--
"Thy oaths do him more grievousness,
Than all the Jews' wickedness;
They pained him once and passed away,
But thou painest him every day."
Again, in the 'Moralite des Blasphemateurs' (circa 1530):--
"Tu luy fais plus dure bataille
Que les juifz sans nulla faille
Qui pour toy le crucifierent."
[26] A certain delight in arranging the favourite oaths of his
contemporaries and of other historical personages is plainly to be seen
in Brantome. In the 'Vies des Grands Capitaines' he throws off a whole
string of these cherished devices. "On appeloit ce grand capitaine,
Monsr. de la Trimouille, 'La vraye Corps Dieu' d'autant que c'estoit son
serment ordinaire, ainsin que ces vieux et anciens grands capitaines en
ont sceu choisir et avoir aucuns particuliers a eux; comme Monsr. de
Bayard juroit, 'Feste Dieu, Bayard!' Monsr. de Bourbon, 'Saincte Barbe!'
le prince d'Orange, 'Saincte Nicolas!' le bonne homme M. de la Roche du
Maine juroit 'Teste de Dieu pleine de reliques!' (ou diable alla il
chercher celuy la) et autres que je nommerois, plus sangreneux que ceux
la."
[27] Ch. Rozan, 'Petites Ignorances de la Conversation.'
[28] "A shocking practice seems to have been rendered fashionable by the
very reprehensible habit of the Queen, whose oaths were neither
diminutive or rare, for it is said that she never spared an oath in
public speech or private conversation when she thought it added energy
to either,"--_Drake_, '_Shakspeare and his Times_,' ii. 160.
[29] J. G. Nicholls, 'Literary Remains of Edward VI.'
[30] 'Every Man out of his Humour,' i. 1.
[31] 1 Henry IV., iii. 7.
[32] See Capt. Basil Hall's 'Fragments of Voyages and Travels,' chap.
xvi. p. 89.
[33] Leigh Hunt's Journal, No. 6, for Jan. 11, 1851.
[34] 'The Colonies,' by Col. C. J. Napier, 1833.
[35] If any person or persons shall ... profanely swear or curse ... for
every such offence the party so offending shall forfeit and pay to the
use of the poor of the parish where such offence or offences shall be
committed the respective sums hereinafter mentioned; that is to say,
every servant, day-labourer, common soldier, or common seaman, one
shilling; and every other person two shillings; and in case any of the
persons aforesaid shall, after conviction, offend a second time, such
person shall forfeit and pay double, and if a third time treble the sum
respectively.--6 & 7 _William and Mary_, c. 11.
[36] Coll. of State Papers, Domestic, 1595, p. 12.
[37] Borough records of the City of Glasgow, 1573-1581.
[38] Aberdeen Presbytery Records, printed by the Spalding Club.
[39] Within the precincts of royal palaces regulations seem to have been
made from time to time to clear the atmosphere of all impious particles.
According to a work by Alexander Howell, the Dean of St. Paul's, printed
in 1611, King Henry I. prescribed a scale of fines according to a table
as follows:--
{a Duke 40 shillings.
{a Lord 20 do.
"If he were: {a Squire 10 do.
{a Yeoman 3_s._ 4_d._
{a Page, to be whipt."
'_A Sword against Swearers_,' 1611.
[40] 21 Jac. I. c. 20.
[41] 3 Jac. I. c. 21.
[42] Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert. Collier's 'History of Dramatic
Poetry,' ii. 58.
[43] Coll. of State Papers, Domestic, 1635-6.
[44] Whitelock's Memorials.
[45] Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne, by A. H. A.
Hamilton. 1878.
[46] 19 Geo. II. cap. 21. There is also a penalty of 40_s._ for using
profane language in the streets under the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847,
and the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839.
[47] J. P. Malcolm, 'Manners of London during XVII. Century.'
[48] "Diary of a Sussex Tradesman a hundred years ago," printed in
Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. xi.
[49] 'The Rivals,' act ii. sc. 1.
[50] "By the Lord Harry! he should have done with Christmas boxes."
Swift, '_Journal to Stella_.'
[51] The cloven foot is an evidence of a clean beast, and horns are
attributed, pictorially at least, to Moses.
[52] Edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the Roxburgh Club, 1828.
[53] 'Tristram Shandy,' vol. iii. ch. 12.
[54] 'Harangue des Habitans de Sarcelles,' 1740.
[55] "This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the
wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull
Street."--2 _Henry IV._, ii. 3.
[56] Where it is used in the sense of pertaining to kinship--"They are
my blody brethren, quod pieres, for God boughte us alle."--'_Piers
Plowman_,' vi. 210.
[57] Where it is met with as a verb--"With my own hands, I'll bloody my
own sword."
[58] 'Montaigne's Essays,' ed. Hazlitt, iii. 120.
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ALSO
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Portrait of BECKFORD, and Four Original Etchings, designed by A. H.
Tourrier, and Etched by DAMMAN.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. By DANIEL DEFOE. In Two Vols. With Biographical Memoir,
Illustrative Notes, and Eight Etchings by M. MOUILLERON, and Portrait by
L. FLAMENG.
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. By JONATHAN SWIFT. With Five Etchings and Portrait
by AD. LALAUZE.
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. By LAURENCE STERNE.
ALSO
A TALE OF A TUB. By JONATHAN SWIFT. In One Vol. With Five Etchings and
Portrait by ED. HEDOUIN.
NOTE.--_A small number of above was printed on Medium 8vo Laid Paper._
The Times.
"Among the numerous handsome reprints which the publishers of the day
vie with each other in producing, we have seen nothing of greater merit
than this series of twelve volumes. Those who have read these
masterpieces of the last century in the homely garb of the old editions
may be gratified with the opportunity of perusing them with the
advantages of large clear print and illustrations of a quality which is
rarely bestowed on such re-issues. The series deserves every
commendation."
Athenaeum.
"A well-printed and tasteful issue of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' The
volumes are convenient in size, and illustrated with Lalauze's
well-known etchings."
Magazine of Art.
"The text of the new four-volume edition of the 'Thousand and One
Nights' just issued by Messrs. Nimmo & Bain is that revised by Jonathan
Scott, from the French of Galland; it presents the essentials of these
wonderful stories with irresistible authority and directness, and, as
mere reading, it is as satisfactory as ever. The edition, which is
limited to a thousand copies, is beautifully printed and remarkably well
produced. It is illustrated with twenty etchings by Lalauze.... In
another volume of this series Beckford's wild and gloomy 'Vathek'
appears side by side with Johnson's admirable 'Rasselas.'"
Glasgow Herald.
"The merits of this new issue lie in exquisite clearness of type,
completeness; notes and biographical notices, short and pithy; and a
number of very fine etchings and portraits. In the 'Robinson Crusoe,'
besides the well-known portrait of Defoe by Flameng, there are eight
exceedingly beautiful etchings by Mouilleron.... In fine keeping with
the other volumes of the series, uniform in style and illustrations, and
as one of the volumes of their famous Old English Romances, Messrs.
Nimmo & Bain have also issued the 'Rasselas' of Johnson and the 'Vathek'
of Beckford."
Westminster Review.
"Messrs. Nimmo & Bain have added to their excellent series of 'Old
English Romances' three new volumes, of which two are devoted to
'Tristram Shandy,' while the third contains 'The Old English Baron' and
'The Castle of Otranto.' Take them as they stand, and without
attributing to them any qualities but what they really possess, the
whole series was well worth reprinting in the elegant and attractive
form in which they are now presented to us."
The Imitation of Christ.
FOUR BOOKS.
Translated from the Latin by Rev. W. BENHAM, B.D.,
_Rector of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, Lombard Street._
With ten Illustrations by J. P. LAURENS, etched by LEOPOLD FLAMENG.
Crown 8vo, cloth or parchment boards, 10s. 6d.
Scotsman.
"We have not seen a more beautiful edition of 'The Imitation of Christ'
than this one for many a day."
Magazine of Art.
"This new edition of the 'Imitation' may fairly be regarded as a work of
art. It is well and clearly printed; the paper is excellent; each page
has its peculiar border, and it is illustrated with ten etchings.
Further than that the translation is Mr. Benham's we need say nothing
more."
Essays from the "North American Review."
Edited by ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE.
Demy 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
Saturday Review.
"A collection of interesting essays from the _North American Review_,
beginning with a criticism on the works of Walter Scott, and ending with
papers written by Mr. Lowell and Mr. O. W. Holmes. The variety of the
essays is noteworthy."
Alain Rene Le Sage. (1668-1747.)
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ALAIN RENE LE SAGE,
_The Author of "Gil Blas,"_
Who was born at Sarzean on the 8th of May 1668, and died at Boulogne on
the 17th November 1747.
By GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Medium 8vo, 50 pp., paper covers, 3s. 6d.
Peter Anthony Motteux. (1660-1718.)
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE LATE
MR PETER ANTHONY MOTTEUX,
A Native of France,
Whilom Dramatist, China Merchant, and Auctioneer,
Who departed this life on the 18th of February 1718 (old style), being
then precisely 58 years old.
By HENRI VAN LAUN.
Medium 8vo, 43 pp., paper covers, 3s. 6d.
The American Patent Portable Book-Case.
[Illustration]
For Students, Barristers, Home Libraries, &c.
This Book-case will be found to be made of very solid and durable
material, and of a neat and elegant design. The shelves may be adjusted
for books of any size, and will hold from 150 to 300 volumes. As it
requires neither nails, screws, or glue, it may be taken to pieces in a
few minutes, and reset up in another room or house, where it would be
inconvenient to carry a large frame.
_Full Height, 5 ft. 11-1/2 in.; Width, 3 ft. 8 in.; Depth of Shelf,
10-1/2 in._
Black Walnut, price L6, 6s. nett.
"The accompanying sketch illustrates a handy portable book-case of
American manufacture, which Messrs. NIMMO & BAIN have provided. It is
quite different from an ordinary article of furniture, such as
upholsterers inflict upon the public, as it is designed expressly for
holding the largest possible number of books in the smallest possible
amount of space. One of the chief advantages which these book-cases
possess is the ease with which they may be taken apart and put together
again. No nails or metal screws are employed, nothing but the hand is
required to dismantle or reconstruct the case. The parts fit together
with mathematical precision; and, from a package of boards of very
moderate dimensions, a firm and substantial book-case can be erected in
the space of a few minutes. Appearances have by no means been
overlooked; the panelled sides, bevelled edges, and other simple
ornaments, give to the case a very neat and tasteful look. For students,
or others whose occupation may involve frequent change of residence,
these book-cases will be found most handy and desirable, while, at the
same time, they are so substantial, well-made, and convenient, that they
will be found equally suitable for the library at home."
Select List from the Catalogue of J. & A. Churchill,
PUBLISHERS, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
As supplied by J. C. NIMMO & BAIN.
Catalogue of the Publications of W. H. Allen & Co.,
PUBLISHERS, WATERLOO PLACE,
As supplied by J. C. NIMMO & BAIN.
BOOK-CORNER PROTECTORS.
Metal Tips carefully prepared for placing on the Corners of Books to
preserve them from injury while passing through the Post Office or being
sent by Carrier.
Extract from "The Times," April 18th.
"That the publishers and booksellers of America second the efforts of
the Post Office authorities in endeavouring to convey books without
damage happening to them is evident from the tips which they use to
protect the corners from injury during transit."
1s. 6d. per Gross, nett.
J. C. NIMMO & BAIN,
14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version
these letters have been replaced with transliterations.
The misprint "the the" has been corrected to "the" (page 69).
Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from
the original.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Cursory History of Swearing, by Julian Sharman