"Ribaldry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an officer of the Commune, one of the better class. They were two days without food, and were then driven into Paris like a flock of sheep, their black-and-white dress exposing them to all the insults and ribaldry of the excited multitude; for the Versaillais were in Paris, and hope, among those who knew the situation, was drawing to an end. That night the Dominicans were confined in a prison on the Avenue ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... discover that the convention of the Restoration needed new blood. A justification of its choice of material has been attempted: there is no inconsistency in affirming that the tendency to use it with a mere monotony of ribaldry was emphatic. Of this tendency the most notable and useful illustration is Wycherley, because in point of wit and dramatic skill he dwarfed his colleagues. As Mr. Swinburne has said, the art of Congreve is different in kind, not ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... which has been given to him, if he had been constant to the muckheap. He could never quite help approaching it now and then; but as time went on and the Empire substituted a sort of modified decency for the Feasts of Republican Reason and ribaldry, he tried things less uncomely. Adelaide de Meran (his longest single book), Tableaux de Societe, L'Officieux, and others, are of this class; and without presenting a single masterpiece in their own kind, they all, more or less, give evidence of that advance in the kind generally with ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... nakedness, or, at least, that unclothedness was unvirtuous, while the seller of calico and alcohol advised the purchase of his goods for the sake of style. He ridiculed tattooing and nudity, but he also laughed with ribaldry at the religious arguments. The confused indigene, driven by admonition and shame put on the hot and griming stuffs, and finally, had them kept on him by statute. The censor in the South Seas achieved his highest reach of holy ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... without profit to the author. The father's indiscretion let out the secret; and the sale, when the book was known to be written by a nobody, fell off at once, or so Bentham believed. The anonymous writer, however, was denounced and accused of being the author of much ribaldry, and among other accusations was said to be not only the translator but the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... pass the jest along the trenches Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches, You touched its ribaldry and made it fine. You stood beside us in our pain and weakness. We're glad to think You understand our weakness. Somehow it seems to help us ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... octagonal structure of Paul's Cross stood in the centre, and just beneath the stone pulpit, where the sermons were wont to be preached, stood a man with a throng round him, declaiming a ballad at the top of his sing-song voice, and causing much loud laughter by some ribaldry about ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the series, addressed to the secretary of a free-thought association, expresses his firmly rooted disgust at the use of mere ribaldry in attacking the theological husks which enclose a ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... different schools wrangle with one another in verse; contending about the principles of Grammar, or the rules of the Perfect Tenses and Supines. Others there are, who in Epigrams, or other compositions in numbers, use all that low ribaldry we read of in the Ancients; attacking their school-masters, but without mentioning names, with the old Fescennine licentiousness, and discharging their scoffs and sarcasms against them; touching the foibles of ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... the whole very fond of the Genoese; they have, it is true, much ribaldry and many vices, but they are a brave and chivalrous people, and have ever been so, and from them I have never experienced aught but ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... says Baxter, "insomuch that old Mr. Ash burst out into tears of joy." Who doubts that the profligate King avenged himself as soon as the backs of his unwelcome visitors were fairly turned, by coarse jests and ribaldry, directed against a class of men whom he despised and hated, but towards whom reasons of policy dictated a show ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... this public disregard for virtue, a spirit of ribaldry and disregard for the sanctions of religion had long been making its appearance in the literature of the time. The highest speculations which can occupy the attention of man were touched with a recklessness ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... the heads of George Calvert and Shakespeare, but in time of religious excitements was proclaimed to be the true hat of Guy Fawkes. I reclaimed it, and brought it to Princess Anne, and in a vain moment put it on my head and walked into the street. It was assailed with halloos and ribaldry." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... sidewalk and moved into the saloon, and the street was deserted for a time. Local No. 10 held its post down by the Company Store. It seemed like an age to the men at the head of the stairs. Yet Mr. Brotherton's easy running fire of ribaldry never stopped. He was excited and language came from his ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... a conjuror, and holding out live and plaintive fowls for sensual examination by pensive housewives. Also it has a town-hall in which I once witnessed the trial by court-martial of a second-lieutenant in the R.A.M.C. for ribaldry in his cups and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman—a spectacle as melancholy as it is rare, and of which the less said the better. It has a church with some lurid glass of indifferent quality, and (if I remember rightly) a ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was as pretty as an angel, and as coarse in his manners as any carter. He had curly chestnut hair, beautiful eyes, and an innocent-looking mouth which gave vent to language that even a gendarme would have hesitated to use. Brought up amidst all the ribaldry and profanity of the markets, he had the whole vocabulary of the place on the tip of his tongue. With his hands on his hips he often mimicked Grandmother Mehudin in her anger, and at these times the coarsest ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... countries employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety was not among the Deputies ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing lady prioress, and the broad-speaking gap-toothed wife of Bath. But enough of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... meeting with no attention, a Dutch concert began of songs in every possible, style—hunting songs, sea songs, jovial songs, love songs, comic songs, political songs, together with the lowest obscenity and ribaldry; all which, floated on the breeze through the sinuous labyrinths: of the mountains in company with the Catholic chaunts and anthems which attended the body of Captain le Harnois. Never man had merrier funeral. Singing being over, then commenced every ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the handle-bars like the Saturday afternoon shopmen! Wind in your hair, the broad blue Cotswold slopes about you, every ounce of leg-drive straining on the pedals—three minutes of it intoxicates you. You crawl up-wind roaring the most glorious nonsense, ribaldry, and exultation into the face of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... dignity, every sweet usage of that quiet