There are also mock imprecations as well as mock oaths.  Of this character are, “The devil go with you an’ sixpence, an’ thin you’ll want neither money nor company!” This humorous and considerate curse is generally confined to the female sex.  When Paddy happens to be in a romping mood, and teases his sweetheart too much, she usually utters it with a countenance combating with smiles and frowns, while she stands in the act of pinning up her dishevelled hair; her cheeks, particularly the one next Paddy, deepened into a becoming blush.

“Bad scran to you!” is another form seldom used in anger:  it is the same as “Hard feeding to you!” “Bad win’ to you!” is “Ill health to you!” it is nearly the same as “Consumin’ (consumption) to you!” Two other imprecations come under this head, which we will class together, because they are counterparts of each other, with this difference, that one of them is the most subtilely and intensely withering in its purport that can well be conceived.  The one is that common curse, “Bad ’cess to you!” that is, bad success to you:  we may identify it with “Hard fortune to you!” The other is a keen one, indeed—­“Sweet bad luck to you!” Now, whether we consider the epithet sweet as bitterly ironical, or deem it as a wish that prosperity may harden the heart to the accomplishment of future damnation, as in the case of Dives, we must in either sense grant that it is an oath of powerful hatred and venom.  Occasionally the curse of “Bad luck to you!” produces an admirable retort, which is pretty common.  When one man applies it to another, he is answered with “Good luck to you, thin; but may neither of thim ever happen.”

“Six eggs to you, an’ half-a-dozen o’ them rotten!”—­like “The devil go with you an’ sixpence!” is another of those pleasantries which mostly occur in the good-humored badinage between the sexes.  It implies disappointment.

There is a species of imprecation prevalent among Irishmen which we may term neutral.  It is ended by the word bit, and merely results from a habit of swearing where there is no malignity of purpose.  An Irishman, when corroborating an assertion, however true or false, will often say, “Bad luck to the bit but it is;”—­“Divil fire the bit but it’s thruth!”—­“Damn the bit but it is!” and so on.  In this form the mind is not moved, nor the passions excited:  it is therefore probably the most insipid of all their imprecations.

Some of the most dreadful maledictions are to be heard among the confirmed mendicants of Ireland.  The wit, the gall, and the poetry of these are uncommon.  “May you melt off the earth like snow off the ditch!” is one of a high order and intense malignity; but it is not exclusively confined to mendicants, although they form that class among which it is most prevalent.  Nearly related to this is, “May you melt like butther before a summer sun!” These are, indeed, essentially poetical; they present the mind with appropriate imagery, and exhibit a comparison perfectly just and striking.  The former we think unrivalled.