G-d damn you.'--Set it beside Ernulphus's--'God almighty the
Father damn you--God the Son damn you--God the Holy Ghost damn you'--you
see 'tis nothing.--There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up
to: besides, he is more copious in his invention--possess'd more of the
excellencies of a swearer--had such a thorough knowledge of the human
frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, and
articulations,--that when Ernulphus cursed--no part escaped him.--'Tis
true there is something of a hardness in his manner--and, as in Michael
Angelo, a want of grace--but then there is such a greatness of gusto!

My father, who generally look'd upon every thing in a light very
different from all mankind, would, after all, never allow this to be an
original.--He considered rather Ernulphus's anathema, as an institute
of swearing, in which, as he suspected, upon the decline of swearing in
some milder pontificate, Ernulphus, by order of the succeeding pope,
had with great learning and diligence collected together all the laws of
it;--for the same reason that Justinian, in the decline of the empire,
had ordered his chancellor Tribonian to collect the Roman or civil
laws all together into one code or digest--lest, through the rust of
time--and the fatality of all things committed to oral tradition--they
should be lost to the world for ever.

For this reason my father would oft-times affirm, there was not an oath
from the great and tremendous oath of William the conqueror (By the
splendour of God) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (Damn your
eyes) which was not to be found in Ernulphus.--In short, he would add--I
defy a man to swear out of it.

The hypothesis is, like most of my father's, singular and ingenious
too;--nor have I any objection to it, but that it overturns my own.

Chapter 2.VI.

--Bless my soul!--my poor mistress is ready to faint--and her pains are
gone--and the drops are done--and the bottle of julap is broke--and the
nurse has cut her arm--(and I, my thumb, cried Dr. Slop,) and the
child is where it was, continued Susannah,--and the midwife has fallen
backwards upon the edge of the fender, and bruised her hip as black as
your hat.--I'll look at it, quoth Dr Slop.--There is no need of that,
replied Susannah,--you had better look at my mistress--but the midwife
would gladly first give you an account how things are, so desires you
would go up stairs and speak to her this moment.

Human na