The next thing which occurs to us in connection with the present subject, is cursing; and here again Paddy holds the first place.  His imprecations are often full, bitter, and intense.  Indeed, there is more poetry and epigrammatic point in them than in those of any other country in the world.

We find it a difficult thing to enumerate the Irish curses, so as to do justice to a subject so varied and so liable to be shifted and improved by the fertile genius of those who send them abroad.  Indeed, to reduce them into order and method would be a task of considerable difficulty.  Every occasion, and every fit of passion, frequently produce a new curse, perhaps equal in bitterness to any that has gone before it.

Many of the Irish imprecations are difficult to be understood, having their origin in some historical event, or in poetical metaphors that require a considerable process of reasoning to explain them.  Of this twofold class is that general one, “The curse of Cromwell on you!” which means, may you suffer all that a tyrant like Cromwell would inflict! and “The curse o’the crows upon you!” which is probably an allusion to the Danish invasion—­a raven being the symbol of Denmark; or it may be tantamount to “May you rot on the hills, that the crows may feed upon your carcass!” Perhaps it may thus be understood to imprecate death upon you or some member of your house—­alluding to the superstition of rooks hovering over the habitations of the sick, when the malady with which they are afflicted is known to be fatal.  Indeed, the latter must certainly be the meaning of it, as is evident from the proverb of “Die, an’ give the crow a puddin’.”

“Hell’s cure to you!—­the devil’s luck to you!—­high hanging to you!—­hard feeling to you!—­a short coorse to you!” are all pretty intense, and generally used under provocation and passion.  In these cases the curses just mentioned are directed immediately to the offensive object, and there certainly is no want of the malus animus to give them energy.  It would be easy to multiply the imprecations belonging to this class among the peasantry, but the task is rather unpleasant.  There are a few, however, which, in consequence of their ingenuity, we cannot pass over:  they are, in sooth, studies for the swearer.  “May you never die till you see your own funeral!” is a very beautiful specimen of the periphrasis:  it simply means, may you be hanged; for he who is hanged is humorously said to be favored with a view of that sombre spectacle, by which they mean the crowd that attends an execution.  To the same purpose is, “May you die wid a caper in your heel!”—­“May you die in your pumps!”—­“May your last dance be a hornpipe on the air!” These are all emblematic of hanging, and are uttered sometimes in jest, and occasionally in earnest.  “May the grass grow before your door!” is highly imaginative and poetical.  Nothing, indeed, can present the mind with a stronger or more picturesque emblem of desolation and ruin.  Its malignity is terrible.