life of mutual admiration in which perfect Shakespearian appreciation is expected to arise, that man is Frank Harris. Here is one who is extraordinarily qualified, by a range of sympathy and understanding that extends from the ribaldry of a buccaneer to the shyest tendernesses of the most sensitive poetry, to be all things to all men, yet whose proud humor it is to be to every man, provided the man is eminent and pretentious, the champion of his enemies. To the Archbishop he is an ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... of fierce ribaldry and ghastly mirth, the voice of the dying woman penetrated, speaking more slowly, more distinctly, more terribly than it had ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... word, is the best, for the variety and the most excellent continuance of the plot to the very end, that ever I saw, or think ever shall, and all possible, not only to be done in the time, but in most other respects very admittable, and without one word of ribaldry; and the house, by its frequent plaudits, did show their sufficient approbation. So home; with much ado in an hour getting a coach home, and, after writing letters at my office, I went home to supper and to bed, now resolving to set up my rest as to plays till Easter, if not Whitsuntide next, excepting ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... deadly earnestness, and a determination to wound, unparalleled in the history of letters. One of the most gifted of his critics, the late Rector of Lincoln College, speaks of the "Dunciad" roundly as "an amalgam of dirt, ribaldry, and petty spite," and M. Taine brought against it the more fatal charge of tediousness. But even if one admits the indiscriminate nature of that onslaught which confuses Bentley with such creatures of a day as Ralph and Oldmixon, it is impossible not to admire the surpassing skill of the measure; ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... pitch of Struwel Peterdom. Passers-by turned round to look at them, for well-dressed Englishmen do not often sit outside a Marchand des vins, especially one with such hair. But passers-by are polite in France and do not salute the unfamiliar with ribaldry. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... falsehood, and abuse heaped upon him called forth indignant remonstrance, even from the secular press. "To treat a subject of such overwhelming majesty and fearful consequences," with lightness and ribaldry, was declared by worldly men to be "not merely to sport with the feelings of its propagators and advocates," but "to make a jest of the day of judgment, to scoff at the Deity Himself, and contemn ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... southward, and after hours of exposure to danger, and great mental anguish, I was driven ashore amid the desolation of this sand. This comrade of yours found me scarce alive, ministered to my sore need, protected me through the hours of the night, stood but now between me and your ribaldry, counting his life but little beside the reputation of a woman. He may not wear the latest Paris fashions, Monsieur, but he ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... days are other things; that not only their manners, but their natures, are inverted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but the abused name, which every scribe usurps; that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, because in some men's abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over-true; but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... elevated minds; and here stands the barrier that separates them from the common and the waste. Is a man to be angry because an infant is fretful? Is a philosopher to unpack and throw away his philosophy, because an idiot has tried to overturn it on the road, and has pursued it with gibes and ribaldry? ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and not the least defect of the English comedies is their offensiveness. I may sum up the whole in one word by saying, that after all we know of the licentiousness of manners under Charles II., we are still lost in astonishment at the audacious ribaldry of Wycherley and Congreve. Decency is not merely violated in the grossest manner in single speeches, and frequently in the whole plot; but in the character of the rake, the fashionable debauchee, a moral scepticism is directly preached up, and marriage is the constant subject of their ridicule. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... "Less ribaldry," protested Smith pained. "This is a sad affair. You saw the man I was talking to? That was Kid Brady. I used to know him when I was out West. He wants to fight anyone in the country at a hundred and thirty-three pounds. We all have our ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... expression, the recollection derived, it may often be, accidentally and unwillingly from oral sources during the previous life, is one of the numerous phases of insanity; and not only are the song-fragments chanted by Ophelia, but even the ribaldry addressed to her by Hamlet, in the play-scene, vindicated, there being little doubt that Shakespeare intended the simulated madness of the latter through his intellectual supremacy to be equally true to nature, the manners of his age permitting the delineation in a form ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... whilst he persevered in visiting the church, or whether the seeds of a new and better growth of things began already to take root within him, I cannot take upon me to decide. To my relief and comfort, the solemn argument was never again profaned by ribaldry and unbecoming mirth; and, to my unfeigned delight, the teacher and the pupil were without one let or hinderance to their perfect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... on the first hearing of an indecorous or profane sentiment, and continued for some time to be excited at repetitions of the same, should at length be so effectually laid asleep, that the impudent language of ribaldry can awaken it no more, it is clear, that a victory will have been gained over his moral feelings: and if he should remember (and what is to hinder him, when the occurrences of the stage are marked with strong action, and accompanied with impressive scenery) the language, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... They adopted the dialect of the common people, and were more or less popular in their character. More details will be given when we examine them in their completer form. All such parts of these early scenic entertainments as were not mere conversation or ribaldry, were probably composed ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... street Is ribboned o'er with shade and shine, And webbed with wire and choked with heat; Where smokes with fouler smokes entwine; And where, at evening, darkling lanes Fume with a sickly ribaldry— Above the squalors and the pains, A ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... immediately followed by the sacrifice of a victim, which gave the ceremony a markedly religious significance. The customs connected with the bringing of the bride to the bridegroom's house—so beautifully depicted in Catullus' Epithalamium—her forcible abduction from her parents, the ribaldry of the bridegroom's companions, the throwing of nuts as a symbol of fecundity, the carrying of the bride over the threshold, a relic probably of primitive marriage by capture, the untying of the bridal knot on the bridal couch—are perhaps ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... distracted among the pretty merchants and their dealers, that I knew not where to run first." On the other hand, we find complaints that young fops hindered business by lolling on the counter an hour longer than was necessary, and annoyed the young women who served them with ingenious ribaldry.] ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... of a letter, which Saturninus was supposed to have written to Vitellius, and it was the more alarming since it broke out not when they were tired by their labours but in the middle of the day. Once the soldiers had vied with each other in courage and discipline: now they were rivals in ribaldry and riot. They were determined that the fury with which they denounced Aponius should not fall short of their outcry against Flavianus. The Moesian legions remembered that they had helped the Pannonian army to take their revenge; ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... each other almost sobered for the moment, and all speechless alike. Not even the clash of the wine-cups was now heard at the banqueting-table—nothing was audible but the sound, still fitfully rising and falling, of the voices of terror, ribaldry, and anguish from the street; and the hoarse convulsive accents of the hunchback, still uttering at intervals his fearful identification of the dead body above ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... grievances, in the "Representative Hall," "in Boylston Hall," &c. And we learn at their "talk," in the Representative Hall, they drew a large audience, and that audience was so indiscreet, (not to say indecorous or riotous,) as to cheer and applaud Apes in his ribaldry, misrepresentation and nonsense. Really, it looks to us, as if there was much misunderstanding upon the subject of the Marshpee difficulties. If there is any thing wrong we would have it put right; but how does ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... part of his work manifests such bitterness, and at the same time such a specious mode of argument, as his attack on the doctrine of redemption and substitutional atonement.(637) The work, in its satire and its blasphemous ribaldry, is a fit parallel to those of Voltaire. Every line is fresh from the writer's mind, and written with an acrimony which accounts for much of its influence. The religion which Paine substituted for Christianity was the belief in one God as revealed by science, in immortality as the continuance of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... having exhausted his vocabulary of jay-ribaldry, screeched one last outrageous bit of billingsgate into Flint's ears, shut up his tail like a fan, and darted off, a streak of blue and gray. The Butterfly Man's eyes followed him smilelessly; then they came back and dwelt for a moment upon the ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... I live, you shan't stop here one instant longer!" cried out Agellius, starting up. "Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don't you go? Keep your ribaldry ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... should heed, Take no town stamp, nor seem the city breed: Nor let them, aping young gallants, repeat Verses that run upon too tender feet; Nor fall into a low, indecent stile, Breaking dull jests to make the vulgar smile! For higher ranks such ribaldry despise, Condemn the Poet, and withhold the prize. Syllaba longa brevi subjecta, vocatur Iambus, Pes citus: unde etiam Trimetris accrescere jussit Nomen Iambeis, cum senos redderet ictus Primus ad extremum ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... in senseless ribaldry and inebriety (continues the reviewer) this song might be deemed very fine; but we shrewdly suspect that if the lines had been spoken at the theatre instead of being sung, the audience would have ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... that fellow of mine," he said. "Yet I cannot help being attached to the ruffian. He would die to serve me; but the ribaldry of an English crowd is too much ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... the insolence of wealth breaks into contemptuousness, or the turbulence of wine requires a vent; and Gulosulus seldom fails of being singled out on such emergencies, as one on whom any experiment of ribaldry may be safely tried. Sometimes his lordship finds himself inclined to exhibit a specimen of raillery for the diversion of his guests, and Gulosulus always supplies him with a subject of merriment. But he has learned to consider rudeness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... enjoyed themselves, ridiculing that young man! For five good minutes they stood there, shouting ribaldry at him, deriding him, mocking him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale jokes, they even made a few new ones and threw at him. They hurled at him all the private family jokes belonging to our set, and which must have been perfectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... boatmen who professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried from thirty to forty boatmen, and a number ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... with an especial mission. It was delivered on the express understanding that it should be despatched to England for the acceptance of H.B. Majesty, and not be kept upon the coast, exposed to the ribaldry of the hostile Fantis. The weapon, said Prince Bwaki, is so old that no one knows its origin, and it is held so precious that in processions it precedes the Great Royal Stool, or throne, of Ashanti. The leopard-skin, bound with gold upon ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... might lie in his master's house till they rotted from him, he would not regard to look into them; but contrariwise, would get all the bad and abominable books that he could, as beastly romances, and books full of ribaldry, even such as immediately tended to set all fleshly lusts on fire.[24] True, he durst not be known to have any of these to his master; therefore would he never let them be seen by him, but would keep them in close places, and peruse ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Steingerd, "an ill will is plain to hear. I shall tell Thorvald of this ribaldry: no man would sit still under ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... a muffled drum, suddenly recalled the party from their trifling to considerations of a graver interest. It was the signal for forming the columns of attack. In a moment the tone—the air of ribaldry was exchanged for a seriousness that befitted the occasion, and it seemed as if a momentary reproach passed over the minds of those who had most amused themselves at the expense of Cranstoun, for each, as he quitted the tent, gave his extended ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... this manner, by several good people of every persuasion; and that[121] and the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and atheism at the clamor which was made when the gentleman was first brought in there, and perhaps were agitated by the same devil when I took upon me to reprove them; though I did it at first with all the calmness, temper, and good manners that I could, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie was hustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung, wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, bore him with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unexpected, and consequently most unnatural, Events and Incidents; the most exaggerated Thoughts; the most verbose and bombast Expression; the most pompous Rhymes, and thundering Versification. In Comedy, nothing was so sure to please, as mean buffoonry, vile ribaldry, and unmannerly jests of fools and clowns. Yet even in these our Author's Wit buoys up, and is born above his subject: his Genius in those low parts is like some Prince of a Romance in the disguise of a Shepherd or Peasant; a certain Greatness and Spirit now and then break ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... time