"Billingsgate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been well called the Ranters of Buddhism. Their revival meetings make Bedlam seem silent, and reduce to gentle murmurs the camp-meeting excesses with which we are familiar in our own country. They are the most sectarian of all sects. Their vocabulary of Billingsgate and the ribaldry employed by them even against their Buddhist brethren, cast into the shade those of Christian sectarians in their fiercest controversies. "A thousand years in the lowest of the hells is the atonement ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... presently in due order in stall and arcade. There is no hint of anything grosser than the great cabbages, which appear to be London's favorite vegetable. Meat has its place at Smithfield, and fish at Billingsgate, but the old garden is, in one sense, true to its name, and gives us only the kindly fruits of the earth, with their transformations into ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the altar by lies—who being (by common consent) the finest, the most humane and accomplished writer of his age, associated himself with and encouraged the lowest panders of a venal press; deluging, nauseating the public mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang; shewing no remorse, no relenting or compassion towards the victims of this nefarious and organized system of party-proscription, carried on under the mask of literary criticism and fair discussion, insulting the misfortunes of some, and trampling ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... dig out the weeds with amazing deftness. Sometimes they may inadvertently take out a single stem of indigo with the weeds: the eye of the mate or Tokedar espies this at once, and the careless coolie is treated to a volley of Hindoo Billingsgate, in which all his relations are abused to the seventh generation. By the time the first weeding is finished, the plant will be over a foot high, and if necessary a second weeding is then given. After the second weeding, and if any rain ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... obsessed by the immensity, the atmosphere and the mystery of London. Its nomenclature embedded itself in my fancy; Hounsditch and Shoreditch, Billingsgate and Blackfriars; Bishopgate, within, and Bishopgate, without; Threadneedle Street and Wapping-Old-Stairs; the Inns of Court where Jarndyce struggled with Jarndyce, and the taverns where the Mark Tapleys, the Captain Costigans and the ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... glaring with light. Each seemed a skull, with rays darting from its grinning eye-holes. Within I caught glimpses of debauchery that turned me sick. Ten paces away three women and a man were brawling, the low angry tones of his voice mingling with the screeches of their Billingsgate. Muffled figures were passing and repassing unconcernedly, some entering the houses, others coming out, and a handsome coach, without arms and with a footman in plain livery, lumbered along and stopped farther on. All this I remarked before I took notice of him who had intercepted ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was any stream through it fell into Walbrook, between the parish church of St. Mary on the Woollen Hithe and St. Mary of the Woolchurch Haw. This corner, then near the modern Mansion House, was the north-western corner of the little fort, Dowgate was at the south-western, and Billingsgate at the south-eastern corner, while Mincing Lane, perhaps at Fenchurch Street, completed the rectangle. What formed the defence on this, the eastern side, we have no evidence, but it was probably one of the "shares, ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... to vote for American-born citizens and Protestants: which is as much our right, as it is the right of these foreign Catholics to vote against and proscribe American Protestants. For this, you and your villainous associates exhaust the whole vocabulary of Billingsgate upon the American party. What is their offence? Why, they simply place certain questions before persons desiring to act with them, which they think, at least, may affect the national welfare, and before the people of the Union, and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... unclothed Venus to her tongue gives reins In terms, which Demosthenic force outgo, And baldest jests of foul-mouth'd Cicero. Right in the midst great Ate keeps her stand, And from her sovereign station taints the land. Hence Pulpits rail; grave Senates learn to jar; Quacks scold; and Billingsgate infects ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... that the knowledge of external nature and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. . . . We are perpetually moralists: we are geometricians only by chance"; or that in which he expresses his contempt for Dryden exchanging Billingsgate with Settle: "Minds are not levelled in their powers, but when they are first levelled in their desires"; or the pregnant commonplace with which he prefaces his derision of the artificial love-poems which Cowley thought it necessary ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... what she may have said to Anne in private I do not yet know. We became imbued with desire to see the artist's dream realized and to be with Anne, so with Jess to hurry Mrs. Hill and me to drag Anne, we tore through Billingsgate fish-market and up King William Street to the Bank, where we were to ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... scenes have their humorous side. It was Daniel O'Connell, I believe, who defeated the female champion of Billingsgate by calmly referring to her as the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, which was something utterly beyond her powers of repartee: it was he, at all events, who silenced another virago with the cutting response, "Sure every one knows, ma'am, ye're no better than a parallelogram, and ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... Englishmen did not know that I had been used to the company of the wildest desperadoes that live on earth. They only knew that I came from the Mission ship, and they passed the word. Every rowdy that came up was warned, and one poor rough, who chanced to blurt out a very common and very nasty Billingsgate word, was silenced by a moralist, who observed, "Cheese it. Don't cher see the Mission ship bloke?" I watched like a cat, and I soon saw that the ordinary hurricane curses were restrained on my account, simply ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... coarse hooks of whitened metal attached to the lines by stout whipcord; for the denizens of those western waters were not the poddlies, coddlings, and shrimps that one is apt to associate