The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851

"In Thurlow's time, the habit of profane swearing was unhappily so common, that Bishop Horsley, and other right reverend prelates, are said not to have been entirely exempt from it; but Thurlow indulged in it to a degree that admits of no excuse. I have been told by an old gentleman, who was standing behind the woolsack at the time that Sir Ilay Campbell, then Lord Advocate, arguing a Scotch appeal to the bar in a very tedious manner, said, 'I will noo, my lords, proceed to my seevent pownt.' 'I'll be d–d if you do,' cried Lord Thurlow, so as to be heard by all present; 'this house is adjourned till Monday next,' and off he scampered. Sir James Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, used to relate that, while he and several other legal characters were dining with Lord Chancellor Thurlow, his lordship happening to swear at his Swiss valet, when retiring from the room, the man returned, just put his head in, and exclaimed, 'I von't be d–d for you, Milor;' which caused the noble host and all his guests to burst out into a roar of laughter. From another valet he received a still more cutting retort. Having scolded this meek man for some time without receiving any answer, he concluded by saying, 'I wish you were in hell.' The terrified valet at last exclaimed, 'I wish I was, my lord! I wish I was!'

"Sir Thomas Davenport, a great nisi prius leader, had been intimate with Thurlow, and long flattered himself with the hopes of succeeding to some valuable appointment in the law; but, several good things passing by, he lost his patience and temper along with them. At last he addressed this laconic application to his patron: 'The Chief Justiceship of Chester is vacant; am I to have it?' and received the following laconic answer—'No! by God! Kenyon shall have it.'

"Having once got into a dispute with a bishop respecting a living, of which the Great Seal had the alternate presentation, the bishop's secretary called upon him, and said, 'My lord of – sends his compliments to your lordship, and believes that the next turn to present to – belongs to his lordship.' Chancellor.—'Give my compliments to his lordship, and tell him that I will see him d–d first before he shall present.' Secretary.—'This, my lord, is a very unpleasant message to deliver to a bishop.' 'You are right, it is so, therefore tell the bishop that I will be damned first before he shall present.'"[17 - Lives of the Chancellors. Second Series. Vol. v. pp. 644, 664.]

Lord Campbell concludes his records of the Chancellor's jusjuration (if we may coin a word for a precedent so extraordinary), by frankly extracting into his pages the whole of a long damnatory ode, which was put into the judge's mouth by the authors of the once-famous collection of libels called Criticisms on the Rolliad, and Probationary Odes for the Laureateship,—the precursor, and very witty precursor, though flagrantly coarse and personal, of the Anti-Jacobin Magazine and the Rejected Addresses. They were on the Whig side of politics, and are understood to have been the production of Dr. Lawrence, a civilian, and George Ellis, the author of several elegant works connected with poetry and romance. We shall notice the book further when we come to speak of Mr. Ellis himself. Lord Thurlow is made to contribute one of the Probationary Odes; and he does it in so abundant and complete a style, that bold as our "innocence" makes us in this particular, yet not having the legal warrant of the biographer, we really have not the courage to bring it in as evidence. The reader, however, may guess of what sort of stuff it is composed, when he hears that it begins with the comprehensive line,

"Damnation seize ye all;"

and ends with the following pleasing and particular couplet:—

"Damn them beyond what mortal tongue can tell;
Confound, sink, plunge them all, to deepest, blackest hell."

After this, it will hardly be a climax to add, that Peter Pindar said of this Keeper of the King's Conscience, with great felicity, that he "swore his prayers."

