Sept. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. ' 



299 



The neighbours, he said, were restrained by his 

 father, and by sheer force, from carrying out their 

 purpose, and were finally persuaded to " give the 

 lad a chance." The man who told me this story 

 alluded to the proposed smothering as a matter of 

 course, and a common practice. He was a good, 

 steady, and religious man, and during my acquaint- 

 ance with him, which lasted consecutively for 

 peven years, and at intervals since, I never found 

 the least occasion to doubt his veracity. He was 

 about twenty when he was bitten, and was a work- 

 ing dyer by trade. Whether he actually was 

 seized by hydrophobia, or whether dread of the 

 disease induced the symptoms, or the simulation 

 of the symptoms, I had no means of ascertaining. 



E. W. 



SHROPSHIRE BALLADi 



(Vol.vi., p. 118.) 



In your Number for 7th August, Mr. R. C. 

 Wabde of Kidderminster has inserted a few verses 

 of an old Shropshire ballad, with a request that 

 the remainder might be supplied by any of your 

 readers who could do so. It is a curious circum- 

 stance that an old Scottish ballad of a similar 

 tenor is still preserved, a copy of which I inclose 

 you, along with a version of the same in Greek, 

 Latin, German, and Hebrew, which I lately 

 printed for a few friends as ajeti desprit. 



Whether the Shropshire or the Scottish ballad 

 may be the senior is a question I cannot solve 

 The spelling of the Scotch version is somewhat 

 modernised in my printed copy, but the substance 

 is the veritable original. The last verse is a 

 modern addition, picked up from the singing of 

 Sir Adam Ferguson, rendering the song more 

 " propre," and changing it to a Jacobite melody ; 

 but the original is of a much older date. 



If ]\Ir. Warde is writing on ballad-lore, perhaps 

 you could forward him the printed inclosure, or 

 you may make any use of it, by way of extract or 

 otherwise, you please, as the song is most probably 

 too long for insertion in your periodical. 



Wm. Bell Macdoxald. 



Raramerscales, Dumfries-shire. 



This ballad has long been familiar to me in a 

 Scotch dress. Mr. Warde will find a part of it 

 quoted in the notes to Don Juan, Canto i. Stanza 

 181., in the edition of Byron's Life and Works in 

 seventeen volumes, at page 181. of the fifteenth 

 volume. A reference is there made to Johnson's 

 Mxisical Museum, vol. v. p. 466. W. H. M. 



lloss-shire. 



[An M. D., Sevarg, and ether correspondents have 

 also kindly furnished copies of the Scottish ballad.] 



THE HABIT OF PROFANE SWEARING BY THE 

 ENGLISH. 



(Vol. iv., p. 37.) 



As your correspondent observes, the English 

 have long had an unhappy notoriety for their 

 practice of blaspheming, and for their mouths 

 being ever filled with cursing. Indeed, sad to say, 

 all over the world the Englishman is deemed 

 utterly devoid of reverence, and his name made a 

 a term convertible with injidel. 



Swearing is, however, no longer considered 

 essential to good breeding, but is now quite dis- 

 countenanced in good society. Yet the army and 

 navy continue to keep up its respectability, and 

 prevent it becoming utterly " vulgar." They have 

 made it professional and official ; in fact, part of 

 their uniform. A sentence in conversation not 

 rounded by an oath is unworthy the dignity of 

 either Mars or Neptune ; and an order not en- 

 dorsed with a curse, or shotted with a damn, is 

 scarcely valid, and certainly not so efficacious. 



The severe epigram of Sir John Harrington is 

 but too just : 



" In older times, an ancient custom was, 

 To swear in mighty matters by the mass ; 

 But when the mass went down, as old men note. 

 They swore then by the Cross of this same groat : 

 And when the Cross was likewise held in scorn. 

 Then by their faith, the common oath was sworn.; 

 Last, having sworn away all faith and truth, 



Only G — d d n them, is the common oath : 



Thus custom kept decorum by gradation. 



That losing mass. Cross, faith, they find damnation." 



The only work expressly on the subject that I 

 have heard of is, Remarks on the Profane and 

 Absurd Use of the Monosyllable Damn, by the Rev. 

 Matthew Towgood, 1746, 8vo. 



Byron notices it in the 11th Canto of Don Juan: 



" Juan, who did not understand a word 



Of English, save their shibboleth, ' God damn !' 

 And even that, he had so rarely heard. 



He sometimes thought 'twas only their ' Salam,' 

 Or ' God be with you ! ' and 'tis not absurd 

 To think so : for half English as I am, 

 (To my misfortune) never can I say, 

 I heard them wish ' God with you' save that way." 



Stanza xir. 



See also Stanza xliii. of same Canto. 



Our sovereigns had each their favourite oath : 

 thus, William the Conqueror swore by the splen- 

 dour of God; AVilliam Hufus, by St. Lidie" s face ; 

 John, by God^s tooth. Elizabeth's ordinary oath 

 was peculiarly impious and irreverent. Lord 

 Herbert of Cherbury gives the following extraor- 

 dinary excuse for James I.'s habit of cursing : 



" It fell out one day that the Prince of Conde 

 coming to my house, some speech happ'ned concerning 

 the Kuig my master, in whom, tho' he acknowledged 



