Vulgar words in English Satires (Page 1)

This book at a glance

arse x 1
ass x 5
blockhead x 4
damn x 8
piss x 3
            
slut x 3
whore x 7
            

Page 1

~   ~   ~   Sentence 155   ~   ~   ~

_The Golden Ass_ of Apuleius is a clever sketch of contemporary manners in the second century, painting in vivid colours the reaction that had set in against scepticism, and the general appetite that prevailed for miracles and magic.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 733   ~   ~   ~

Syne Sweirness, at the second bidding, Came like a sow out of a midding, Full sleepy was his grunyie:[133] Mony swear bumbard belly huddroun,[134] Mony slut, daw, and sleepy duddroun, Him servit aye with sonnyie;[135] He drew them furth intill a chain, And Belial with a bridle rein Ever lashed them on the lunyie:[136] In Daunce they were so slaw of feet, They gave them in the fire a heat, And made them quicker of cunyie.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 809   ~   ~   ~

[Footnote 155: slut.]

~   ~   ~   Sentence 913   ~   ~   ~

If strange meats displease, Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste; But pedant's motley tongue, soldier's bombast, Mountebank's drug-tongue, nor the terms of law, Are strong enough preparatives to draw Me to hear this, yet I must be content With his tongue, in his tongue call'd Compliment; In which he can win widows, and pay scores, Make men speak treason, cozen subtlest whores, Outflatter favourites, or outlie either Jovius or Surius, or both together.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 944   ~   ~   ~

Who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes; Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 974   ~   ~   ~

They've found the slight With juice of lemons, onions, piss, to write; To break up seals and close 'em.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,001   ~   ~   ~

For 't has been held by many, that As Montaigne, playing with his cat, Complains she thought him but an ass, Much more she would Sir Hudibras, (For that the name our valiant Knight To all his challenges did write) But they're mistaken very much, 'Tis plain enough he was no such.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,127   ~   ~   ~

At thy well-sharpened thumb, from shore to shore, The trebles squeak with fear, the basses roar: Echoes from Pissing-Alley Shadwell call, And Shadwell they resound from Aston-Hall.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,171   ~   ~   ~

Where sold he bargains, whip-stitch, kiss my arse, Promis'd a play, and dwindled to a farce?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,234   ~   ~   ~

If GOD has not blessed you with the talent of rhyming, make use of my poor stock and welcome; let your verses run upon my feet: and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,273   ~   ~   ~

Thou damn'd antipodes to common-sense, Thou foil to Flecknoe, pr'ythee tell from whence Does all this mighty stock of dulness spring?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,496   ~   ~   ~

some pity show On cobblers militant below, Whom roguish boys in stormy nights Torment by pissing out their lights, Or thro' a chink convey their smoke Inclos'd artificers to choke.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,514   ~   ~   ~

And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be an universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every sluts' corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,535   ~   ~   ~

I therefore fly for justice and relief into the hands of that great rectifier of saddles and lover of mankind, Dr. Bentley, begging he will take this enormous grievance into his most modern consideration; and if it should so happen that the furniture of an ass in the shape of a second part must for my sins be clapped, by mistake, upon my back, that he will immediately please, in the presence of the world, to lighten me of the burden, and take it home to his own house till the true beast thinks fit to call for it.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,596   ~   ~   ~

If I should venture, in a windy day, to affirm to your Highness that there is a large cloud near the horizon in the form of a bear, another in the zenith with the head of an ass, a third to the westward with claws like a dragon; and your Highness should in a few minutes think fit to examine the truth, it is certain they would be all changed in figure and position, new ones would arise, and all we could agree upon would be, that clouds there were, but that I was grossly mistaken in the zoography and topography of them.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,697   ~   ~   ~

Her learning, and her genius too, decays; And dark and cold are her declining days; As if men now were of another cast, They meanly live on alms of ages past, Men still are men; and they who boldly dare, Shall triumph o'er the sons of cold despair; Or, if they fail, they justly still take place Of such who run in debt for their disgrace; Who borrow much, then fairly make it known, And damn it with improvements of their own.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,704   ~   ~   ~

Good authors damn'd, have their revenge in this, To see what wretches gain the praise they miss.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,731   ~   ~   ~

Though Phoebus and the Nine for ever mow, Rank folly underneath the scythe will grow The plenteous harvest calls me forward still, Till I surpass in length my lawyer's bill; A Welsh descent, which well-paid heralds damn; Or, longer still, a Dutchman's epigram.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,781   ~   ~   ~

The fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend, And Godlike an attempt the world to mend, The world, where lucky throws to blockheads fall, Knaves know the game, and honest men pay all.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,945   ~   ~   ~

View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:-- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,976   ~   ~   ~

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,979   ~   ~   ~

that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,005   ~   ~   ~

that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: That harmless mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,083   ~   ~   ~

shall Gibber's son, without rebuke, Swear like a lord, or Rich out-whore a duke?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,093   ~   ~   ~

Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth: But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore; Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more; Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess; Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless; In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws, Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,103   ~   ~   ~

The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry-- "Nothing is sacred now but villainy ".

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,158   ~   ~   ~

From meaner minds though smaller fines content, The plunder'd palace, or sequester'd rent; Mark'd out by dang'rous parts, he meets the shock, And fatal Learning leads him to the block: Around his tomb let Art and Genius weep, But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,218   ~   ~   ~

I know this is unpopular; I know 'Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damn'd For hoping no one else may e'er be so; I know my catechism: I know we 're cramm'd With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow; I know that all save England's church have shamm'd; And that the other twice two hundred churches And synagogues have made a _damn'd_ bad purchase.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,222   ~   ~   ~

I am, God knows, as helpless as the devil can wish, And not a whit more difficult to damn, Than is to bring to land a late-hooked fish, Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb; Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish, As one day will be that immortal fry Of almost everybody born to die.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,318   ~   ~   ~

Seductive Waltz!--though on thy native shore Even Werter's self proclaim'd thee half a whore: Werter--to decent vice though much inclined, Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind-- Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staƫl, Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball; The fashion hails--from countesses to queens, And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes; Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads, And turns--if nothing else--at least our _heads_; With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce.

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