We have been thus particular on the subject of Lord Thurlow's swearing, partly because it is the main point of his lordship's character with posterity, but chiefly that we might show what has already been intimated; namely, what a nothing such talk has become, and what high time it is to treat it as it deserves, and give it no longer in typography those implied awful significances, those under-breaths and intensifications of initials and hyphens, which make it pretend to have a meaning, and are the main cause why it survives. The word damned in Lord Thurlow's mouth, for all its emphasis and effect, had as little meaning as the word blest, or the word conscience. It has equally little meaning in any body's. It no more signifies what it was originally intended to signify, than the word "cursed" means anathematized, or the word "pontificate" means bridge-making. This is the natural death of oaths in any tremendous sense of the words, or in any sense at all. They become things of "sound and fury, signifying nothing." Who that utters the word "zounds," imagines that he is speaking of such awful and inconceivable things as "God's wounds," though literally he is doing so? Or what honest farmer, who ejaculates "Please the pigs" (such extraordinary things do reform and vicissitude bring together!) supposes that his Protestant soul is propitiating the Pyx, or Holy Sacrament box, of the Roman Catholic Church? Yet time was, when the innocent word "zounds" was written with the same culpatory dashes and hyphens as the "damns that have had their day;" and "pigs," we suppose, were exenterated in like manner: suggested only by their heads and tails,—the first letter and the last. We happen to be no swearers ourselves, so that we are speaking a good word for no custom of our own; though, we confess, that when we come to an oath as a trait of character, in biography or in fiction, we are no more in the habit of balking it, than we are of ignoring any other harmless ejaculation; and therefore, by reason of its very nonsense and nothingness, we like to see it written plainly out as if it were nothing, instead of being mystified into a more nonsensical importance. We have known better men than ourselves who have sworn; and we have known worse; but with none of them had the word any meaning, nor has it any, ever, except in the pulpit; where it is a pity (as many an excellent clergyman has thought) that it is heard at all. Treat it lightly elsewhere, as an expletive and a mere way of speaking, and it will come to nothing as it deserves, and follow the obsolete "plagues" and "murrains" of our ancestors.

The only persons who profess to swear to any purpose, are the Roman Catholics; and they, indeed, may well be said to swear "terribly"—or rather they would do so, if any poor set of human creatures, fallible by the necessity of their natures, could of a surety know what is infallible, and be commissioned by a writing on the sun or moon to let us hear it. Lord Thurlow, with all his damns, and his big voice, and his power of imprisonment to boot, was a babe of grace compared with the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rochester who thundered forth the famous excommunication which the Protestant chapter-clerk of that city gave to the author of Tristram Shandy to put in his book; to the immortal honor of said Protestant, and disgrace of the unalterable and infallible Roman Catholic Churchmen; who, when delivered from their bonds, and complimented on partaking of the progress and civilization common to the rest of the world, take the first opportunity for showing us we are mistaken, and crying damnation to their deliverers.

We shall not repeat the document alluded to, lest we should be thought to give the light matter of which we have been treating, a tone of too much importance. Suffice it to say, that when all the powers, and angels, and very virgins of heaven are called upon by the excommunication to "curse" and "damn" the object of it limb by limb (literally so), his eyes, his brains, and his heart (how unlike fair human readers, who doubt whether the very word "damn" should be uttered), good Uncle Toby interposes one of those world-famous pleasantries which have shaken the old Vatican beyond recovery.

"'Our armies swore terribly in Flanders,' cried my Uncle Toby; 'but nothing to this. For my own part, I could not have the heart to curse my dog so.'"

From Chambers' Edinbourgh Journal.

THE LAST OF THE FIDDLERS

A VILLAGE TALE

BY BERTHOLD AUERBACH

The midnight silence of the village is broken by unusual clattering sounds—a horse comes galloping along at the top of his speed, his rider crying aloud, "Fire—fire! Help, ho! Fire!" Away he rides straight to the church, and presently the alarm-bell is heard pealing from the steeple.

It is no easy matter to arouse the harvest folks, after a hard day's work, from their first sound sleep: there they lie, stretched as unconsciously as the corn in the fields which they have reaped in the sweat of their brow. But wake they must—there is no help for it. The stable-boys are the first on the alert—every one anxious to win the reward which, time out of mind, has been given to the person, who, on the occasion of a fire, is the first to reach the engine-house with harnessed horses. Here and there a light is seen at a cottage lattice—a window is opened—the men come running out of doors with their coats half drawn on, or in their shirt sleeves. The villagers all collect about the market-house, and the cry is heard on all sides, "Where is it? Where is the fire?"

"In Eibingen."

Question and answer were alike unneeded, for in the distance, behind the dark pine-forest, the whole sky was illumined with a bright-red glow, in the stillness of the night, like the glow of the setting sun; while every now and then a shower of sparks rose into the air, as if shot out from a blast-furnace.