been fashionable to declaim against the theatrical performances translated from the German. They are pretty generally charged with having corrupted the English dramatic taste, and been the means of introducing the ribaldry and nonsense which, particularly in the form of songs, have so frequently appeared of late, and disgraced the London audiences, who countenanced such trash. This charge is more than insinuated in the first number of this miscellany, page 97, and by way of illustration, the sublime, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sentimental turn, which would be little relished in England. The tragedies acted at the Theatre Francais are generally modelled on the Greek; those of Racine and Voltaire are common. The comedies have seldom any low life or buffoonery, or vulgar ribaldry in them; The after pieces, and the ballets at the Academie de Musique, and at the Opera Comique, are often beautiful representations of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... of the period, with a very different purpose, has left an elegy, in which he darkly hints at and bemoans the fate of the ill-starred young person, whose very uncommon calamity Whitelaw, Dunlop, and Milne thought a fitting subject for buffoonery and ribaldry. This bard of milder mood was Andrew Symson, before the Revolution minister of Kirkinner, in Galloway, and after his expulsion as an Episcopalian following the humble occupation of a printer in Edinburgh. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... corrupt and vile rotten-borough of Devizes, took a part in these un-Englishman-like, partial, cowardly, and disgraceful proceedings. Every expectant underling, every dirty, petty-fogging scoundrel showed his teeth, opened his vulgar mouth, and sent forth the most nauseous and disgusting ribaldry. A time-serving, place-hunting, fawning address to the Prince Regent was moved by some person. It was stuffed with all sorts of falsehoods, and was supported by John Benett, of Pyt-House, in an address to the people, which contained nothing ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... his voice openly asserting that death was the utter end of man. Plutarch dilates upon the wide skepticism of the Greeks as to the infernal world, at the close of his essay on the maxim, "Live concealed." The portentous growth of irreverent unbelief, the immense change of feeling from awe to ribaldry, is made obvious by a glance from the known gravity of Hesiod's "Descent of Theseus and Pirithous into Hades," to Lucian's "Kataplous," which represents the cobbler Mycillus leaping from the banks of the Styx, swimming after Charon's boat, climbing into it upon the shoulders of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... wings of an angel nor flutter with the flaps of a moth: for there is as substantial a difference between light-heartedness and levity as between the crackling pyrotechnics that disturb the darkness of the night and the natural sunlight which enlivens the day. Indecency and ribaldry bring down a man to the level of the beast, divesting him of all his rational superiority and soul-dignity. What appears equally contemptible with the man who stoops to make grimaces, to utter expressions, to tell tales, in one word, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... instead of attending to the physician's prescriptions; a charge which he acknowledged and repeated in print. He published three successive papers in "The European Magazine" for 1788, assailing her with the coarsest ribaldry. "I have just read for the first time," writes Miss Seward in June, 1788, "the base, ungentleman-like, unmanly abuse of Mrs. Piozzi by that Italian assassin, Baretti. The whole literary world should ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... game but despairing, flung a look of appeal about him. To give in meant to become the laughing-stock of the camp, to have its ribaldry follow him, to be laughed out of the camp, branded as a coward. Yet to resist was a challenge to death. The bully had been drinking, the gleam in his eyes was that of the killer, a man half insane ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Don Juan is no less valuable than entertaining. It contains not merely the opinions expressed of the poem by the reviews and magazines, but those of the newspapers, and enables us to gather the judgment of the English people upon that strange combination of sublimity and ribaldry, sentiment and wit, tenderness and mockery, at the time it first blazed forth from the press. The suppressed dedication of the poem to Southey is also given in full, with all its brutal blackguardism ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... forming a lane in their midst through which our friends passed in fear and trembling, exposed for a minute or so to the coarsest ribaldry which the ruffianly band could summon to their lips on the spur of the moment. It was not until they had all been passed safely into the two whale-boats, and Dickinson's little band had drawn themselves closely up with drawn cutlasses in a compact line between the boats and the shore, that the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... and the blossoming of some wind-sown, sun-fed flower, there was, in this child of the battle and the razzia, the spirit of genius, the desire to live and to die greatly. It was unreasoned on, it was felt, not thought, it was often drowned in the gaiety of young laughter, and the ribaldry of military jest, it was often obscured by noxious influence, and stifled beneath the fumes of lawless pleasure; but there, ever, in the soul and the heart of Cigarette, dwelt the germ of a pure ambition—the ambition ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the Number in Effecte of all the Proverbes in the English Tunge, 1561." There are more editions of this little volume than Warton has noticed. There is some humour in his narrative, but his metre and his ribaldry are ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... aristocrats rendered them delirious with rage. They crowded all the avenues to the Tuileries, burst through the gates and over the walls, dashed down the doors and stove in the windows, and, with obscene ribaldry, rioted through all the apartments sacred to royalty. They thrust the dirty red cap of Jacobinism upon the head of the King. They poured into the ear of the humiliated queen the most revolting and loathsome ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... dwelling, naturally inspired, it was soon with feelings of thankfulness that they found themselves permitted to remain even there unmolested; for their ears were continually shocked, and their liveliest apprehensions often excited, by the profane vociferations, the noisy ribaldry, and lawless conduct of the tories, who, driven from their drenched tents, which afforded them but a feeble protection against the fury of the storm, had crowded into the lower rooms of the house, where, half stifled, and jostled for want of space, they filled up the stairway, and repeatedly ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the arrival of the Strathfieldsay (1834), the fair emigrants, 286, most of good character, were indiscreetly landed at high noon: 2,000 persons awaited them on the beach. Their feelings were outraged with ribaldry and insult: they were astounded at their reception, and many wept. The ladies of the colony protected and advanced them; and some, whose want drove them from their native country, remember the day with gratitude when they first pressed the soil of Tasmania. 