France, or the garden walks of Padua. And freshest and daintiest of all, we find it in the poet's snatches of song and rugged bursts of minstrelsy. This indeed is the enchantment that subdues us as the dimpled page advances to the gay theatre lights, and pleading the woes of three hundred years ago, and exhorting now as he exhorted then, bids "Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more." It is this which captivates as the scene pauses and the drama halts, that the eye may be carried back through a vista of three centuries to dwell upon a simple "lover and his lass" as they wander "between the acres of the rye." The subject of swearing the writer has come to regard as one of the many indices by which the paths of our ancestors may be traced. Holding in fitting estimation the monuments of their industry and their prudence, none the less may we seek to view the departed generations in their hours of carelessness and frolic, and may peer into their casinos and their tiring-rooms, their spital-houses and their bridewells. What manner of men were they? we ask. Were they sparkling and festive, tellers of rare stories, dealers in racy jokes? Were they wholesome in their living, manly and courageous in their lives, or were they loose and liquorish, winking at falsehood and cajoling the truth? And if the monumental record of their virtues be a just one, why did they heirloom on posterity this bitter heritage of swearing? The truth would seem to be that in every society there has existed a certain _corps d'elite_, which, distinguished at once by its breeding and its brusquerie, has perversely thought fit to adopt the insignia of swearing as its own particular device. In advancing this explanation of the fidelity with which posterity has exercised its watchfulness over the bequest of swearing, we must not for a moment be misunderstood. It is far from our purpose to associate good breeding with the use of coarse vituperation, but at the same time it is impossible to overlook the fact that swearing has mostly owed its favour and its audacity to the practice of really cultivated men. The first contrivers of our modern methods of swearing took pains to raise an air of mystery and exclusiveness around their favourite art. "To be an accomplished gentleman," says Carlo Buffone, in Ben Jonson's comedy,[30] "have two or three peculiar oaths to swear by that no man else swears"; and it would seem to have been one of the gravest charges brought against the Hectors and Bobadils of the Elizabethan stage, that they dare assume acquaintance with courtly oaths. Even Hotspur is portrayed by the dramatist as a most precise and scrupulous swearer. It may be seen how he reproaches Lady Percy for swearing "like a comfit-maker's wife," and bids her "swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art!" and not to mince her oaths like some city madam or seller of gingerbread.[31] For upwards of two centuries, the notion of finish and exclusiveness in oath-taking