says Shakspeare’s Diana of Florence. And though from Shakspeare to Wolcot is a descent indeed, Peter Pindar is for once quotable when he writes,
“Truth needs not, John, the eloquence of oaths,
Not more so than a decent suit of clothes
Requires of broad gold lace the expensive glare,
That makes the linsey-woolsey million stare;
Besides, a proverb, suited to my wish,
Declares that swearing never catches fish.”
That scapegrace guardian of George Canning’s boyhood, Mr. Reddish, is said to have been significantly fond, on quite trivial occasions, of making affidavits,—“the refuge of base and vulgar minds,” Robert Bell calls them,—as if he, Reddish, felt that his word was not to be believed. Cowper is caustic in his application of St. Paul’s statement, that oaths terminate all strife, for “some men have surely then a peaceful life!” he infers, in lines that go on to tell how
“Asseveration blustering in your face
Makes contradiction such a hopeless case;