Lynchburg Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1829-185?, 1851-07-31
BURG, THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 81, 1851.

IN as evidence. The reader. however
may guess of what sort Of stuff it is COM
posed, when he hears ,hat 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, black
After this, /; will hardly be climax to
add. that Peter Pindar said Of this Keeper
ofthe Kings Conscience, with great fell
city, that he .'swore his prayers"
We have been thus particular on the
subject Of Lord Thurlow's swearing, part
ly because it is the main point Of his lord
ships character with posterity, but chiefly
that we might show what has already been
intimated; namely; what nothing such
talk has become, and what high time it is
to treat it as il deserves and giveit no long
er in typography those implied awful sig
uifcancies, those under -brcaths and inten-
siications of initials and hyphens. which
make it pretend to have meaning, and
are the main cause why it survives. The
word damned in Lord Thurlows N south,
for all its emphasis and effect, had as little
meaning as the word Jlest or the word con
science. 1t has equally little meaning in
any body's. 1t no more signifies what it
was originally intended to signify, than the
word "cursed" means aaatAamatieea, or
the word "pont6cate" means dridge-ma
king. This is the natural death ofoaths in
any tremendous sense of the words, or in
any sense at all. They become things of
"souud and fury. signlying nothing" Who
that utters the word "zounds," imagines
that he is speaking Of suchawf and incon-
ceivable things as God wounds" though
literally he is doing so? Or what honest
farmer, who calculates "Pense the pigs
(such extraordinary things do reform and
vicissitude bring togcther!) supposes that
his Protestant soul is propitating the Pyr,
or Holy Sacrament boz, Of the Roman
Catholic Church, Yet time was, when the
innocent word "zounds" was written with
the same cupatory dashcs and hyphens as
the "damns that have had their day. and
pigs" we suppose, were exentcrated in
ike 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 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 baking it, thsn we
are Of ignoring any other harmless ejacula-
ton; and therefore, by reason of its very
nonsense and nothlngness, we like to see j,
written plainly out as if it seere nothing
instead of being mystifed into a more non
sensical importance. We have knownbet-
ter 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 ii
is a pity las 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 obso-
lctc "plagucs" and "nurriaus" Of our an
ccstors.
The only persons who profess to swear
TO any purpose, are the Roman Catholics;
and they, indeed, may well be said to swear
"tcrrlbly"-or rather they would do SO, il
any poor set ofhuman creatures, falliblc by
the necessity Of their natures. could Of q
surety know what is infallible, and be com,
mlssioned oy a writing on the sun or moor
to let US hear it. Lord Thurlow, with all
his damns, and his big voice, and his pow
cr OF imprisonment to boot. was babe Of
grace compared with the Roman Catholic
Bishop Of Rochester who Numbered fort
the famous excommunicatinn which the
Protestant chapter-clerk of that city gave
to the author Of Iristram .Sdndy TO put IL
his book; 10 the immortal honor OF said
Protestant, and disgrace Of the unalierable
and iniallible Roman Catholic Churchmen;
who, when delivered from their bonds, and
compilmented on partaking of the progress
and civilization common to the rest of the
world, take the first opportunity for show
ing us we are mistaken, and crying dam
nation to their delivercrs.
We shall not repeat the document allu-
ded to, lest we should be thought to give
the light matter Of which we have been
treating, a tone Of too much Importance
Suffice 1t 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 rca-
ders, who doubt whether the very word
"damn" should be utercd,) good Uncle
Toby interposes one ofthosc world-famous
pleasantries which have u AIKEN the old Va
tican beyond recovery
"Ourarmies swore tcrriblyin Flanders,
cried my Uncle Toby; but nothing to this.
For my own part, could not have the
heart to curse my dog So"