 send Mercury, with the rules and compasses, if he can be spared, with
my compliments to -- no matter.
    Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and
imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two hundred
and fifty years last past, as originals, -- except St. Paul's thumb, -- God's
flesh, and God's fish, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made
them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, 'tis not much matter whether they were
fish or flesh; -- else, I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst
them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus, a thousand
times: but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit
of the original! - It is thought to be no bad oath, -- and by itself passes very
well -- »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
consider'd 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 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