with summer resorts by the sea. They were those veritable inhabitants of the deep that figure on the slabs of Billingsgate and similar markets—plaice and skate of the largest dimensions, congers that might suggest the great sea serpent, and even sharks of ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... Nawsett to believe that at Billinsgate, they had a new Wallfleet Oyster bed. The fact that Wallfleet oysters were marketed at Billinsgate, always the big fish market of the Londoners, and that our Wellfleet was at first known as Billingsgate, seems more ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... effectually viewing the sea- coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate by small boats, of which I shall speak by itself ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... morning a note was put into my hands, which had been delivered open at my lodgings, on the preceding night, after I had retired to bed. This detestable composition contained a challenge from Mister Cleary, together with a great deal of vulgar Billingsgate abuse. I inquired who delivered it, and I was informed that between twelve and one o'clock, about two hours after I was in bed and asleep, some one knocked at the door, which was opened by my female servant, upon which three fellows rushed into the passage, and demanded ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... groundlings, so Thersites came into "Troilus and Cressida." As if that he might leave no form of human utterance ungilded by his genius, Shakespeare in Thersites has given us the apotheosis of blackguardism and billingsgate. Thersites is only a railing rascal. Some low creatures are mere bellies with no brain. Thersites is merely mouth, but this mouth has just enough coarse brain above it to know a wise man and a fool when ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... while the best man and bridesmaid walked on ahead talking lovingly. "I said them words, which you oughter 'ave said, 'cause you ain't got no memory t' speak of. But they ain't my beliefs, but yours, or I'll know the reason why. Jes' you say them now. Swear, without Billingsgate, as you'll allays love, honor an' obey ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... of the girls and boys, develops into surliness in men and billingsgate in women. And I have no doubt that little Diega, the sulkiest and prettiest of the Visayan beauties, in a few years will be gambling at the cock-fights, smoking cigars, and losing her money every Sunday afternoon at Mariana's monte ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... higher; and mediaeval London, such as we are apt to picture it to ourselves, seems to have derived those leading features which it so long retained, from the days when Chaucer, with downcast but very observant eyes, passed along its streets between Billingsgate and Aldgate. Still, here as elsewhere in England the remembrance of the most awful physical visitations which have ever befallen the country must have long lingered; and, after all has been said, it is wonderful that ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... all this, to value myself upon hitting the words of cant in which my drolling author is so luxuriant; for though such words have stood me in good stead, I scarce can forbear thinking myself unhappy in having insensibly hoarded up so much gibberish and Billingsgate trash in my memory; nor could I forbear asking of myself, as an Italian cardinal said on another account, D'onde hai tu pigliato tante coglionerie? Where the devil didst thou rake ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... hunting-grounds, laden with rich furs, which are speedily transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company's stores in exchange for the goods aforementioned. And many a tough wrangle has the trader on such occasions with sharp natives, who might have graduated in Billingsgate, so close are they at a bargain. Here, too, voyageurs are supplied with an equivalent for their wages, part in advance, if they desire it (and they generally do desire it), and part at the conclusion of their long and ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Grancey; in the course of which she said several strange things respecting the treatment which her lovers had experienced from her. Grancey at length rushed out, and fell to abusing Madame de Bouillon like a Billingsgate. The latter was not silent, and some exceedingly elegant discourse passed between them. Madame de Bouillon made a complaint against Grancey; in the first place, for having listened to her conversation; and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... no reason for the visit except to swear around my office like a drunken and abusive pirate. If you have nothing for temperate discussion, I will now say good-day to you. Take with you the honors of war, sir. You have outcussed me. I acknowledge your superiority in billingsgate—"—he paused and for an instant his voice mounted, as he added—"and in ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... mile west is Stane Street, striking London-wards from Billingshurst, and we may follow it for a while on our way to Rudgwick, near the county's border. We leave the Roman road (which once ran as straight as might be as far as Billingsgate, but is now diverted and lost in many spots) at the drive to Dedisham, on the left, and thus save a considerable corner. Dedisham, in its hollow, is an ancient agricultural settlement: a farm and feudatory ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... connections, are suspect. At Billingsgate a soldier swears that he was set upon at night because he wore the uniform of "a d——d tyrant"; and other evidence proves that the service was unpopular for political reasons as well as the poor pay. Farmers are plied by ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... a tipsy retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough; and, if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off the ground by the enemy with a volley of Billingsgate, which the fair person always kept ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... seen, he could quote Scripture with the readiness of a theologian. In the shop, when he had to deal with the lower classes, he showed himself acquainted with their modes of expression, and spoke the Billingsgate of the market-women, which he had acquired in the rue Comtesse d'Artois, treating them familiarly, and they generally addressed him as "gossip Denies." By his own account he easily judged the characters of the various people with ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... those who, in another place, even in the most polished courts, would take a high rank for good breeding and gentlemanly education, at these tables make use of language which, I hope, Billingsgate itself would turn from with disgust. It cannot be repeated; neither would it be believed, unless by such as, like myself, have had "confirmation strong," too strong to be rejected, if I did not, at the same time, reject ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Jaggernaut—that one strange day in the year, when ill castes meet, when all distinction of castes and ranks is forgotten—the abomination of mixing them all together permitted, for their sins no doubt—high caste and low, from the abandoned Paria to the Brahmin prince, from their Billingsgate and Farringilon Without, suppose, up to their St. James's, Street and Grosvenor Square, mingle, mingle, ye who mingle may, white spirits and grey, black spirits and blue. Now, pray look around: is not this Jaggernaut night with ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... table. "Will you excuse me, Mr. Savelli, if I leave you? I get up early to attend to my business. I must be at Billingsgate at half-past five to buy my fish. Besides, I have been preventing your talk with our friends. So pray don't ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Custom House, one at Billingsgate, one at Queenhith, and one at the Three Cranes; one in Blackfriars, and one at the gate of Bridewell; one at the corner of Leadenhal Street and Gracechurch; one at the north and one at the south gate of the Royal Exchange; ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... parents a good sum. Where would you find any but an accomplished classical scholar to compare the books of the present (or indeed any other) writer to "sardonic divings after the pearl of truth, whose lustre is eclipsed in the display of the diseased oyster;" mere Billingsgate doesn't turn out oysters like these; they are of the Lucrine lake:—this satirist has pickled his rods in Latin brine. Fancy, not merely a diver, but a sardonic diver: and the expression of his confounded countenance on discovering not only a pearl, but an eclipsed pearl, ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a greater difference in the goodness of eels than of any other fish. The true silver-eel, so called from the bright colour of the belly, is caught in the Thames. The Dutch eels sold at Billingsgate are very bad; those taken in great floods are generally good, but in ponds they have usually a strong rank flavour. Except the middle of summer, they are always in season. If small, they should be curled round and fried, being first dipped into ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the Thames, and therefore threaded our way along Thames Street, towards London Bridge, passing through a fish-market, which I suppose to be the actual Billingsgate, whence originated all the foul language in England. Under London Bridge there is a station for steamers running to Greenwich and Woolwich. We got on board one of these, not very well knowing, nor much caring, whither it might ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man was so much amazed and concerned at this melancholy tale, that bursting out into tears, and hanging about his brother's neck, he begged him to take a coach and begone to Billingsgate, giving him ten guineas in hand and telling him that his bills should not be protested if he drew within the compass of a hundred pounds from Dieppe, whither he said the ship was bound. West was no sooner out of the street where his brother lived, but he ordered the coach to drive ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... misapplication, perversion, profanation, desecration; injury, maltreatment, mistreatment, outrage, offense; invective, contumely, reproach, scurrility, opprobrium, tirade, billingsgate, vilification; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... complain that only one train leaves Hull per day on which wet fish can travel. The idea of bringing the fish to Billingsgate under their own steam has already ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... ridicule and abuse his actors in a style of whimsical foulmouthedness peculiar to himself—but he would allow no other man living to do it—and while conferring substantial benefits upon them, would blackguard them like a Billingsgate fishwoman. So essentially did he differ from most other managers, that instead of wronging or pinching them, instead of intriguing against them, to run them down with the public, in order to enhance his own consequence, he was their champion, their sincere friend, and the strenuous ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this public manner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits.... Contemptible slanders.... Vilest Billingsgate.... Has raked all the gutters of our language.... The most pure, upright, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant venom.... General Cushing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies.... The Reverend Homer Wilbur is ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... merchant men of Billingsgate, I wonder how you thrive. You bargain with men for six months And pay ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... anxious to unite under the same roof Mrs. Peace and Mrs. Thompson. Things still prospering, Peace found himself able to remove from Lambeth to Crane Court, Greenwich, and before long to take a couple of adjoining houses in Billingsgate Street in the same district. These he furnished in style. In one he lived with Mrs. Thompson, while Mrs. Peace and her son, Willie, were persuaded after some difficulty to leave Hull and come to London ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... may as well look in for a few moments at the New Coal Exchange opposite Billingsgate Market; a sightly, circular building, of rich interior decoration, that will well repay a visit. It is one of our newest 'lions,' and is certainly a very significant sign and monument of the enormous and swiftly-increasing commercial activity ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... in open war with me in such a manner as makes her very ridiculous without doing me much harm; my moderation having a very bright pretence of shewing itself" (she wrote to Lady Mar). "Firstly, she was pleased to attack me in very Billingsgate at a masquerade, where she was as visible as ever she was in her own clothes. I had the temper not only to keep silence myself, but enjoined it to the person with me; who would have been very glad ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... reliable; and he had his reward when young Joe jaunted across London for fish at Billingsgate or greens at Covent Garden and ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... from a