employment. Moreover we desire it may be remembered that by the passing of this bill the nobility and gentry will have their old coaches lie upon their hands, which are now employed by our Company.

And we further hope that frequent funerals will not be discouraged, as is by this bill proposed, it being the only method left of carrying some people to church.

We are afraid that by the hardships of this bill our Company will be reduced to leave their business here, and practise at York and Bristol, where the free use of bad medicines will still be allowed.

It is therefore hoped that no specious pretence whatsoever will be thought sufficient to introduce an arbitrary and unlimited power for people to live (in defiance of art) as long as they can by the course of nature, to the prejudice of our Company, and the decay of trade.

That as our Company are like to suffer in some measure by the power given to physicians to dissect the bodies of malefactors, we humbly hope that the manufacture of cases for skeletons will be reserved solely to the coffin-makers.

We likewise humbly presume that the interests of the several trades and professions which depend upon ours may be regarded; such as that of hearses, coaches, coffins, epitaphs, and bell-ropes, stone-cutters, feather-men, and bell-ringers; and especially the manufacturers of crapes, and the makers of snuff, who use great quantities of old coffins, and who, considered in the consumption of their drugs, employ by far the greatest number of hands of any manufacture of the kingdom.

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF

MR. JOHN GINGLICUTT'S TREATISE

CONCERNING THE

ALTERCATION OR SCOLDING OF THE ANCIENTS.

BY THE AUTHOR'.

I was born near the Monument of that dreadful fire which consumed this august city, where my mother, Mrs. Judith Ginglicutt, being soon after my birth left a widow, has continued to sell some fishes of the testaceous kind, which exert their stimulating quality on the constitutions of such as eat them, and in the discourse of such as vend them. My mother, by an assiduous and honest traffic in the aforesaid commodity, acquired wherewith, not only to maintain, but liberally to educate me, her only child.

When I became thoroughly acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors, I thought it incumbent upon me to do something towards the honour of the place of my nativity, and to vindicate the rhetoric of this ancient forum of our metropolis from the aspersions of the illiterate, by composing a Treatise of the Altercation of the Ancients; wherein I have demonstrated that the purity, sincerity, and simplicity of their diction is no where so well preserved as amongst my neighbourhood.

The word altercation, which properly signifies debating, has likewise been translated scolding; therefore, complying with modern barbarity, I have taken it in the most extensive sense.

I propose publishing this my treatise by subscription; the reasons which have induced me to do it at this time are, first, to rectify a general mistake of the moderns, who find fault

1 Published in 1731. See pages 132-3.

with the acute style of the present political disputations. Secondly, to administer comfort unto such as think themselves abused on either side, by shewing that calling of names is true Greek and Roman eloquence, and bearing such appellations is Greek and Roman virtue. Thirdly, to dissipate the fears of some well-meaning people, who think our liberty in danger, which is impossible, as long as this truly ancient and polite rhetoric subsists, which is both the symptom and cause of public liberty. Fourthly, to assist the promising geniuses which are daily rising in my native country.

The mistake of people who censure the plain appellations and epithets which the political antagonists on each side bestow on their adversaries proceeds from two causes; the first is the not sufficiently distinguishing between propriety and truth of speech. Propriety of language is when an author maketh use of the expression which is most apposite to his own idea, but doth not suppose the idea to be either absolutely true or false: thus he who thinks, and calls his adversary a rogue, certainly speaks properly, though perhaps not truly; those terms of objurgation which so offend the moderns, are only short and significant words to express a complex idea. Thus tell a modern, 'Sir, you have often deceived me,' it would only put him upon his own vindication; but if you call him a cheat, you run the risk of a drubbing: and pray what should make so wide a difference between a circumlocution and a nounsubstantive, which both express the same thing? The second cause of this general mistake, is ignorance of the languages and manners of purest antiquity, wherein this opprobrious language (so much censured nowadays) was quite familiar, as I have showed through the whole body of my work. the first chapter I have settled the notion of the term barbarous, which was constantly applied to every thing that was not Greek or Roman, and ought still to retain the same signification; in consequence of which, I have proved that the ceremonious, humble, low manner of speech and address of the moderns, their pompous titles of honour, coats of arms, and all the jargon of heraldry and chivalry, are gothic and barbarous, introduced by the fall of the republics of Greece and Rome. Did ever a citizen of any of those republics say to his equal or superior, 'your devoted slave'? On the contrary, the dialect of those republics, where they call things by

