"_Hor._ } } My lord, we will not. _Mar._ }
_Hamlet._ Ha, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art there, true-penny? Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage, Consent to swear.
_Hamlet._ Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword."
The ground that we have thus far traversed is really one of a remarkable struggle, that has not abated even in our time. It is not the intention of this essay to follow the history of judicial oath-taking, or of the attestations that would seem to be demanded by conscience or religion. But it must be remembered that the subject of vituperative swearing is so interwoven with that of these legal and religious ordinances, that the consideration of them must be frequently forced upon us. But whilst doing so it should be no less borne in mind that we are never really losing sight of the object we have in view. We aim simply at disinterring a neglected, possibly a justly neglected, chapter in the world's social history, and are called upon to judge both of the tree and its fruit, of the seed and the grain.
"Pantagruel then asked what sorts of people dwelled in that damn'd island."--_Rabelais_ iv., chap. lxiv.
"If ever I should betake myself to swearing," says Sir John Hazlewood in the play, "I shall give very little concern to the fashion of the oath. Odd's bodikins will do well enough for me, and lack-a-daisy for my wife." Many other persons have been much of the same mind as this Sir John, and, possessing a certain esteem for the pomp and circumstance of swearing, have been impelled to cherish some curious substitute so that they might still get a little harmless amusement out of the vice. In this way they have contrived so to compound with their consciences as to become swearers in practice without being blasphemers in intention.
The characteristic of this good Hazlewood is his extreme tolerance and neutrality. He is not among the swearers himself, but at a moment of danger he is prepared to join that body, taking service in the ranks. To disown allegiance altogether never for a moment coincides with his sense of the becoming. The worthy man is too loyal to the set rules of his acknowledged leaders, to harbour a notion so subversive and dangerous. And in this particular we shall find he has been followed by the greater number not only of his own degree and class but of all orders and conditions.