very early time, their two ports of Billingsgate and Queenhithe, both of them still ports. They had also their communication with the south by means of a ferry, which ran from the place now called the Old Swan Stairs to a port or dock on the Surrey side, still existing, afterwards called St. Mary of the Ferry, or St. Mary ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... not be censured for their use of Billingsgate, for the strong aroma of the elixir forced them to tear aside the veil which in Leipsic, as elsewhere, clothes the ugly truth as with a pleasing garment, and to lay bare all the rancour that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of which there are variations, is sufficiently self-explanatory, although it may be mentioned that for a time he dwelt at the Golden Tun in Creed Lane. Walter Lynne, 1547-50, who was a scholar and an author, had a shop at "Sommer's Key near Billingsgate" and printed about twenty sermons and other religious tracts in octavo, employed the device given as an initial to the present chapter. John Wyghte, or Wight, resembled Singleton somewhat in his facility for running his head against established customs, and ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... the transaction, and denounced Sir John Norris as "a fool, liar, and coward" on all occasions, besides overwhelming his brother, Buckhurst, Wilkes, and every other person who took their part, with a torrent of abuse; and it is well known that the Earl was a master of Billingsgate. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... quarters; but, instead of being intimidated by his menaces, she set him at defiance, and held forth with such a flow of eloquence, as would have entitled her to a considerable share of reputation, even among the nymphs of Billingsgate; for this young lady, over and above a natural genius for altercation, had her talents cultivated among the venerable society of weeders, podders, and hoppers, with whom she had associated from her tender years. No wonder, then, that she soon obtained a complete ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... bedroom, beheld, to his great astonishment, the well-known figure of Jeanie Deans herself retreating from his gate; while his housekeeper, with arms a-kimbo, fist clenched and extended, body erect, and head shaking with rage, sent after her a volley of Billingsgate oaths. His choler rose in proportion to the surprise, and, perhaps, to the disturbance of his repose. "Hark ye," he exclaimed from the window, "ye auld limb of Satan—wha the deil gies you commission to guide an honest ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... imperfect manner, without the aid of a phonetic alphabet. He is dressed in somebody else's very second best as a coast-guardsman, and gives himself the airs of a stage tar with sufficient success to pass as a possible fish porter of bad character in casual employment during busy times at Billingsgate. His manner shows an earnest disposition to ingratiate himself with the missionary, probably for ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... only express myself like you! But I have an infernally absurd jargon—half the language of men of the world and of letters, half of Billingsgate. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... counterpart of Mr. Dixon. So the question is very pertinent as to what influence has given power to this pale-face shout exciter, this expert player upon men's emotions, this literary (we beg a thousand pardons for seeming billingsgate) demagogue and exotic in Anglo-Saxondom. The irony of fate! Mr. Thomas Dixon, Jr., beyond doubt owes his emotional power to the very race which he ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... they thought about me personally, the fact of my being there, and the rude way I had startled them. Their remarks were neither complimentary nor refined. The old men, in especial, got quite profane, and screamed excited billingsgate. Finally they all stopped at once, dropped on all fours, and loped away, their ridiculous long tails curved in a half arc. Then for the first time I noticed that, under cover of the insults, the women and children had ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... call one another rogues and miscreants, in the most approved Billingsgate, through the medium of the newspapers, which are a sort of safety-valve to let off all the bad feelings and malignant passions floating through the country, without any dread of the horsewhip. Hence it is the commonest ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... hate; but for my poor mother it was ALWAYS hatred. It was, 'The she-dragon is sick to-day; I wish to Heaven she would die!' or, 'The hideous old Irish basketwoman has been treating me to some of her Billingsgate to-day,' and so forth: all which expressions, read to Mrs. Barry, or translated from the French and Italian, in which many of them were written, did not fail to keep the old lady in a perpetual fury against her charge: and so I had my watch-dog, as I ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Street each return 4; Dowgate, Candlewick, Cordwainers, Cornhill, Queenhithe, Vintry, and Walbrook, 6; Bread Street, Bridge, Billingsgate, Broad Street, Cheap, Coleman Street, Cripplegate Within, and Cripplegate Without, Tower, Langbourn, Castle Baynard, Aldersgate, Aldgate, and Portsoken, 8; Bishopsgate and Farringdon-within, 14; and Farringdon-without, 16. These true representatives of the citizens constitute ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... winged with the shafts of a caustic humour are Bussy's invectives against courtly practices (I, i, 84-104) and hypocrisy in high places (III, ii, 25-59), while the "flyting" between him and Monsieur is perhaps the choicest specimen of Elizabethan "Billingsgate" that has come down to us. It was a versatile pen that could turn from passages like these to the epic narrative of the duel, or Tamyra's lyric invocation of the "peaceful regents of the night" (II, ii, 158), or Bussy's stately elegy upon himself, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... actors, yesterday's lords and law-givers, running to and fro the London streets, one bawling 'Ink or pens, ink or pens!', another 'Boots or shoes, boots or shoes to mend!', a third 'Fine Seville oranges, fine lemons!', whilst Mrs. Cromwell exchanges Billingsgate with a crowd of jeering boys, must have caused the house absolutely to rock ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... at him lustily: Pilot discharged a volley in return with admirable promptitude. Robarts retorted, the other rough customer rejoined, and soon all Billingsgate thundered on the Agra's quarter-deck. Finding, to his infinite disgust, his