Notes and Queries, Number 169, January 22, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

In some of the earlier numbers of N. & Q., there occur disquisitions as to the origin of the term blackguard , and the time at which it came into use in England in its present sense. But the communications of your correspondents have not been satisfactory upon either point—they have not shown the period at which the word came to be accepted in its present sense ; and their quotations all apply to its use in a much more simple meaning, and one totally different from that which we now attach to it.
One class of these quotations (Vol. ii., pp. 171. 285.), such as the passages from Butler and Fuller, refer obviously to a popular superstition, during an age when the belief in witchcraft and hobgoblins was universal; and when such creatures of fancy were assigned as Black Guards to his Satanic majesty. Who can conceive, says Fuller in the paragraph extracted, but that such a Prince-principal of Darkness must be proportionally attended by a Black Guard of monstrous opinions? ( Church History , b. ix. c. xvi.) And in the verses of Butler referred to, Hudibras, when deceived by Ralpho counterfeiting a ghost in the dark,—
Believed it was some drolling sprite
That staid upon the guard at night:
and thereupon in his trepidation discourses with the Squire as follows:
Thought he, How does the Devil know
What 'twas that I design'd to do?
His office of intelligence,
His oracles, are ceas'd long since;
And he knows nothing of the Saints,
But what some treach'rous spy acquaints.