1,280 females were brought to the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Now, I said stags. Well, the ruffians who had undertaken to teach us modesty swarmed in too. They dragged a sheep into the lecture-room, lighted pipes, produced bottles, drank, smoked, and abused us ladies to our faces, and interrupted the lecturer at intervals with their howls and ribaldry: that was intended to show the professor he should not be listened to any more if he admitted the female students. The affair got wind, and other students, not connected with medicine, came pouring in, with ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... in deliberate quaintness of phrase, in fantastic vapourings and promises of the dreadful things that are going to be done to the enemy. They deal some shrewd hits at the glaring faults of their subject, his outrageous abuse of authorities, his profanity, his ribaldry, his irrelevance; but in point of the three last qualities there is not much to choose between him and them. One line of counter attack they did indeed hit upon, which was followed up for generations with no small success against the Nonconformists, and that is the charge of hypocritical ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... dissolute mates and midshipmen of the old Queen, 98, who held a sort of examination of ribaldry for a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... has the press groaned in bringing forth a hateful brood of pamphlets, malicious scribbles, and billingsgate ribaldry. No generous and impartial person then can blame the present undertaking which is designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasantry and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumults of our spirits, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... his farm may be the meanest trash in existence, and it creates no remark. On the contrary, one who at any extra cost has supplied himself with stock of the choicer kinds, let their superiority be ever so apparent, has often been the subject of ribaldry, by his unthinking associates. And such, we are sorry to say, is still the case in too many sections of our country. But, on the whole, both our public spirit, and our intelligence, is increasing, ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... sentiment. Under a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all the valuable and time-honoured institutions justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... raised his heavy eyelids and looked with bewildered eyes at his sister. One of the girls tried to laugh, but there was something in the insane lightness of his eyes and the agony of hers that stifled the ribaldry in its birth. His face was as pale as hers, a pallor that was accentuated by dark hair, matted impotently over his forehead. But there was a careless, debonair charm about the fellow that made him stand out apart ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... might be read in a club-room, where the poor could not see how their betters ordained one thing for the vulgar, and another for themselves; or in an easy-chair, in the study, whither my lord retires every Sunday for his devotions. It dealt in private scandal and ribaldry, only the more piquant for its pretty flimsy veil of double-entendre. It was a fortune to the publisher, and it became a necessary to the reader, which he could not do without, any more than without his snuff-box, his opera-box, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as large or valuable as are now common to shopkeepers and mechanics; while the literary stores of a lady of the manor were confined chiefly to the prayer-book and the receipt-book. And those works which were produced or read were disgraced by licentious ribaldry, which had succeeded religious austerity. The drama was the only department of literature which compensated authors, and this was scandalous in the extreme. We cannot turn over the pages of one of the popular dramatists ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... churches; others to the taverns. Here prayers went up; there wine went down. The petitions of the pious were matched by the ribaldry of the profligate. Some made their wills; others wasted their wealth in revelry, eager to get all the pleasure out of life that remained for them. Many freely gave away their property, hoping, by ridding themselves ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the scurrility, and often enough the indecencies, that had distinguished earlier satirical prints; and although the popularity of Hood's "Comic Annual" and Cruikshank's "Comic Almanac" was pointed to, they would have nothing to do with a weekly, however much it professed to supersede previous ribaldry with clean wit and ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... another. "You can't read a warrant!" "You let Dondon cheat you!" "You tried to cheat Nincan!" "You want to build a watch-house!" "You have an old ewe at home now, that you did not come honestly by!" "You denied your own hand!"—with other ribaldry still more gross and indecent. But the most singular part of the scene was a number of little boys, dressed in black and white, who all wore badges of the parties to which they belonged, and were provided with a syringe, and two canteens, one filled with rose-water, and the other ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... moment we became aware of a confused uproar, a ribaldry of laughter and shouting. Round I started, to see we were approaching a small inn, with a sign bearing the legend "The Ring o' Bells," before which inn stood a number of vehicles and a rough crowd of merrymakers who danced ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... and in his vehement action his breeches fall down and his waistcoat runs up, so that there is a great interregnum. He is half mad, eccentric, ingenious, with great and varied information and a coarse, vulgar mind, delighting in ribaldry and abuse, besides being an enthusiast. The first time he distinguished himself was in Watson's trial, when he and Copley were his counsel, and both made very able speeches. He was then a trading lawyer and politician, till the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... impossible to give Frederick Mason's words verbatim, as he seldom opened his lips without an oath, and inter-larded his talk with coarse jests in English and fragments of ribaldry in vile French, till it would scarce be intelligible ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... be no doubt that the English sparrows are regular bullies. They do not fight other birds so much as they hector them, making life intolerable by their ribaldry, coarse jests, and prying manners. Some birds, especially many of our beautiful native species, are sensitively organized, and cannot endure such boorish society as the badly bred foreigners furnish. That as much as anything has driven our genteel bluebirds away ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Archbishop of Paris has been sacked, and every object in it demolished. —— told me that the ribaldry and coarse jests of the mob on this occasion were disgusting beyond measure; and that they ceased not to utter the most obscene falsehoods, while they wreaked their vengeance on the property of this venerable prelate, against whom they can bring no charge, ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... relaxing from its toil; and, as the workers for the most part knew no other way, nor could afford any, they were trying to snatch some brief moment of respite from the Hell of their slavery, by recourse to rough ribaldry and alcohol. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... wanted me to know that, and he wanted me to know also that the knowledge had come to me from my bishop. I should have thought evil of any one who had sent me the vile ribaldry. But coming from him, it ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... the page, and then the seriousness of the situation came over him. "You know women; cheer up, man—try again. Stick to it—you'll win," cried Barclay. The fool might go for so small a reason. It was no time for ribaldry. "Let me tell you something," he went on. His eyes opened again with a steady ruthless purpose in them, that the man before him was too intent on his own pose to see. Barclay put a weight upon the white sheet of paper that he had spread ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... social or physical question. But the variability of our appreciation of humour, is most commonly recognised in the differences of moral feeling. We have often heard people say that it is wrong for people to jest on this or that subject, or that they will not laugh at such ribaldry. The excitement necessary for the enjoyment of humour is then neutralized by deeper feelings, and they are perhaps more inclined to sigh than to laugh, or the nervous action being entirely dormant, they remain unaffected. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Parties or leaders, and we had been wiser in 1890 if we had taken sides with Parnell against the whole world had the need arisen. As it was, fought on front and flank, with the thunders of the Church, and the ribaldry of malicious tongues to scatter their venomed darts abroad, Parnell was a doomed man. Not that he lacked indomitable courage or loyal support. But his frail body was not equal to the demands of the undaunted spirit upon it, and so he went to his grave broken but not beaten—great ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... proved as luckless a candidate for the smiles of the comic as the pathetic OTWAY. LA FONTAINE, unrivalled humorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterly tedious. The true genius of STERNE was of a descriptive and pathetic cast, and his humour and ribaldry were a perpetual violation of his natural bent. ALFIERI'S great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or wit. SCARRON declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment was not made; but with his ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... church were eagerly on the watch to fasten a charge of heresy on the other. Besides, if ever a poor fanatic thrust, himself into the fire, it was Michael Servetus. He was a rabid enthusiast, and did every thing he could in the way of insult and ribaldry to provoke the feeling of the Christian church. He called the Trinity triceps monstrum et Cerberum ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with ribaldry and insult,—all more or less outraged ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... hands. He was a profuse blasphemer of God and His saints, and that on the most trifling occasions, being of all men the most irascible. He was never seen at Church, held all the sacraments vile things, and derided them in language of horrible ribaldry. On the other hand he resorted readily to the tavern and other places of evil repute, and frequented them. He was as fond of women as a dog is of the stick: in the use against nature he had not his ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... be observed that the comedy of Greece is to be ranked under three distinct heads. The plays composed of ribaldry, defamatory licentiousness, indecency and loose jokes, which prevailed on the stage while the supreme power remained in the hands of the multitude, constitute the first of these; and it goes by the name of the old comedy. In those pieces no person whatever was spared. Though they were so modelled ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... imagine Joan herself appearing in the England of to-day on much the same mission. It is not difficult to picture the contempt, the derision, the ribaldry, with which she would be greeted. In nearly every point her reception would be the same as it was, except that fewer people would believe in her inspiration. We have only to read her trial, or even the account given in Henry ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... champagne orgy; supercilious and much-paragraphed misses educated in England, finished in Paris, and presented at Court, but who used more slang than grooms; while an expensive education did not raise their brothers above ribaldry and other vulgar excesses. Ernest and I knew a beautiful, honest, intelligent girl when we had the good fortune to meet her, and had no fears that she could not hold her own in good sets, let alone in the smarter ones of colonial or any other fashionable ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... souls; they loved all women so well that they never could make choice of one; both were ridiculed and hooted and misunderstood; recognition came to neither until they were about to depart; and yet in spite of the continual rejection of their work, and the stupidity that would not see, and the ribaldry of those who could not comprehend, they continued serenely on their way, unruffled, kind— making no apologies nor explanations—unresentful, with malice toward none, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... new-gotten, gleaming bascinet, his long-bow upon his mailed shoulder, and, strapped to his wide back, a misshapen bundle that clinked melodiously with every swinging stride; and, while he sang, the ragged rogues about him ceased their noise and ribaldry to hearken in delight, and when he paused, cried out amain for more. Whereupon Giles, nothing loth, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... at work below, take great delight in ridiculing the pretensions of the young men seeking advancement, while they indulge in coarse ribaldry over the wretched condition of the great mass of the "Indians." The author, however, himself a "miserable Indian," vividly depicts the unnatural conditions and dominant characters produced under the outworn system of fraud and force, at the same time presenting ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... sort of industry; she was an indomitable letter writer, and her letters were worth the postage: they were full of wit, mischief, satire, love, latitudinarian philosophy, free religion, and, sometimes, alas! loose ribaldry. The subject, however, depended entirely on the recipient, and she was prepared to correspond with any one, but moral young ladies or stiff old women. She wrote also a kind of poetry, generally in Italian, and short romances, generally in French. She read much of a desultory sort ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... day I sat, with my head buried in my hands on the sordid table of our berth. I ate not, I spoke not. The ribaldry of my coarse associates moved me not; their boisterous and vulgar mirth aroused me not. They thought me, owing to my arrest, and my anticipations of its consequences, torpid with fear. They were deceived. I was never ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... note in all the railings and revilings, the ribaldry and mockery, with which the patient and submissive Christ was assailed while He hung, "lifted up" as He had said He would be,[1314] was that awful "If" hurled at Him by the devil's emissaries in the time of mortal agony; as in the season of the temptations immediately after ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... observed William Marion Reedy, "1601 is to Twain's whole works what the 'Droll Stories' are to Balzac's. It is better than the privately circulated ribaldry and vulgarity of Eugene Field; is, indeed, an essay in a sort of primordial humor such as we find in Rabelais, or in the plays of some of the lesser stars that drew their light from Shakespeare's urn. It is humor or fun such as one expects, let us say, from the peasants of Thomas Hardy, ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... set at defiance. The decencies of private life were disregarded; conversations