their plain names, is quite polite, as the other is unclassical and barbarous. Polite and civil, the first a Greek, the second a Latin word, signify what is customary in a well-ordered city, or commonwealth; and though the ignorant may be forgiven, it is quite scandalous in men of a liberal education, to find fault with calling of names in public papers and harangues, and much more so, to make them the subjects of quarrels, which every body knows is gothic. In my first chapter, I settle the original right of this sort of altercation, which is most indefeasible and unlimited in the female sex amongst all ranks and degrees, except between old and young women; the latter being supposed to want the protection and benevolent assistance of the former. Secondly, that there is no mutual right of altercation between different sexes, except in the matrimonial state. Thirdly, that the right of altercation subsists between personages of equal rank, gods, goddesses, monarchs, generals, and public orators; likewise between republican orators and monarchs. Fourthly, between the people of free governments and their magistrates; but not between monarchs and their individual subjects. I have shown that antiquity abounds with examples of all those kinds.

Homer has given us a very pompous and decent representation of the altercation of the divinities in a full assembly: Juno tells Jupiter, that he was quite insufferable, surly and reserved as to her; though that hussy, Venus, would get it out of him. Jupiter as sharply rebukes her for her curiosity, and at last threatens her with a little corporal correction; and which is most strange, poor Vulcan the blacksmith seems to be the only civil person in the whole assembly, (according to the modern notion of civility) for he speaks to his mother not to disturb good company. Another time, when Juno was reproaching Jupiter for being hard-hearted to her, in not letting her get her will of the Trojans, he tells her politely, 'I wish you had Priamus and all his children raw in your guts.' Neptune rails at his brother Jupiter most bitterly; 'Let him,' quoth he, 'govern his own bastards, and not meddle out of his province.' What a terrible scuffle amongst those deities, when Jupiter gave them leave each to act according to his own inclination in the Trojan War! What scolding, kicking, tripping up of heels! Minerva calls Mars a blockhead, &c.

Apollo calls Neptune a fool, &c.-Jupiter all the

while shaking his sides with laughter, well judging that it was necessary to give the divinities proper opportunities to vent their spleen at each other; nor does it appear that there was ever any offence taken at words.

In this chapter, for the benefit of the ladies, I have made a collection of epithets in use amongst the divinities, proper on parallel occasions; for sure no person of quality can think herself abused in the language of the goddesses?

Homer, according to his usual propriety of manners and sentiments, introduceth his heroes talking in the same dialect. Achilles, the first word, calls Agamemnon covetous, impudent, cunning fox, Volpone, as you might say, (which I have observed, has always been a fatal word for raising sedition) dog-eyed, deer-hearted, drunken sot. Agamemnon answers very sharply, be gone with your Myrmidons, I will take your wench from you in spite of your teeth.' The poet imagined no less than three scolding bouts necessary to support this episode, and makes Jupiter approve of the termagant spirit of Achilles on all these occasions. Hector, without any offence, chides his brother Paris, (who by the way wanted not courage) for being too handsome, well dressed, and a favourite of the ladies, &c. Ulysses rebukes Agamemnon most sharply for proposing a retreat, and Agamemnon thanks him for it.

This laudable right of objurgation descended to the heroes of latter times, which they used with great freedom in terms which, for time immemorial, have been in fashion in the place of my nativity.

Philip, King of Macedon, asserted this right of scolding as a conqueror, after the Battle of Cheronæa, indulged his joy for the victory by getting extremely drunk, dancing all night in the field of battle, and going from rank to rank calling his prisoners names; Damades, one of them, with the same decent freedom, told Philip, that he acted the part of Thersites, rather than that of Agamemnon. Philip, sensible that his prisoner might still use his tongue, which was not disarmed, was highly delighted with the smartness of the repartee, and for the sake of this bon mot dismissed the prisoners without ransom, though by the way, there was not so much in it, for Agamemnon was both a great scold and a great captain.

When polite learning revived in this part of the world, about the time of Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, both

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