visitor as great a blackguard as himself, and not to be outsworn, Robarts ordered him to quit the ship on pain of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... were long litanies of billingsgate, cursing, and threatening. One of these "scourging" ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Garden or Billingsgate You of a morn must not be late, But your donkey drive at a slashing rate, And first be if you can. From short pipe you must your bacca blow And if your donkey will not go, To lick him you must not be slow But well ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... screamed French that I was glad to find I could not wholly understand. Her dialect must come from the worst class of Parisian thieves. I should have been glad to understand less than I did. Every now and then she interrupted this Billingsgate, and seemed to think that her dignity required a loftier style, and she poured out on us whole pages of cheap melodrama. She began by flinging her fur cap and cloak on the floor and striking a stage ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... surprised to hear that there are many thousands of men and boys who go out to catch the millions and millions of all sorts of fish that are sent to the markets in the large towns of England by railway nearly every day. He had been to Billingsgate Market in Thames Street, and to the new fish-market in Smithfield, and had seen the great piles of cod-fish, and skates, and soles, and plaice, and the boxes and baskets of white fresh herrings, and the beautiful shining ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... choose to descend to Billingsgate," said Sir Francis. "I have my own ideas as to ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... she happealed to the gentleman,"—meaning me,—"didn't 'e find it a norrid 'ole, habsolutely hawful?" And then she went clattering among tinware and crockery, and snubbed the gentlemanly boy in a sort of tender Billingsgate. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... fires. Sheep, beautiful sheep with tinkling bells hung round their necks, were chewing the cud in peace and happiness. But notwithstanding it was the hour of repose, the tongues of the female travellers were making a clatter which all the women of Billingsgate could not rival, and together with the squalling of brats innumerable, completely spoiled the emotions, which the wild and pleasing scene around them would otherwise have awakened in their breasts. The sheep here are regarded with as much partiality, and treated much in ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... senates. This liberty of foul language operated in two ways: 1st, Being universal, it took away all ground for feeling the words of an antagonist as any personal insult; so he had rarely a motive for a duel. 2dly, the anger was thus less acute; yet, if it were acute, then this Billingsgate resource furnished an instantaneous vehicle for expectorating the wrath. Look, for example, at Cicero's orations against Mark Antony, or Catiline, or against Piso. This last person was a senator of the very highest rank, family, connections; yet, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... every member of the writing brotherhood, it was natural that his reviews should not pass without severe criticisms. He often complained of the insults, ribaldry, Billingsgate, and Bear-garden language to which he was exposed; and some of his biographers have taken these lamentations seriously, and expressed their regret that so good a man should have been so much persecuted. But as he deliberately provoked ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... 'Fiolet, Saint Omer.' I do not know if this kind is still smoked, but it was made of a soft clay that easily coloured. In taverns, of course, the churchwarden—beloved of Carlyle and Tennyson—was usually smoked to the accompaniment of shandygaff. At Simpson's fish ordinary at Billingsgate these pipes were always placed on the table after dinner, together with screws of shag tobacco, and a smoking parliament moistened with hot or cold punch according to the season, was generally held ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... invective, but she seemed bent upon apprising the whole commonwealth of Connecticut of the fact that she was vastly displeased with the person she was addressing, who was certainly not Flynn. Amid sounds of a scuffle and the continuous outpouring of billingsgate the light over the garage door flashed on suddenly and disclosed Flynn in the act of precipitating himself into the fray. Elsie had grasped, and was stoutly clinging to a tall man who was trying to free himself ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... the name of that Sidrophel who lately discovered that the fixed stars were not single stars, but appear in the heavens like soles at Billingsgate, in pairs; while a second astronomer, under the influence of that competition in trade which the political economists tell us is so advantageous to the public, professes to show us, through his superior telescope, that the apparently single stars are really ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the oyster-shops and stands in Massachusetts, I am told, are supplied and kept by natives of Wellfleet, and a part of this town is still called Billingsgate, from the oysters having been formerly planted there; but the native oysters are said to have died in 1770. Various causes are assigned for this, such as a ground frost, the carcasses of black-fish kept to rot in the harbor, and the like; but the most common account ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... coadjutor the Titular Bishop Milner'—Bishop of Castabala I had called him, till I learnt from the present pamphlet that he had been translated to the see of Billingsgate.' Vind. Ecl. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... contrast the quiet, gentlemanly, liberal way these volunteers spoke of us and our cause, with the rabid, fanatical, abusive violence of our own female Secession declaimers. Thank Heaven, I have never yet made my appearance as a Billingsgate orator on these occasions. All my violent feelings, which in moments of intense excitement were really violent, I have recorded in this book; I am happy to say only the reasonable dislike to seeing my country subjugated has been confided to the public ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... circumstances made such a course advisable. He walked to and fro in his room, and cogitated as few people beside Theodore Racksole could cogitate. At 6 a.m. he took a stroll round the business part of his premises, and watched the supplies come in from Covent Garden, from Smithfield, from Billingsgate, and from other strange places. He found the proceedings of the kitchen department quite interesting, and made mental notes of things that he would have altered, of men whose wages he would increase and ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... books written by those of the opposition. And other writers, even if they had no political connection, borrowed their manners from those who had. It was the animosities of party politics that set the general tone. Billingsgate that had grown along the wharves of the lower river, was found to be of service in Parliament and gave a spice and sparkle even to a book review. Presently a large part of literary England wore the tags of political preference. Writers were often as clearly ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... eyes, and puffing a volume of smoke from his invisible mouth; and there is a washer-woman, with a basket of clothes weighing a hundredweight. Yonder young fellow, with the dripping sack on his back, is staggering under a load of oysters from Billingsgate, and he has got to wash them and sell them for three a penny, and see them swallowed one at a time, before his work will be done for the day—and behind him is a comely lassie, with a monster oil-glazed sarcophagus-looking ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... converse fluently on all occasions, and needed no drawing out, inasmuch as he was always ready to exhibit his powers of conversation. He was not a pious bird—belonging to Slivers, he could hardly be expected to be—and his language was redolent of Billingsgate. So Billy being so clever was quite a character in his way, and, seated on Slivers' shoulder with his black bead of an eye watching his master writing with the rusty pen, they looked a most ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... treatment of politics and criticism than would now be tolerated. All the world permitted and expected strong partisanship, bitter personality, and downright abuse. They would have called our more sober reticence by the name of feebleness: their truculence we stigmatize as slander and Billingsgate. Wilson was an extremist in everything; yet he strained but a point or two beyond his fellows. When the tide of party began gradually to subside, he fell with it. Mrs. Gordon has given a very correct picture of the state of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... either attending new-comers or going round with the various "calls," which, as some of the guests are market porters, are for unearthly hours, such as half-past three or four o'clock. The Shelters are patronized by many "regulars"—flower-sellers, pedlars, Covent Garden or Billingsgate odd men, etc.—who lodge with them by the week, sometimes by the year. Lights are officially out at half-past nine, but of course the orderly is on duty at the door until eight o'clock the following morning, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... their hands or striking their castanets, as they passed from town to town along the banks of the stream, stopping at the various landing-places, and challenging the inhabitants to a contest of good-humoured Billingsgate. From the monuments we see how the men sang at their labours—here as they trod the wine-press or the dough-trough, there as they threshed out the corn by driving the oxen through the golden heaps. In one case the words of a harvest-song have ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... of yours (though not of mine), and that it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one friend any thing containing such matters about another. However, I'll work the Laureate before I have done with him, as soon as I can muster Billingsgate therefor. I like a row, and always did from a boy, in the course of which propensity, I must needs say, that I have found it the most easy of all to be gratified, personally and poetically. You disclaim 'jealousies;' but I would ask, as Boswell did of Johnson, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... observations upon the soup, Mr. Osborne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of the place. Then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry glasses of wine, looking more and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the door told of George's arrival when everybody began ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... marched quietly through the crowd from 21st to 32d Street, paying no heed to the hootings, yells, and vile epithets that were hurled from every side. Dirty, ragged women, with dishevelled hair and bloated faces, far exceeded the men in the use of Billingsgate; and the guardians of the law, as they passed through those long lines of demoniacal visages, scowling with hate, and heard their sulphurous invectives, saw what would be their fate if overpowered. It was a conflict having ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... seems wanting, and I know not what can be proposed better. I answer you right painted cloth, may mean, I give you a true painted cloth answer; as we say, she talks right Billingsgate; that is, exactly such language as is used at Billingsgate. (1773) ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... slanging match the memory of which sends a trill of admiration through me even to this day. It was a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in the course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and penny gaff; out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... reported to me last year that an American visitor had asked him how, dwelling remote from the railway, the population dealt with its fish. 'My dear man,' said I, 'you should have told him that you get it by Parcels' Post from Billingsgate.' ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... all, been so very kind to the ladies in his religion, unless it be the compliment which he has paid them, by placing all the imaginable felicity of Paradise in their embraces. I took no notice of the virago. I find it's no use. I was glad, however, to hear she was not Touarick, and only a Billingsgate Mooress of the place. I am also happy to tell my fair readers, she was not fair but very ugly. A large party of people followed me home, hooting me, to give them something to eat. This rabble fancies they have the right to insult a Christian, unless he gives them something ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... desperadoes, who, as was said of the best of men, would turn the world upside down, or have done it already. - But he must have a small share of fortitude indeed, who is put out of countenance by hard speeches without sense and meaning, or affrighted from the path of duty by the rude language of Billingsgate - For my own part, I smile contemptuously at such unmanly efforts: I would be glad to hear the reasoning of Chronus, if he has a capacity for it; but I disregard his railing as I would the barking ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... half buried in sand. Perchance they lie along-side the timbers of a whale. The general statement of the inhabitants is, that the Cape is wasting on both sides, but extending itself on particular points on the south and west, as at Chatham and Monomoy Beaches, and at Billingsgate, Long, and Race Points. James Freeman stated in his day that above three miles had been added to Monomoy Beach during the previous fifty years, and it is said to be still extending as fast as ever. A writer in the "Massachusetts Magazine," in the last century, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of these observations—somewhat heavily weighted with barrier billingsgate—Tartar showed his approval by wagging his tail knowingly and by covering the small face bent down to him ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... joint debates; she did not answer back. This intense conviction which admits of no parley was one of the secrets of her power. For many years the Billingsgate Calendar was directed at ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... and from one another. We may go further than this. Not only nations, but classes of men, are contrasted with each other. What can be more different than the gentry of the west end of this metropolis, and the money-making dwellers in the east? From them I will pass to Billingsgate and Wapping. What more unlike than a soldier and a sailor? the children of fashion that stroll in St. James's and Hyde Park, and the care-worn hirelings, that recreate themselves, with their wives and their brats, with ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... rocking herself piteously to and fro, and, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, uttering between sobs and sips, in utter self-abasement, her peccavi in the form of oaths and imprecations of the finest Billingsgate vernacular (all, however, addressed to herself), that would have made a dragoon shake in his shoes. The original form of which mea culpa seized the worthy manager with such an irresistibly ludicrous effect that he left the poor, guilty ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... in the sporting phraseology of the Racing Calendar, appear to be "got by Highlows out of Bluchers." They thrive chiefly in the neighbourhoods of Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and Billingsgate. They attach themselves principally to butchers' boys, Israelitish disposers of vix and pinthils, and itinerant misnomers of "live fish." On their first introduction to their masters, by prigging or purchase, they represent some of the glories of "Day and Martin;" but, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to a wedding reception, and among the serious presents some grinning Philistine drew his attention to an uncouth club—'a wife-beater' he called it. The flippancy had jarred upon John terribly: this intrusive reminder of the customs of the slums. It grated like Billingsgate in a boudoir. Now that savage weapon recurred to him—for a lurid instant he saw Winifred's husband wielding it. Oh, abomination of his sex! And did he stand there, in his immaculate evening dress, posing as an English gentleman? Even so might some gentleman burglar bear through ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... and 'yabber yabber' they would then utter would have raised the envy of the greatest 'Mrs. Moriarty' in the Billingsgate fishmarket." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... respect. But such was not the treatment he generally received. The language with which he was assailed was of the most insulting and grossly abusive kind. In those days it was called appalling severity. It reads now like very dreary and very vulgar billingsgate. One example will suffice. The "New York Mirror" was then supposed to be the leading literary paper in New York. It was nominally edited by Morris, Willis, and Fay, though the two last were at that time in Europe. Morris is still remembered by two or three ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... inexplicable reason; writhing with agony under clumsy blows which a robuster nature would have met with contemptuous laughter; racking his wits to contrive exquisite compliments, and suddenly exploding in sheer Billingsgate; making a mountain of every mole-hill in his pilgrimage; always preoccupied with his last literary project, and yet finding time for innumerable intrigues; for carrying out schemes of vengeance ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... heaven of the capital is a brown obscurity not much above the highest reached by the churches, and a December more years before the War then it would be amusing to count. There was enough of the sun in that morning to light my way down Mark Lane, across Great Tower Street to Billingsgate. I was on my way to sea for the first time, but that fortune was as incredible to me as the daylight. And as to the daylight, the only certainty in it was its antiquity. It was a gloom that was not only because the ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... the plague ruined me, it seems as though the fire was to set me up again. Here is my Lord Mayor, prompted thereto by his gracious Majesty the King, giving into my hands the task of seeing to the rebuilding of Bridge Ward, Within, Billingsgate Ward, Dowgate Ward, and Candlewick Ward. Four wards to build! why, my fortune ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... weather improved, and the fishermen began to look anxiously out for the steamer which was to convey their fish to market, but none was to be seen. Although a number of steamers run between Billingsgate and the Short Blue fleet, it sometimes happens that they do not manage to find the fleet at once, and occasionally a day or more is lost in searching for it—to the damage of the fish if the weather be warm. It seemed ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... instituted libel suits against the most prominent editors in the country, among them Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed. And what is more to the point,—he won his cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... the eighteenth century, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, in his 'Miscellaneous Reflections,' 1714, refers to notable philosophers and divines 'who can be contented to make sport, and write in learned Billingsgate, to divert the Coffeehouse, and entertain the assemblys at Booksellers' shops, or the more ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumbfounded under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that these words, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... very little to the praise of either people, that no vindictive notice was taken of any possible personalities, simply because the most hideous license had been established for centuries in tongue license and unmanly Billingsgate. This had been promoted by the example hourly ringing in their ears of vernile scurrility. Verna—that is, the slave born in the family—had each from the other one universal and proverbial character of foul-mouthed eloquence, which heard from infancy, could ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... auctioneers, into a brewery, into a stockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach office, into a waggon office, into the law again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the Billingsgate trade, into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. But whatever Tip went into, he came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it. Wherever he went, this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the prison walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling; and to prowl about within ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... A true choice spirit, we admit; With wits a fool, with fools a wit: Hear him but talk, and you would swear Obscenity herself was there, And that Profaneness had made choice, By way of trump, to use his voice; That, in all mean and low things great, He had been bred at Billingsgate; 390 And that, ascending to the earth Before the season of his birth, Blasphemy, making way and room, Had mark'd him in his mother's womb. Too honest (for the worst of men In forms are honest, now and then) Not to have, in the usual way, His bills sent in; too great to pay: Too ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... combing their hair, nursing or "trotting" them; and the passions of all—jealousy, rage, love—were as strongly marked as in men. They had a language as distinct to them as ours to us; and their women were as noisy and as fond of disputation as any fish-fag in Billingsgate. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... fish, oysters etc. were formerly much cheaper during the summer than during the winter, at Ostend and Scheveningen, because during winter they could be sent to a distance. At Billingsgate market, in the mackerel season, fish cost per hundred 48 to 50 shillings at 5 o'clock in the morning, 36 shillings at 10 o'clock, and 24 shillings in the afternoon. (H. Schulze, Nat-OEkonomische Bilder aus England, 1853, 241.) In the Rhine country, the price of fruit does not vary so much as in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... of the new Lord Justice, a quarrel sprung up between him and FitzGerald, Baron of Offaly. They both appeared before the Council; and if Hollinshed's account may be credited, they used language which would scarcely be tolerated in Billingsgate. FitzGerald proposed an appeal to arms, which was accepted by his adversary. Edward summoned both parties to Westminster. FitzGerald came duly equipped for the encounter, but De Vesci had fled the country. He was, however, acquitted by Parliament, on the ground ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... caught sight of them, he assumed a jaunty air and advanced with politeness, as if to offer them the last news from Africa. A yell of surprise burst from each chimpanzella as they successively recognised the unexpected arrival. One would have supposed that all the Billingsgate of Chimpanzeedom rolled from the voluble tongues of these unsophisticated and hitherto unimpressible young ladies; but probably their gesticulations, their shrill exclamations, their shrinkings, their ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... should be idle, while men dragged heavy weights about. "White fellow, big-fellow-fool all right," he said contemptuously, when Mac explained that it was generally so in the white man's country. A Briton of the Billingsgate type would have appealed to Jackeroo as a ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... advocate of his rival. The keen-witted Du Rollet was Gluckist; but La Harpe, the eloquent, was Piccinist. So this battle-royal in art commenced and raged with virulence. The green-room was made unmusical with contentions carried out in polite Billingsgate. Gluck tore up his unfinished score in rage when he learned that his rival was to compose an opera on the same libretto. La Harpe said: "The famous Gluck may puff his own compositions, but he can't prevent them from boring us to death." Thus the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... for landing-places, as Dowgate and Billingsgate; also in cliffs, as Kingsgate, Margate, and Ramsgate; those in Greece and in Italy are called scala. Also, a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... employed by the young scamps to defend them. He and Bart had already met, and the latter was worsted in the case, and had received from Brace the usual Billingsgate. He was on hand well charged on the day for the appearance of the defendants, and was at no pains to conceal the contempt he ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... turning in a westerly direction leading into the Round Staple, at the south-east end of the present King Street." This must have been on the site of the present Great George Street. An attempt was made to establish a fish-market here in competition with Billingsgate, but the pre-established interest was too strong and the ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... and practical reply, far from closing the mouths of the agitators, only encouraged them to redouble their exertions, and to imbitter the epithets which they hurled at the slave-holders. They exhausted the vocabulary of billingsgate in denouncing those guilty of this most henious of all sins, and charged them in plain terms, with being afraid to investigate or to discuss the subject. Thus goaded into it, many commenced the investigation. Then for the first time did the Southern people take ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the satire was—how fierce the assault—what garbage hurled at opponents—what foul blows were hit—what language of Billingsgate flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking over Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coffee house. Customers were clamouring to be served and there was no Hannah to wait upon them. Mrs. Fenton, her eyes flashing fire, was bustling up and down between the rows of boxes and denouncing the truant waitress in vigorous Billingsgate. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce |
