A Cursory History of Swearing Part 4

The adage that enjoins us to repeat "no scandal about Queen Elizabeth"

should dispose us to deal lightly with any verbal excesses committed by the virgin queen. It would appear, however, that the moral atmosphere of her court, despite the intellect and talent that adorned it, was not so refined or particular but that the sovereign and the ladies over their breakfasts of steaks and beer could ring out exclamations that to a later generation might appear of rather an astounding character.[28] To turn for comparison to the era of the next female majesty, it is questionable whether even Sarah Jennings, with all her power of abuse, would not have taken exception to the flavour of some of the Elizabethan adjectives.

A story is told of Edward VI., that at the time of arriving at the kingly dignity he gave way to a torrent of the most sonorous oaths. The pastors and masters charged with the well-being of the royal youth could not but stare in blank astonishment at the conduct of one so well nurtured as the child of Anne Boleyn. It transpired, however, that the young king had been given to believe by one of his a.s.sociates that language of the kind was dignified and becoming in the person of a sovereign. Edward was asked to name the preceptor who had so ably supplemented the course of the royal education. This he instantly and innocently did, and was not a little surprised at the severe whipping that was administered to the delinquent.[29]

The predicament in which the royal child was placed is similar to that which once befel a clerical gentleman while travelling on mule-back across Syria. The Syrian muleteers are, it seems, accustomed to urge onward their beasts with the shout of "Yullah!" or "Bismillah!" and it was under the escort of these shouting and belabouring drivers that the traveller made his way into the town of Beyrout. His friends naturally inquired of him what progress he had made in Arabic, and in reply he told them he had only acquired two words, _bakhshish_ for a present, and _Yullah!_ for go-ahead. He was asked if he had used the latter word much on his way. Certainly, he said, he had used it all the way. "Then, your reverence," replied his friend, "you have been swearing all the way through the Holy Land."

CHAPTER VI.

"When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths."--'_Cymbeline_,' ii. 1.

In the study of antiquity there are steep and irregular by-paths that defy the traveller every step that he pursues them. It is in threading these tortuous windings that many a fearless venturer has lost foot-hold and been utterly cast away. Many a man with the pa.s.sion for antiquity deep at his heart, and with limbs well girded to attain to the summit of his aim, has been fain to settle down, jaded and dispirited, at mid-task. He has accomplished nothing perhaps beyond the mere reading of an inscription or deciphering of a medallion, but the spirit of his insight is dimmed, and stricken in the work. Thus has it been with many generations of seekers and inquirers. The _virtuosi_ and _cognoscenti_, the curious in gems and medals, in bra.s.ses and torsos, the commentators and concordancers,--all these may be said to be nothing more than so many units in the lost tribe of eager scholarship. Starting confident of probing to the very source and mystery of things, they have rather preferred the shelter of some attainable evening refuge than be overtaken in their task by the chills and storms of night.

It is easier far, means not being wanting, to place in one's cabinet some matchless group of Capo di Monti, some priceless specimen of the fabric of Sevres or Dresden, than to tax one's strength in extracting the lessons conveyed by form and colour. It is a simpler matter to be the possessor of Damascus sword-blades or Aleppo prayer-rugs than to burden one's self with reflections upon oriental chivalry or mysticism.

And so, again, it is a far readier, as it is certainly a rougher, way of being in sympathy with antiquity, to notch off a fragment in the Acropolis, or carve one's name among the ruins of the Forum, than to originate such poetic pa.s.sages as Byron uttered over the field of Marathon, or Longfellow in the market-place of Nuremburg. Say what we will, both forms of veneration arise alike from the same innate craving to grasp some part or parcel of the tissue of the past.

To the untiring few who have overcome the drought and dust of the up-land journey, the summit, once attained, will disclose many a point and promontory unsuspected by the purblind dweller in the plain. The retrospect will reveal to them a busy, thronging life underlying the serenity of history. They will be able to range the perished mult.i.tudes in their once motley grouping, to restore warmth and colour to lineaments long obscured in death, and greed and alacrity to the sunk eyes and folded hands. To those whom the spirit of the past is apt to visit as a pa.s.sionate inspiration, the mere record of consecutive events is often wearisome. It is not altogether for this that they have laboured to catch some murmur, however slight, of the infinite harmony that is being sounded by all, the chords of history. Rather, it is to tramp mistily along from generation to generation in the long, forced march of human life. Rather, to probe to the depths of some one of the world's stupendous follies, of some one of its golden vanities, that they have thus cast about them with measure and lead-line. And when they have completely searched out and written of the world's stupendous follies, they will perhaps have written what alone would be worth calling its history.

As some small, tentative contribution to the understanding of this under-life, the plan of this volume has been designed. The past has come down to us cloaked and shrouded, and attended by its decorous retinue of mutes and bearers. We are continually seeking to revive this dead past, just as it was, when its future was a wild, inscrutable thing, and its life was so fragrant, so masterful, and so momentous. It wants a great mental effort to recall events that are as indubitably past as if they had never happened at all. The pleasure of possessing, or of even entering, the vanished territory is a privilege so rare, that there are permitted but a few moments for its enjoyment. It is so subtle a perception that even seasoned historians seldom have the power of imparting it. They may surround us with the conflict of contending legionaries, until we seem to recognise the thud of advancing battalions and the clash and impact of the squadron. These, however lifelike, are impressions of a much grosser and more tangible nature, and can have but little in common with the blended sweetness and irony that pertain to the spontaneous realisation of the dead past.

What we are for ever craving to learn is something more of the gambols, the humours, and the anticing of this sad army, for ever on the march.

We yearn to know something more of the vanity and the pettiness, the fever and the longing, of those weary men and women, the memorial of whose lives has been trampled out. The historian will sometimes rend away the veil that separates us from this unwritten history; but more often it is the creation of the romancer that helps to clothe the dim spirit of the past from the loom of its misty memories; Pascarel, depicting the splendours of the artist-life of Florence, while Arlecchino and the rest of the gay carnival troupe are romping in the faded street of the stocking-makers; Slender and Shallow and the simple folk of the Cotswold country ambling out their jests midst the turmoil of those stirring Lancastrian times; or "sweet Anne Page," provoking and winning, three hundred years ago, in the glades of Windsor Forest. The honest yeoman who fought the master of fence--three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes; the foolish justice who in the days of his youth had beat Sampson Stockfish behind Gray's Inn, and had heard the chimes at midnight, lying out in the windmill in St. George's Fields--these and many kindred types represent to us so many factors in that prodigious army of the unknown that is never permitted us more thoroughly to know.

It is indeed in the fancy of Shakespeare that this bygone sweetness and irony seem the oftener to be kindled and awakened. Not, certainly, in the wordy warring of Capulet and Montagu; not, perhaps, in the outspoken chivalry of "Harry the King," or the blunt generosity of Falconbridge.

But we find it moving and thrilling in every tone caught up from the English country-side, in the echoes wafted from the vintage-lands of France, or the garden walks of Padua. And freshest and daintiest of all, we find it in the poet's s.n.a.t.c.hes of song and rugged bursts of minstrelsy. This indeed is the enchantment that subdues us as the dimpled page advances to the gay theatre lights, and pleading the woes of three hundred years ago, and exhorting now as he exhorted then, bids "Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more." It is this which captivates as the scene pauses and the drama halts, that the eye may be carried back through a vista of three centuries to dwell upon a simple "lover and his la.s.s" as they wander "between the acres of the rye."

The subject of swearing the writer has come to regard as one of the many indices by which the paths of our ancestors may be traced. Holding in fitting estimation the monuments of their industry and their prudence, none the less may we seek to view the departed generations in their hours of carelessness and frolic, and may peer into their casinos and their tiring-rooms, their spital-houses and their bridewells. What manner of men were they? we ask. Were they sparkling and festive, tellers of rare stories, dealers in racy jokes? Were they wholesome in their living, manly and courageous in their lives, or were they loose and liquorish, winking at falsehood and cajoling the truth? And if the monumental record of their virtues be a just one, why did they heirloom on posterity this bitter heritage of swearing?

The truth would seem to be that in every society there has existed a certain _corps d'elite_, which, distinguished at once by its breeding and its brusquerie, has perversely thought fit to adopt the insignia of swearing as its own particular device. In advancing this explanation of the fidelity with which posterity has exercised its watchfulness over the bequest of swearing, we must not for a moment be misunderstood. It is far from our purpose to a.s.sociate good breeding with the use of coa.r.s.e vituperation, but at the same time it is impossible to overlook the fact that swearing has mostly owed its favour and its audacity to the practice of really cultivated men. The first contrivers of our modern methods of swearing took pains to raise an air of mystery and exclusiveness around their favourite art. "To be an accomplished gentleman," says Carlo Buffone, in Ben Jonson's comedy,[30] "have two or three peculiar oaths to swear by that no man else swears"; and it would seem to have been one of the gravest charges brought against the Hectors and Bobadils of the Elizabethan stage, that they dare a.s.sume acquaintance with courtly oaths. Even Hotspur is portrayed by the dramatist as a most precise and scrupulous swearer. It may be seen how he reproaches Lady Percy for swearing "like a comfit-maker's wife," and bids her "swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art!" and not to mince her oaths like some city madam or seller of gingerbread.[31] For upwards of two centuries, the notion of finish and exclusiveness in oath-taking afforded constant merriment for the stage, the creations of the playwright seldom failing to give full scope to the ill.u.s.tration of this strange humour. Every period brought its particular oath and fresh generations of exponents. Now it was the soldier of fortune returned from encounters with the Spaniards or the Turk. Anon it was the tavern rake of King James' day, and after some interval, the wits and foplings of the Restoration. By-and-by, there followed the crowd of nabobs and parvenus, the bl.u.s.tering swearers of the days of East Indian speculation, and finally came the truculent swabbers and commodores of Adelphi melodrama. The _nouveau riche_ of the younger Colman, who fails to enrobe himself with dignity by the aid of all ordinary resources, is enjoined by his more practical helpmate to vent his "zounds" and "damme," in emulation of the swearing of the great.

