"If ever I should betake myself to swearing," says Sir John Hazlewood in the play, "I shall give very little concern to the fashion of the oath. Odd's bodikins will do well enough for me, and lack-a-daisy for my wife." Many other persons have been much of the same mind as this Sir John, and, possessing a certain esteem for the pomp and circumstance of swearing, have been impelled to cherish some curious substitute so that they might still get a little harmless amusement out of the vice. In this way they have contrived so to compound with their consciences as to become swearers in practice without being blasphemers in intention. The characteristic of this good Hazlewood is his extreme tolerance and neutrality. He is not among the swearers himself, but at a moment of danger he is prepared to join that body, taking service in the ranks. To disown allegiance altogether never for a moment coincides with his sense of the becoming. The worthy man is too loyal to the set rules of his acknowledged leaders, to harbour a notion so subversive and dangerous. And in this particular we shall find he has been followed by the greater number not only of his own degree and class but of all orders and conditions. A circumstance like this would seem to suggest some remarkable underlying motive as accounting for the wonderful omnipotence of swearing. It is possible that an occult virus congenial to its development is so insinuated into the composition of the human mind as to defy the power of ethics wholly to eradicate it. Can it be that the habit owes its existence and source of delight to some soothing and pleasureful qualities which, like the solace of the tobacco-leaf or the balm of the nightshade, the world will not willingly forego?