The night was still and calm, and the stars shone peacefully on the silent earth.

The horses are speedily put to the fire-engine, the buckets placed in a row, a couple of torches lighted, and the torch-bearers stand ready on either side holding on to the engine, which is instantly covered with men.

"Quick! out with another pair of horses! two can't draw such a load!"—"Down with the torches!"—"No, no; they're all right—'tis the old way!"—"Drive off, for Heaven's sake—quick!"

Such-like exclamations resounded on all sides. Let us follow the crowd.

The engine, with its heavy load, now rolls out of the village, and through the peaceful fields and meadows: the fruit-trees by the roadside seem to dance past in the flickering light; and soon the crowd hurry, helter-skelter, through the forest. The birds are awakened from sleep, and fly about in affright, and can scarcely find their way back to their warm nests. The forest is at length passed, and down below, in the valley, lies the hamlet, brightly illumined as at noon-day, while shrieks and the alarm-bell are heard, as if the flames had found a voice.

See! what is yonder white, ghost-like form, in a fluttering dress, on the skirts of the forest? The wheels creak, and rattle along the stony road—no sounds can be distinguished in the confusion. Away! help! away!

The folks are now seen flying from the village with their goods and chattels—children in their bare shirts and with naked feet—carrying off beds and chairs, pots and pans. Has the fire spread so fearfully, or is this all the effect of fright?

"Where's the fire?"

"At Hans the Fiddler's."

And the driver lashed his horses, and every man seemed to press forward with increased ardor to fly to the succor.

As they approached the spot, it was clearly impossible to save the burning cottage; and all efforts were therefore directed to prevent the flames extending to the adjoining houses. Just then every body was busied in trying to save a horse and two cows from the shed; but the animals, terrified by the fire, would not quit the spot, until their eyes were bandaged, and they were driven out by force.

"Where's old Hans?" was the cry on all sides.

"Burnt in his bed to a certainty," said some. Others declared that he had escaped. Nobody knew the truth.

The old fiddler had neither child nor kinsfolk, and yet all the people grieved for him; and those who had come from the villages round about reproached the inhabitants for not having looked after the fate of the poor fellow. Presently it was reported that he had been seen in Urban the smith's barn; another said that he was sitting up in the church crying and moaning—the first time he had been there without his fiddle. But neither in the barn nor in the church was old Hans to be found, and again it was declared that he had been burnt to death in his house, and that his groans had actually been heard; but, it was added, all too late to save him, for the flames had already burst through the roof, and the glass of the windows was sent flying across the road.

The day was just beginning to dawn when all danger of the fire spreading was past; and leaving the smouldering ruins, the folks from a distance set out on their return.

A strange apparition was now seen coming down the mountain-side, as if out of the gray mists of morning. In a cart drawn by two oxen sat a haggard figure, dressed in his bare shirt, and his shoulders wrapped in a horse-cloth. The morning breeze played in the long white locks of the old man, whose wan features were framed, as it were, by a short, bristly, snow-white beard. In his hands he clutched a fiddle and fiddlestick. It was old Hans, the village fiddler. Some of the lads had found him at the edge of the forest, on the spot where we had caught a glimpse of him, looking like a ghostly apparition, as we rattled past with the engine. There he was found standing in his shirt, and holding his fiddle in both his hands pressed tightly to his breast.

As they drew near the village, he took his fiddle and played his favorite waltz. Every eye was turned on the strange-looking man, and all welcomed his return, as if he had risen from the grave.

"Give me a drink!" he exclaimed to the first person who held out a hand to him. "I'm burnt up with thirst!"

A glass of water was brought him.

"Bah!" cried the old man; "'twere a sin to quench such a thirst as mine with water; bring me some wine! Or has the horrid red cock drunk up all my wine too?"

And again he fell to fiddling lustily, until they arrived at the spot of the fire. He got down from the cart, and entered a neighbor's cottage. All the folks pressed up to the old fiddler, tendering words of comfort, and promising that they would all help him to rebuild his cottage.

"No, no!" replied Hans; "'tis all well. I have no home—I'm one of the cuckoo tribe that has no resting-place of its own, and only now and then slips into the swallow's nest. For the short time I have to live, I shall have no trouble in finding quarters wherever I go. I can now climb up into a tree again, and look down upon the world in which I have no longer any thing to call my own. Ay, ay, 'twas wrong in me ever to have had any thing of my own except my precious little fiddle here!"

No objection was raised to the reasoning of the strange old man, and the country-folks from a distance went their ways home with the satisfaction of knowing that the old fiddler was still alive and well. Hans properly belonged to the whole country round about: his loss would have been a public one: much as if the old linden-tree on the Landeck Hill close by had been thrown down unexpectedly in the night Hans was as merry as a grig when Caspar the smith gave him an old shirt, the carpenter Joseph a pair of breeches—and so on. "Well, to be sure, folks may now say that I carry the whole village on my back!" said he; and he gave to each article of dress the name of the donor. "A coat indeed like this, which a friend has worn nicely smooth for one, fits to a T. I was never at my ease in a new coat; and you know I used always to go to the church, and rub the sleeves in the wax that dropped from the holy tapers, to make them comfortable and fit for wear. But this time I'm saved the trouble, and I'm for all the world like a new-born babe who is fitted with clothes without measuring. Ay, ay, you may laugh; but 'tis a fact—I'm new-born."

And in truth it quite seemed so with the old man: the wild merriment of former years, which had slumbered for a while, all burst out anew.

A fellow just now entered who had been active in extinguishing the fire, and having his hand in the work, had been at the same time no less actively engaged in quenching a certain internal fire—and in truth, as was plain to be seen, more than was needed. On seeing him, the old fiddler cried out, "By Jove, how I envy the fellow's jollity!" All the folks laughed; but presently the merriment was interrupted by the entrance of the magistrate with his notary, come to investigate the cause of the fire, and take an inventory of the damage.

Old Hans openly confessed his fault. He had the odd peculiarity of carrying about him, in all his pockets, a little box of lucifer matches, in order never to be at a loss when he wanted to light his pipe. Whenever any one called on him, and wherever he went, his fingers were almost unconsciously playing with the matches. Often and often he was heard to exclaim, "Provoking enough! that these matches should come into fashion just as I am going off the stage. Look! a light in the twinkling of an eye! Only think of all the time I've lost in the course of my life in striking a light with the old flint and steel,—days, weeks, ay, years!"

The fire had, to all appearances, originated with this child's play of the old man, and the magistrate said with regret that he must inflict the legal penalty for his carelessness. "However, at all events 'tis well 'tis no worse," he added; "you are in truth the last of the fiddlers; in our dull, plodding times, you are a relic of the past—of a merry, careless age. 'Twould have been a grievous thing if you had come to such a miserable end."

"Look ye, your worship, I ought to have been a parson," said Hans; "and I should have preached to the folks after this fashion:—'Don't set too much store on life, and it can't hurt you; look on every thing as foolery, and then you'll be cleverer than all the rest. If the world was always merry—if folks did nothing but work and dance, there would be no need of schoolmasters—no need of learning to write and read—no parsons—and (by your worship's pardon) no magistrates. The whole world is a big fiddle—the strings are tuned—Fortune plays upon them; but some one is wanted to be constantly screwing up the strings; and this is a job for the parson and magistrate. There's nothing but turning and screwing, and turning and scraping, and the dance never begins.'"

The fiddler's tongue went running on in this way, until his worship at length took a friendly leave of him. We shall, however, remain, and tell the reader something of the history of this strange character.

It is now nearly thirty years since the old man first made his appearance in the village, just at the time when the new church was consecrated. When he first came among the villagers, he played for three days and three nights almost incessantly the maddest tunes. Superstitious folks muttered one to another that it must be Old Nick himself who could draw such spirit and life from the instrument, as never to let any one have rest or quiet any more than he seemed to require it himself. During the whole of this time he scarcely ate a morsel, and only drank—but in potent draughts—during the pauses. Often it seemed as if he did not stir a finger, but merely laid the fiddlestick on the strings, and magic sounds instantly came out of them, while the fiddle-bow hopped up and down of itself.