For this _corps d'elite_ of which we have spoken have drawn to themselves men the most worthless, and men the most admirable. It has found disciples in every capital--the easy, the affluent, the voluptuous, cheery and sunny of speech, bold and swarthy of countenance.

There are numbered among them free livers and free lances innumerable.

There are men remarkable for their stores of boisterous animalism, no less than delicate scholars remarkable only for the brightness of their fancy and the vividness of their dreams. They have ever been a composite and a cosmopolitan crew, some shouldering into the ranks by the weight of their purses or the length of their rent-rolls, others by skill evinced at high midnight, when taper-lights throw pale vertical rays upon a refreshing margent of green cloth. Among them, too, are stout soldiers, bold fearless riders, the wild and fevered blood of many countries, the fervour of Italy, and the craft of the Levant. To the precincts of this gilded and splendid society come many sorts and conditions of aspirants. The boy-parson lays down the sanct.i.ty of the priesthood and rapturously sues for admission. Elders of threescore demand an entrance upon the strength of _risque_ stories sprung from garrison-towns and college common-rooms. Skilled physicians feign indifference to their calling that they may smack of the kennel and the hunting-field. Staid, contemplative men, men with a prayer and a tune in them, press into this joyous throng, eager to clasp the bruised fruit of human desire and to claim kindred with these cheery fellowships. But, however varied the elements of the order, the members are const.i.tuted alike in this: they are hearty and laughter-loving; they are jolly and courageous.

With outposts so widely distributed, it is the more necessary that there should be some unmistakable uniform, that whether it be in a Paris ordinary, or on the steppes of Tartary, one may easily recognise the scion of the order. Such a uniform, so at least we are constrained to understand it, has, for the most part, been supplied by a subdued and discriminate use of the materials of swearing. A Sandwich Islander appreciates this when he salutes a British crew in terms compounded of oaths and ribaldry.[32] He is really intending to denote his sense of the distinction of the exalted visitors, when he exclaims: "Very glad see you! d.a.m.n your eyes! Me like English very much. Devilish hot, sir!

G.o.ddam!" It is to claim kindred with the brotherhood that swell surgeons vent their "blasted!" and "d.a.m.nation!" as they tender to the ailments of rackety young patients. It is to bridge over the gulf between carelessness and propriety that even mild college tutors will sometimes venture upon a modest "botheration!" or "confounded!" The most fertile and most voluminous swearer, we have been given to understand, exists in the person of one of the leading _litterateurs_ of the century when desiring to curry favour with a company of fast men.

Not that it can be altogether denied that there are other contrivances whereby the members of the fraternity succeed in courting mutual recognition. The topic of sporting is, perhaps, the most effectual of these, and it must be understood that a man's convivial condition is often undergoing a crucial investigation when he is questioned as to his views upon such subjects as the Cesarewitch or the Cambridgeshire. The several processes of swearing would seem however to supply the readiest hall-mark, and are rather of an easier manipulation. This theory of indulgence might go far to explain the leniency of men like Jonathan Swift towards a custom which, had they wished it, they might have deposed from its high places by their ridicule. Swearing was far from being a rock of offence to the society of Harley and St. John. Why else, again, has it been permitted from commanders of the stamp of Picton in the field, and from lawyers of the pattern of Thurlow on the woolsack?

"I will now proceed to my seventh point," pursued Sir Ilay Campbell, arguing an interminable Scotch appeal in the House of Lords. "I'm d.a.m.ned if you do," shrieked Lord Thurlow, and the House adjourned neither angry or scandalised. And again, how else explain the exuberance of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough's language when calling at Lord Mansfield's lodgings? His lordship, as we know, was away, and on his return questioned the doorkeeper as to the name of his visitor. "I do not know who she was," replied the man, "but she swore like a lady of quality."