and correspondence which should have been confidential, were brought before the public eye; the ruthless warfare was carried into the bosom of private life; neither age nor sex were spared, the daily press teemed with ribaldry and falsehood; and even the tomb was not held sacred from the rancorous hostility which distinguished the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... steps of the Rheingold, a disreputable drinking cellar, and disappeared from my sight down its steps. A great shout greeted him, and the rattle of tankards on a table, as he joined what was evidently his coterie. Standing outside, I heard song and ribaldry within. The heir-presumptive to the throne of the Empire was too obviously a drunken brawler; a friend and comrade of the lowest ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... back over the yellow teeth, and that flushed face was not pretty to look upon. Mulvaney nodded sympathy, and Ortheris, moved by his comrade's passion, brought up the rifle to his shoulder, and searched the hillside for his quarry, muttering ribaldry about a sparrow, a spout, and a thunder-storm. The voice of the watercourse supplied the necessary small talk till ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... congratulations and other officious little services; for it is to be noted, that though all modesty and reserve were banished from the transaction of these pleasures, good manners and politeness were inviolably observed: there was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their compliance With the humours and desires of the men. On the contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of their condition to them. Men know not ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Bible," with which he was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to the point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence or the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been startled at the earnest and sincere purity of his utterances. It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Hector took hold of my arm and dragged me along. I obeyed, for I was insensible, soul-less; and even when the return of thought came, it was all confusion. Was this Oxford? Were these its manners? Were such its inhabitants? Oaths twenty in a breath, unmeaning vulgar oaths; ribaldry, such as till that hour ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... stopped his impudent ribaldry," said Sir John Ball. Then the lawyer tried to explain to him that no one read the ribaldry. It was of no use. Sir John read it himself, and that was enough ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... taciturnity exists. The evenings are devoted to jests and amusing stories and the days to gambling. The soldiers' lodge, when the soldiers are not in session, is a very theater of amusement; all sorts of jokes are made and obscene stories are told, scarcely a woman in the camp escaping the ribaldry; but when business is in ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... as "an unclean being"; servants left his house in horror; "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart were let loose upon him"; and one of the favourite amusements of the period among men of petty wit and no convictions was the devising of light ribaldry against him.(484) ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... top, and thick, to set the boys a laughing; nor yet jeered the bald-headed, nor danced the cordax; nor does the old man who speaks the verses beat the person near him with his staff, keeping out of sight wretched ribaldry; nor has she rushed in with torches, nor does she shout iou, iou; but has come relying on herself and her verses. And I, although so excellent a poet, do not give myself airs, nor do I seek to deceive you by twice ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... of the way, and men and women started back, scowling and muttering; when a blockade of wagons and push-carts forced them to stop, the children gathered about and jeered, and a group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry at them; but Oliver never turned his eyes from ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... America is almost always accorded to one. But her reception was worse than that of Macready, for not content with shouts and yells they heaped disgusting epithets on her, and were so vulgar in their ribaldry that she flew in affright from the stage, "blushing," it was said, "even through the rouge on her face." Macready, however, showing, if nothing else, good English pluck, determined to go on. But he had scarcely finished the first sentence, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... and judged a proper entertainment for the apprentices, &c. as being a more instructive, moral, and cautionary drama, than many pieces that had been usually exhibited on those days, with little but farce and ribaldry to recommend them. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... audience; and Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, can give him a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! the regenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all the incoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan, and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parish goes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, 'It is not the shepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows.' Another thing, very wonderful ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... it. I ever consider'd, that Abuse from such Scriblers, who write for a Livelihood, can no more be thought an Affront, than a Barber's taking you by the Nose; 'tis his Trade, and the Wretch would starve if you stopt him. What harm did all their Ribaldry do me? I neither eat, nor drunk, nor slept the worse for it. I don't suppose, that the scape Goat, which the Jews loaded with Curses, and drove into the Wilderness, either died by their Maledictions, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... which Sherlock's 'Tryal of the Witnesses' gave both the impulse and the form. Annet, like Woolston, was prosecuted for blasphemy and profanity; and if the secular arm should ever be appealed to in such matters, which is doubtful, he deserved it by the coarse ribaldry of ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Congreve—Genius 15, Judgment 16, Learning 14, Versification 14; Vanbrugh—14, 15,14,10; Farquhar—15, 15, 10, io. Unlike Goldsmith, unhappily, Farquhar's moral tone is not high; sensuality is confounded with love, ribaldry mistaken for wit The best that can be said of him that he contrasts favourably with his contemporary dramatists; Virtue is not always uninteresting in his pages. He is free from their heartlessness, malignity, and cruelty. The plot of The ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... and from the Battery Command Post I used to hear for days afterwards the Italian Infantry singing in great choruses, far into the night. There was triumph in their songs, and there was ribaldry and there was longing. I thought I knew what dreams were in their hearts, and, if I was right, those ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... the inheritance of their children fall to ashes. By the red, consuming light, poured past the straggling Confederate soldiers, dead to the acknowledgment of private rights, and sacking shop and home with curses and ribaldry; the suburban citizens and the menial negroes adopted their examples; carrying off whatever came next their hands, and with arms full of "swag," dropping it in the highway, lured by some dearer plunder. Negroes, with baskets of stolen champagne and rare jars of tamarinds, sought ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... showed compassion. Familiarity with ghastly spectacles produced a hardheartedness and a desperate impiety, of which an example will not easily be found even in the history of infectious diseases. The moans of the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their comrades. Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the morning, might be seen a wretch destined to die before night, cursing, singing loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh to the health of the devil. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Granger says, "He composed this book with a view of relieving his own melancholy, but increased it to such a degree, that nothing could make him laugh, but going to the bridge-foot and hearing the ribaldry of the bargemen, which rarely failed to throw him into a violent fit of laughter. Before he was overcome with this horrid disorder, he, in the intervals of his vapours, was esteemed one of the most ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... swear to his patrons, damn him! he came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that hath an extraordinary gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up more sack at a sitting than would make all the guard a posset. His religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry. ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... in troubled silence and the woman turned her head to watch a neighbor coming down the street with a basket in her hand. It would seem that her visitor interested her no longer. She called out some rough, ribaldry to the woman who glanced up fiercely and deigned no further reply. ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... remarked, that the delicacy of Chaucer's ancient tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakespeare; but in those of Dryden it has undergone a far deeper deterioration. Whatever is coarse and naked in Shakespeare, has been dilated into ribaldry by the poet laureat of Charles the second; and the character of Pandarus, in particular, is so grossly heightened, as to disgrace even the obliging class to whom that unfortunate procurer has bequeathed his name. So far as this play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakespeare, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... effrontery of incapacity! In all kindness to Maga, we warn her, that, though the nature of this work precludes us from devoting space to the exposure, there may come a time when the public shall be themselves able to distinguish ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a school-boy, and the capacities ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... Nadab the Improvisatore (who had just come in), began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this ribaldry by sternly looking towards Nadab, and at the same time called upon the gents to give their orders, the waiter being in the room, and Mr. Bellew about to ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he defined lechery—The occupation of folk destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus,[225] being desirous to give us to understand that slowth drowsiness, negligence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... noted in passing that, however hard he hit in these controversies, he never descended to anything which would merely wound and offend cherished convictions. His own feelings forbade ribaldry, and abuse disgusted him, on whichever side employed. He declined to admit that rightful freedom of discussion is attacked when a man is prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest beliefs. And this apart from the question ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... The walls, he adds, are scrawled over with obscene emblems and disgusting epigrams, so that this haunt of learning presents the aspect of the lowest brothel; and the professor's chair has become a more intolerable seat than the pillory, owing to the missiles flung at him and the ribaldry with which he is assailed. The manners and conversation of the students must have been disgusting beyond measure, to judge by a letter of complaint from a father detailing the contamination to which his son was exposed in the Roman ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... sometimes men's very name. But I, besides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that the understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were rather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal, raked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you things rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that is yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to be discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but fit that I kept up the character of the person. ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... mind. She shrunk from a contact with the rude beings around her, and in the society of her husband alone found enjoyment; and even this was not free from interruption. The morning and evening prayer was disturbed by the profane jest or the blasphemous ribaldry of God-hating men, who viewed our missionaries as deluded fanatics, justly deserving the contempt of all. Even the respect due to the weaker sex was not wholly observed; and the pious woman was often compelled to listen to expressions which would have brought a blush to the ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... Of ribaldry that smelleth sweet, To Dagon and to Ashtoreth; Of bloody stripes from head to feet, He will endure unto the death, Being blind, he also ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... eternal memento of the wisdom and goodness of the very principles that settled America. But I must again return to the feudal law.——The adventurers so often mentioned, had an utter contempt of all that dark ribaldry of hereditary indefeasible right,—the Lord's anointed,—and the divine miraculous original of government, with which the priesthood had inveloped the feudal monarch in clouds and mysteries, and from whence they had deduced the most mischievous of all doctrines, that of passive ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... Occurrences between the Knight and his 'Squire; And from these, where it is least to be expected, you are surpriz'd with the most high and delicious Repast;— Nothing can be more pregnant with Mirth, than the Opposition continually working between the grave Solemnity and Dignity of Quixote, and the arch Ribaldry and Meanness of Sancho; And the Contrast can never be sufficiently admir'd, between the excellent fine Sense of the ONE, and the dangerous common Sense of ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... born, too many of them are born only to die in infancy. We need no further proof of the urgent need for conscientious inquiry, call it by what name you please. The science of common sense is all-sufficient. The seemingly intelligent individual who can only find material for ribaldry in this connection is a more serious buffoon than he imagines. It is apparent that our methods are wrong. Any constructive effort to correct them is commendable. When it is stated that 20 per cent. of the American women are unable to bear children, and that 25 ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... it may seem to link together Don Quixote and St. Theresa, I am not sure that we could do better than to accept them as models. The loud laughter of an age of intellectual ribaldry and self-conceit dies away and the gaunt figure of the last of the Crusaders still stands before us heroic in his childlike refusal of compromise, his burning compassion, his deafness to ridicule. In a sense we must all be ready to accept the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram |
