GOD'S REVENGE AGAINST PUNNING. SHOWING THE MISERABLE FATES OF PERSONS ADDICTED TO THIS CRYING SIN, IN COURT AND TOWN. [This piece is by Swift.] MANIFOLD have been the judgments, which heaven, from time to time, for the chastisement of a sinful people, has inflicted on whole nations. For when the degeneracy becomes common, 'tis but just the punishment should be general. Of this kind, in our own unfortunate country, was that destructive pestilence, whose mortality was so fatal, as to sweep away, if Sir William Petty may be believed, five millions of Christian souls, beside women and Jews. Such also was that dreadful conflagration ensuing, in this famous metropolis of London, which consumed, according to the computation of Sir Samuel Morland, one hundred thousand houses, not to mention churches and stables. Scarce had this unhappy nation recovered these funeste disasters, when the abomination of playhouses rose up in this land; from hence hath an inundation of obscenity flowed from the court and overspread the kingdom; even infants disfigured the walls of holy temples with exorbitant representations of the members of generation; nay, no sooner had they learnt to spell, but they had wickedness enough to write the names thereof in large capitals: an enormity observed by travellers to be found in no country but England. But when whoring and popery were driven hence by the happy Revolution, still the nation so greatly offended, that Socinianism, Arianism, and Whistonism triumphed in our streets, and were in a manner become universal. And yet still, after all these visitations, it has pleased Heaven to visit us with a contagion more epidemical, and of consequence more fatal: this was foretold to us, first, by that unparalleled eclipse in 1714: secondly, by the dreadful coruscation in the air this present year: and thirdly, by the nine comets seen at once over Soho Square, by Mrs Katharine Wadlington and others; a contagion that first crept in among the first quality, descended to their footmen, and infused itself into their ladies: I mean the woful practice of PUNNING. This does occasion the corruption of our language, and therein of the word of God translated into our language, which certainly every sober Christian must tremble at. Now such is the enormity of this abomination, that our very nobles not only commit punning over tea, and in taverns, but even on the Lord's day, and in the king's chapel: therefore to deter men from this evil practice, I shall give some true and dreadful examples of God's revenge against punsters. , The right honourable *, but it is not safe to insert the name of an eminent nobleman in this paper, yet I will venture to say that such a one has been seen; which is all we can say, considering the largeness of his sleeves: this young nobleman was not only a flagitious punster himself, but was *The Earl of Pembroke, probably. |