Having stated that punning is a natural discharge, it follows that where that discharge is too great, fome remedy fhould be taken to keep it within due bounds. But in this, I own, I have been disappointed in every experiment. I have had feveral patients recommended to me in this diforder, but, after long and repeated trials, have been obliged to difmifs them as incurable. Severe remedies are always improper, and it is a very difficult matter to get at the feat of the diforder: nay, what is worse, many think the diforder a credit to them, and when that is the cafe, we cannot be furprifed if they refufe to hear of a remedy. But a dif cuffion of the medicines proper for this disease would lead me into a wide field, and although it might procure me the approbation of the regular faculty, I am afraid that, with the parties affected, I thould have only the reputation of a quack.

C.

SWEARING, NOT A NATURAL DISCHARGE. [From the fame.]

MR. EDITOR,

ON parting with a few friends fome evenings ago,

one of them, who walked my way, obferved, "I fhould admire that young man much more, who entertained us to-night with his wit and vivacity, if he had not fuch a habit of fwearing."

These words, which nearly clofed our converfation for the night, threw me into a reverie or fit of thinking, on a habit so strange as that of wearing, or interlarding every fentence in converfation with certain expletives, which are too well known to require specifying here; and this is not upon extraordinary emergencies, or bursts of paffion, which fome think may admit of a little fwearing (although, perhaps, this

is a mistake), but continually, on all occafions, and as we may say, in cool blood.

A habit of fwearing! It appears the most unaccountable of all our bad habits. It leads from nothing, and to nothing. How a man may learn to fwear, may be probably determined by the company he keeps; but how it becomes a fixed habit, is a more difficult question to answer, and that, because we obferve it in, otherwise, men of fenfe and education. Ask them why they use fo many ftrange oaths to eke out their converfation, and they will frankly confefs it is an idle cuftom. Afk them to give it over, and they will, while you are prefent, put on some restraint, but return again, from the force of habit, to their original quantity.

Swearing, even when not a habit, is a very unaccountable thing. There is fomething to be faid for every bad practice, but this. No man defends itno man has written in its favour. Atheism, blafphemy, drunkenness, and every species of profligacy, have had their open and avowed advocates among the pretended philofophers of our day; but fwearing has been left to ftand or fall by its own ftrength, and we find that it has strength to support itself against enemies of most potent charms, against common fenfe and good manners; for it is to be found in all ranks of life, in polished as well as the ruder circles; in brilliant affemblies as well as humble parties; in fashionable fquares as well as blind alleys. Yet ftill, no one defends it; an effay in its favour would be a great curiofity, yet the genius of mankind has not yet been adequate to fuch a work. How wonderful that a prac tice fhould have fo long fubfifted in full vigour, for which not a fyllable of excufe or vindication has ever appeared in print!

And here, by the by, is one of its fingular characteristics. It can scarcely ever appear in print. The

few

few expreffions used on the ftage, as copied from real life, if printed, are printed with the cautious -or****, which used to be employed in feditious "writings. No man has ventured to print an entire fwearing scene, fuch as may be often heard in houses as well as in the ftreets. Nay, what is more, I have never heard of any habitual fwearer, who conveyed his oaths by post to his correfpondents. I have feen many letters from genilemen of the above defcription, but they were as pure from fwearing as the circular charge of a bishop. I almost wish they would fwear a little with the pen; the fight would probably evince the abfurdity which does not at prefent strike in the way of hearing. I am perfuaded, that if one of our round fwearers were to fee half an hour of his converfation committed to paper, he would deny it, as the ravings of a bedlamite; or, at leaft, he would be furprifed how any man fhould make use of fo many words without any meaning.

In what I have faid of swearing on the stage, I may, perhaps, be in fome measure liable to contradiction. I am aware, indeed, that of late more ftage oaths than ufual have crept into print, but I have the opinion of the best critics on my fide, that they fhamefully deform the page, and are an infult to the decency of the age: another inftance in which poor fwearing is miferably deferted and forfaken, having none to ftand up in its defence, no not even they who are most addicted to it.

I have, indeed, heard fome perfons affert, whether in jeft or earnest my readers muft judge, that swearing is a natural discharge, and therefore to be regulated by the laws which we apply to bodily discharges in general. Now, it ftruck me that this defence would not be admitted by the learned gentlemen of Warwick Lane; and upon application to one of them on this fubject, he very freely gave me his opinion, which, as I paid no fee for it, I fhall as freely communicate to my readers.

"Swear

Swearing," faid my learned friend Dr. Periwigmenos, "cannot be a natural difcharge, because it hath none of the characteristics of a natural discharge. First, It is to be observed, that a natural discharge is for the promotion of health, but it never yet was known that fwearing was beneficial to the health; nor can it be said that swearers are stronger or ftouter men than others, nor do fwearers live to a greater age. An old man, indeed, may be heard to swear, as my old porter does, when he is obliged to get up in the night, but he is not old because he fwears. On the contrary, I fufpect that fwearers are very liable to certain dif orders, as inflammations; and in their own language, they seem to confefs that fwearing is rather a fit than a natural discharge: now we know that fits are very unnatural things. Secondly, Swearing is not a natural difcharge, becaufe it is violent and ungovernable. Who ever heard of a gentle fwearing, as we fay, a gentle perfpiration? Thirdly, It is effential to natural difcharges, that they be regular; but no man has yet pretended to say that swearing is not the most irregular thing in the world, and the caufe of much want of regularity in all who practise, or even who hear it. Fourthly, Moft natural discharges are imperceptible and folitary; it would be very abfurd, therefore, to call fwearing a natural discharge, because it almost always requires the prefence of two perfons, at least, to promote it; fuch as a couple of dear friends, a mafter and his fervant; or, in very ordinary cafes, even a man and his wife. If it be a natural discharge, in the name of decency, why affront a company with it? Let a temple be built, and dedicated, for this purpose in fome folitary place, where the ears of delicate people may not be offended with fuch copious difcharges of oaths and curfes. But it is plain that this argument will not hold good. Then, fifthly, it is peculiar to natural discharges, that, if obftructed, a

difeafe

disease comes on; if perfpiration, for example, is obstructed, why, there are colds, and coughs, and fevers. But who ever heard of a man fuffering by the obstruction of fwearing? They tell us, indeed, fometimes, that when any constraint is upon them, as the prefence of a superior, the infide of a church, or even the fight of a cudgel, they are ready to burft: but there is no cafe on the records of medicine of any fuch event taking place. No: a pent-up oath will never hurt any man; and if the fource of fwearing were to be dammed up (they like that word, it founds fo like fwearing), I will venture to fay the parties will not fuffer in their health, but, on the contrary, be better men, both in body and mind. I have only one more argument on this fubject, and that is, fixthly, That natural discharges are fo called, because they are common to all mankind; and in this refpect, therefore, it is to be hoped, differ effentially from fwearing, which is confined to a certain defcription only of men, and is found among very few women, and thofe of the lower order, with, perhaps, half a dozen exceptions, to be picked up at the faro-tables. Upon all these accounts, my good friend," added Dr. Periwigmenos, "you plainly fee that they who would defend fwearing upon the ground of being a natural difcharge, underftand very little of the subject they are talking about. Had the cafe been otherwife, the College would not have been fo inattentive to the interefts of mankind, and their own, as to have omitted a lift of anti-fwearing medicines in the laft edition of the London Pharmacopoeia. No; no. All the natural discharges have been fettled long ago, and we have had too much plague with them to wish to add another to the collection."