A Cursory History of Swearing. Julian Sharman
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 encyclopædia 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 pæan 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