"Scurrility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... churches were filled in the morning: the afternoon was spent in sport and carousing; and at night bonfires were lighted, rockets discharged, and windows lighted up. The Jacobites however contrived to discover or to invent abundant matter for scurrility and sarcasm. They complained bitterly, that the way from the hall to the western door of the Abbey had been lined by Dutch soldiers. Was it seemly that an English king should enter into the most solemn of engagements with the English nation behind a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... alehouse." The articles which dictated the belief of the English Church roused a furious controversy. Above all, the Sacrament of the Mass, the centre of the Catholic system of faith and worship, and which still remained sacred to the bulk of Englishmen, was attacked with a scurrility and profaneness which passes belief. The doctrine of Transubstantiation, which was as yet recognized by law, was held up to scorn in ballads and mystery plays. In one church a Protestant lawyer raised a dog in his hands when the priest elevated the Host. The most sacred ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... inserting his billingsgate abuse in a Boston paper, when this town, particularly the TRADESMAN of it are reaping such advantages from Franklin's liberality. The Editor of the Centinal ought to blush for his arrogance in vilifying this TRADESMEN'S FRIEND, by retailing the scurrility of so wretched ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, in which every infirmity and peculiarity of Hervey are handed down in calm, cruel irony, and polished verses, to posterity. The verses are almost too disgusting to be revived in an age which disclaims scurrility. After the most personal rancorous invective, he thus writes of Lord ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Blows showered on him as thick as hail, and, disappearing under a shower of slaps, the flour on his face and the red powder of his wig enveloped him like a cloud. At last he exhausted all his resources of low scurrility, ridiculous contortions, grotesque grimaces, pretended aches, falls at full length, etc., till the ringmaster, judging this gratuitous show long enough, and that the public were sufficiently fascinated, sent him off ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... demolishes an antagonist and an argument is not rhetoric, but truth. This accumulation of "bad names" and ingenious combination of scurrility is merely rhetoric. It serves the rhetorical purpose, but it does not convince. It does not show the hearer or reader that one course is more expedient than another, nor give him any reason whatever for any opinion upon the subject. Virility, vigor, masculinity of mind, and essential force in debate ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... pleasant taunts, unto plain scurrility: and turning all his pleadings of matters of importance, to sport and laughter, having a grace in it, many times he did forget the comeliness that became a man of his calling. As in his oration for Caelius, where he saith, It is no marvel ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... principles; your prose I think very so so; but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your "Watchman" solely on account of it. In justice therefore to me and some others of my stamp, I entreat you to give us more verse, and less democratic scurrility. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... more criminal as it presumeth to reach persons eminent in dignity or worth, unto whom special veneration is appropriate. This adjoineth sauciness to scurrility, and advanceth the wrong thereof into a kind of sacrilege. 'Tis not only injustice, but profaneness, to abuse the gods. Their station is a sanctuary from all irreverence and reproach; they are seated on high, that we may only look up to them ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... George W. Anderson, editor and proprietor of the Lincoln Register, during his few months' residence in our county has, by constant calumny and scurrility, both verbal and through the columns of his paper, sought to injure the reputation of the honorable women who compose the Lincoln suffrage and temperance associations, and of all women everywhere who sympathize with the aims and purposes ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... proceedings of those our ancestors (both in this reforming and suffering period) in a most grotesque and frantic dress, whereby their names and noble attainments have been loaded with reproach, sarcasms and scurrility; but as if this had not been enough, to expose them in rendering them, and their most faithful contendings, odious, some modern writers, under the character of monthly reviewers, have set their engines again at work, to misrepresent some of them, and set them in such a dishonourable ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... editor of the Quarterly from its foundation in February, 1809, until September, 1824, and undoubtedly established its reputation for scurrility. It is probable that more reviews were written, or directly inspired, by him than have been actually traced to his pen; and, in any case, as Leigh Hunt puts it, he made ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... happened just at that time, there arrived from Alexandria a ship, which was said to be freighted (374) with dust for the wrestlers belonging to the emperor [621]. This so much inflamed the public rage, that he was treated with the utmost abuse and scurrility. Upon the top of one of his statues was placed the figure of a chariot with a Greek inscription, that "Now indeed he had a race to run; let him be gone." A little bag was tied about another, with a ticket containing these words; "What could ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... of scurrility entirely one-sided. Judge caricatured Cleveland in hideous cartoons. The New York Tribune described him as a small man "everywhere except on the hay-scales." Beginning in Buffalo rumors spread all over the country that Cleveland was ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... sentiment of Pride, which the Stoic might justly feel in his conquest of himself, and in his lofty independence and superiority to the casualties of life.[10] The pride of the Cynic, the Stoic's predecessor, was prominent and offensive, showing itself in scurrility and contempt towards everybody else; the Stoical pride was a refinement upon this, but was still a grateful sentiment of superiority, which helped to make up for the surrender of indulgences. It was usual to bestow the most extravagant laudation on the 'Wise Man,' ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... carried copies of Hudibras around in their pockets. The poem was enormously popular in its day, and some of its best lines are still quoted; but the selections we now meet give but a faint idea of the general scurrility of a work which amused England in the days when the Puritan's fanaticism was keenly remembered, his struggle ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... seriousness; not smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love for mockery often ran him into scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was decent. Indeed, Cicero was by natural ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... come home disappointed in some personal matter from the seat of government. "It is to be lamented," he said, "that the editors of the different gazettes in the Union do not more generally and more correctly (instead of stuffing their papers with scurrility and nonsensical declamation, which few would read if they were apprised of the contents) publish the debates in Congress on all great national questions. And this, with no uncommon pains, every one of them might do." Washington evidently believed that there was no serious danger of the people going ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... observations thrown into pamphlet size, they all three corrected it, Boswell copied it out, and they drove immediately in Lady Betty's coach to the shop of William Flexney, Churchill's publisher, and persuaded him to undertake the publication. Next day Boswell repented of the scurrility of what they had written and got Dempster to go with him to retrieve the copy. Erskine at first was sulky, but finally consented to help revise it again. It went back to Flexney in a day or two, and was published on ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... by the by, we have among us, at this moment, the publishers of the John Bull, whose combined efforts in the way of scurrility have rendered them notorious among the periodicals of present times. There is, however, little of public attraction about them; and although they profess to have a subscription opened, to enable them to pay the fine imposed upon them, it is doubted whether any such is ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... moment enters the caustic, generous Witmore, belabouring the profanity, the scurrility, the immodesty, the stupidity of the age with one hand, the while he pays his friend's rent with the other; and who, incidentally, is requested by that irascible genius to kick a worthy publisher down the stairs, on the latter's refusal ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... attack Lord B——-publicly in parliament, and reduce the late Opposition, THE PRESENT MINISTRY, to protect him publicly, in consequence of their supposed treaty with him. 'En attendant mieux', the paper war is carried on with much fury and scurrility on all sides, to the great entertainment of such lazy and impartial people as myself: I do not know whether you have the "Daily Advertiser," and the "Public Advertiser," in which all political letters are inserted, and some very well-written ones on both sides; but I know that they amuse ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... of Professor Robison and Abbe Barruel would doubtless have been considered as ample in any case which did not interest the prejudices and passions of men against them. The scurrility and odium with which they have been loaded is perfectly natural, and what the nature of their testimony would have led one to expect. Men will endeavour to invalidate that evidence which tends to unveil their dark designs: and it cannot be expected that those who believe that ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... ordinary colloquies; they make no hesitation to call a spade a spade; and when they once undertake to call hard names, the famous pot and kettle, of vituperating memory, are not to be compared with them for scurrility of epithet. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... had not seen for six or seven years; but he was not admitted: he waited some time, being loath to go away without seeing her. At last she was ordered to go to the window and address him in the language of abuse and scurrility. The words she made use of, it would be indecent to mention. For this she was applauded, and that in the author's hearing, when he belonged ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... Scurrility And scorning Folly with Contempt is crept, Rolling in Rhimes of shameless Ribaudry, Without Regard or due Decorum kept; Each idle Wit at will presumes to make, And doth the Learned's ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... trenchant style, was not, upon the whole, too strong for the occasion. In other instances he was roused to greater fury on less provocation, and used phrases unbefitting the columns of any paper which aspires to be a public instructor. But he was not alone in his scurrility. Some of the persons attacked in the Advocate retorted upon the editor through the official press in language far less defensible than his own. He was denounced as an upstart and a demagogue, whose low origin ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent |
