A Cursory History of Swearing

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.