But beyond the intuitive feeling that the cognomen does apply to this individual, there is little to advance which can clear up the question as to the precise origin of the term. It is supposed that our popular notion of the devil is derived from the Roman fauni. The shaggy coat, the horns and cloven feet, are certainly peculiar to the classical treatment of this supernatural being. It is inferred therefore that the idea has been transmitted to us through the medium of our early moralities and interludes. This course of descent derives colour from the fact that the like paraphernalia are not the subject of opprobrious mention in the Scriptures,[51] and that hence our notion of the devil must be drawn from pagan rather than biblical influences. It is accordingly suggested that “old Harry,” the subject of so much irreverent and irresponsible reference, is no other than “old hairy” of the earliest phases of theatrical representation.
A jocose turn seems also to have been given to that common contraction of the Satanic name of which Mistress Page makes use in the ‘Merry Wives’ when she exclaims, “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is!” It does not however seem that the expression can be traced earlier than Heywood’s ‘Edward the Fourth,’ of the date 1600, where we meet with the passage: “What the dickens! Is it love that makes you prate to me so fondly?” The word is, however, less of an oath than an exclamation.
Probably few persons who allow themselves the enjoyment of that rather jocular expletive, the deuce! are in the least aware of the remote antiquity of this delectable figure of speech. It is perhaps the most ancient of all the oaths and apologies for oaths that have come down to us, and which after a long and vicissitudinous transit have arrived at last, neither mutilated or dismembered. So old is it that it dates from the very formation of the language, but of so tainted a pedigree that in spite of some six hundred years of regular descent we can scarcely permit it to hold dictionary rank.
But, if the account we have to give of its origin can be credited, its history is singular as being intimately connected with one of the greatest social changes that have taken place in the national life. When we are told that the Norman conquerors imposed their language upon the subject race, we can understand with what difficulty and hesitation the Saxon thanes would attempt to assimilate the foreign tongue. So severe a lesson could only be learned by grasping at such words and phrases as were the more frequently recurring. To say that oaths and imprecations, and in fact all terms of anger and violence, would leave the more durable impression, is only to insist upon what we see daily exemplified in countries where the like process is going on. So it happened with a very favourite Norman exclamation. From the evidence of the earliest metrical romances we gather that Deus! was such a term of impatience as was constantly upon the lips of the descendants of the invaders. But no sooner did these more courtly and cultivated entertainments make their way into English vernacular, than we find that even in this latter shape the Norman deus is significantly preserved. There it appears among the rugged doggrel, a piece of continental finery stitched into the homely Saxon garb. It had dropped out of the vocabularies of the French romancists and had become the common property of the ordinary provincial poetaster. It had passed in fact from the French to the English tongue, and is claimed to be that very deuce with which we are most of us familiar.
Proof of this is afforded by comparison of the old romance of ‘Havelok the Dane’[52] as it exists in its home and in its foreign versions, and both of which are assigned to a period anterior to the fourteenth century. The translator was evidently a man of spirit, who to warm his Lincolnshire readers has added much original incident and local colouring. Nevertheless he carefully retained the Norman deus. It was evidently quite at home on the wolds and in the fens of the translator’s country, and only wanted the accent which Grimsby patrons would not fail to supply, to transform it to the expression with which we are so well acquainted.
There seems to be one oath of this description which bids fair to elude all guess-work as to its origin or meaning. It was formerly a practice in France to swear par le diable de Biterne. When so much exactitude had been employed to emphasise the whereabouts of this personage, it is only natural to inquire where the locality referred to might happen to be. We believe, however, that no satisfactory answer has as yet been returned. Some light is thrown upon the question by Francisque Michel who (in his ‘Récherches sur les Etoffes de Soie’) has shown that a present of some rare pailes de Biterne was sent to Alexander by Candace, one of the queens of Ethiopia. With this single ray of illumination we must be content.
CHAPTER IX.
“As I was finishing this worke, an oyster-wife tooke exception against me and called me knave.”—‘Lamentable Effect of Two Dangerous Comets,’ 1591.