Of Thurlow it has been said that he was renowned as a swearer even in a swearing age. "He took it as a lad who wishes to show that he has arrived at man's estate. He could not have got on without it."[33] At one time a dispute was pending as to the right to present to a vacant benefice. A certain bishop who claimed the right sent his secretary to argue with Lord Thurlow, who, for his part, obstinately maintained the counter-claim of the Crown. The envoy no sooner opened his case and made known his message, than Thurlow cut short all further argument. "Give my compliments to his lordship, and tell him I will see him d.a.m.ned before he present." "That," remonstrated the secretary, "is a very unpleasant message to deliver to a bishop." "You are right," replied Thurlow, "so it is. Tell him I will see myself d.a.m.ned before he present."

Another professor in the same uncompromising school of hard swearers would seem to have been Sir Thomas Maitland, His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner administering the government of the Ionian Islands, at that time and long afterwards under the British dominion. Sir Charles Napier relates that on arriving at Corfu to enter upon a military appointment, and being ushered into his Excellency's presence, he was received with a sullen "Who the devil are you?" and on explaining his business, Sir Thomas rejoined, "Then I hope you are not such a d.a.m.ned scoundrel as your predecessor." Sir Thomas seems to have been in the habit of dealing out abuse the most flagrant towards those with whom he was brought into contact. "On one occasion,"--we may follow Sir Charles Napier's words,--"the senate having been a.s.sembled in the saloon of the palace waiting in all form for his Excellency's appearance, the door slowly opened and Sir Thomas walked in with the following articles of clothing upon him:

"One shirt, which like Tam o' Shanter's friend, the cutty-sark,

"In longitude was sorely scanty."

"One red night-cap,

"One pair of slippers.

"The rest of his Excellency's person was perfectly divested of garments.

In this state he walked into the middle of the saloon, looked round at the a.s.sembled senators and then said, addressing the secretary, "d.a.m.n them, tell them all to go to h.e.l.l."[34]

What reception this outburst provoked from the a.s.sembled notables we are not informed. When Thurlow once at a dinner-party administered a similar admonition to a blundering man-servant, telling him he wished he was in h.e.l.l, the terrified man wearily replied, "I wish I was, my lord! I wish I was."

There can be little doubt that the practice of gentlemen "d.a.m.ning themselves as black as b.u.t.ter-milk" was intended to overawe, and on the whole it has answered the intention. It is however but a cheap subst.i.tute for authority, and belongs of right to a rampant jingoism of a past age. We are here reminded of a kind of oath which, having conferred a nick-name upon a political party, seems likely to pa.s.s into the language in some altered form. The "Jingos," as will be remembered, were the faction in the country who favoured an aggressive policy during the recent Russian war. The name came to be given them from a circ.u.mstance of quite an insignificant kind. At a certain London singing-room a patriotic song happened to be nightly delivered, in which the vocalist emphasised his warlike utterances with a constant recurrence of this oath. The Radicals seized the moment, and in a short s.p.a.ce of time the term "by Jingo" was pinned to the backs of the Tory party like a tin kettle tied to a dog's tail. Men soon began to ask themselves where first they could have met with this undignified expression? The 'Ingoldsby Legends' seemed the most likely ground, only that readers of Goldsmith referred to the example of the town-bred lady who, when introduced into the Vicar's family, swore "by the living Jingo!"

Moreover, the term is to be observed in the earliest translation of Don Quixote (iii. vi.): "by the living jingo, I did but jest," and in Rabelais (v. xxviii.): "by jingo, I believe he would make three bites of a cherry." To seek for the origin of the oath, we should have to turn to a somewhat singular source. We should find it as far away as the slopes of the Pyrenees, where Basque peasants have long sworn by _Jincoa_, that in fact being the Basque name for G.o.d.

We have made mention of Swift in a way that might favour the presumption that his ridicule was not at any time directed against the subject of oath-taking. That such is hardly the case will be seen from his prospectus of the Bank of Swearing, where this overgrown distempered plant is singled out as a fair b.u.t.t for his sallies. The nature of the business proposed to be transacted at this fanciful banking-house may be more aptly considered in another chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

"_Viola._ Swear as if you came but new from the knighting.

_Fust._ Nay; I'll swear after 400 a year."

_Decker's Honest W._

Written during the fever of South Sea speculation, the skit of Jonathan Swift, known as the "Bank of Swearing," was one exceedingly felicitous and well-timed. We are amused even now, as we read the prospectus of this preposterous undertaking, at the extreme audacity with which the would-be projector solemnly enumerates its advantages. Impossible and altogether ludicrous as was the enterprise, it is not improbable that many of the eager financiers of that speculative age fancied they saw solid reason in the scheme. It is only to be hoped that they did not too eagerly respond to the facilities for investment which the Swearers'

Bank was reputed to hold out.

The notion was simply that of a chartered bank established upon a novel basis and financing upon an original principle. Such bank was in fact to enjoy a monopoly of levying the fines which the laws of the country imposed upon swearing. Although these penalties had been rarely inflicted, the mere circ.u.mstance of their being warranted by the statute-book was regarded by the projector in the light of a mine of latent wealth. A profitable banking concern once fairly in operation, and backed by the security of these statutory imposts, what more could the investor require for his capital?

To convince the investing public of the merits of his scheme, he proceeds to calculate the sums that might be realised by fully putting the act into vigour. The neglected statute upon the basis of which the whole of this superstructure was to be raised and the Bank of Swearing endowed, was the act of the sixth and seventh year of William and Mary, inflicting a penalty at the rate of not less than a shilling an oath.[35]

"It is computed by geographers,"--so argues the promoter--"that there are two millions in the kingdom [Ireland], of which number there may be said to be a million of swearing souls. It is thought there may be five thousand gentlemen. Every gentleman, taken one with another, may afford to swear an oath every day, which will yearly produce one million eight hundred and twenty-five thousand oaths; which number of shillings makes the yearly sum of 91,250.

"The farmers of this kingdom, who are computed to be ten thousand, are able to spend yearly five hundred thousand oaths, which gives 25,000; and it is conjectured that from the bulk of the people twenty or five and twenty thousand pounds may be yearly collected."

The swearing capacity of the army is no less minutely investigated. In the case of the militia, however, the promoter is disposed to recommend either a partial immunity from the tax or else a scale of fines considerably cheapened. To put the law in full force against militiamen, at least so opines the promoter, would only be to fill the stocks with porters and the p.a.w.nshops with accoutrements. So essential is this point with him, that he makes direct appeal to his Protestant countrymen, reminding them of the satisfaction it would afford the Papists to see a most useful body of soldiery actually swear themselves out of their Swords and muskets.

Inclined to a politic leniency towards the military cla.s.ses, it would seem that this ingenious projector looked mainly for his revenue to the swearing dues that might be collected at wakes and fairings. The oaths of a single Connaught fair, he has calculated, amount to upwards of three thousand. "It is true," he allows, "that it would be impossible to turn all of them into money, for a shilling is so great a duty on swearing, that if it were carefully exacted, the common people might as well pretend to drink wine as to swear, and an oath would be as rare among them as a clean shirt." In this way the Reverend Dean rattles on.

He is pointing his satire both at the epidemic of financial adventure then so fatally prevalent and at that incomprehensible leaning to the use of "bad language" of which even he was so ready to avail himself when it either suited his purpose or strengthened his style.

The Dean can scarcely be supposed to have known that one of the many proposals put before Lord Burghley in the very early days of political economy, bore a close resemblance to his manner of handling oaths. A Monsieur Rodenberg proposed to show how the revenue could be increased to twenty millions of crowns, and part of his plan consisted in a rigorous levy of fines on swearing. He further recommended that a council of twelve "grave persons" should have the disposal of the fund, which while unexpended should be put out to usury.[36]

A recommendation of this kind urged upon Queen Elizabeth's ministers was very much in advance of English politics. It so far denotes a turning-point in the history of swearing, that we cannot do better than trace out what the future course of legislation was to be.

Previous to the period we are now entering, a person addicted to intemperate language might have been called to account by his church, or at the bar of his own conscience. He could not have been called to account by the State. The suggestion of State interference, so far as concerns the southern division of this island, seems not to have previously occurred, and we are consequently justified in inferring that the necessity for it had never seriously arisen. There is, indeed, complete cohesion and consistency in what was happening. We believe we have shown elsewhere whence it was, and when it was, that the English people first began to swear, and we are confirmed in our conclusions by finding that this was the precise period at which English law-makers began to legislate upon swearing.

Pa.s.sing over barbarous and obsolete laws of a more imperfect civilisation, we find that the first essays in State control commenced in Scotland. A full half century before the question came before Elizabeth's parliament, the sister kingdom had the benefit of a statute inflicting a monetary penalty upon the use of oaths. This enactment, pa.s.sed by the Scottish parliament of 1551, calls for notice upon other grounds besides those of morality. If a legal doc.u.ment can be said to partake of a poetic character, it was certainly the case with this ordinance of Queen Mary, which seems to have been directly inspired by the metrical labours of William Dunbar, then lately the national poet.