[Ads-l] Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great work, James. Here is a link to the page image which is visible
in  the Google Books database.

Date: 1614
Title: The Nipping Or Snipping of Abuses: Or the Woolgathering of Witte
Author: John Taylor

https://books.google.com/books?id=JFtpAAAAcAAJ&q=%22lewd+did%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
This line is the same backward, as it is forward, and I will giue any
man fiue shillings a peece for as many as they can make in English.

Lewd did I liue and euil I did dwel.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 1:09 AM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com> wrote:
>
> 5 shillings offered by the author in 1614.
>
> <extract>
> This line is the same backward, as it is forward, and I will giue any
> man fiue shillings a peece for as many as they can make in English.
>
> Lewd did I liue and euil I did dwel.
>
> <fromtitle>The nipping and snipping of abuses: or The woolgathering of
> vvitte With the Muses Taylor, brought from Parnassus by land, with a
> paire of oares wherein are aboue a hundred seuerall garments of diuers
> fashions, made by nature, without the helpe of art, and a proclamation
> from hell in the Deuils name, concerning the propogation, and excessiue
> vse of tobacco
> <fromauthor>Taylor, John <borndied>1580-1653</fromauthor>
> <place>London
> <publishedby>Printed by Ed: Griffin for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be
> sold at the signe of the Pide-Bull neere Saint Austens-gate
> <date>1614.
> <collection>Early English Books Online, Text Creation Partnership
> <url>
> https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13479.0001.001/1:29?ALLSELECTED=1;c=eebo;c=eebo2;g=eebogroup;rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=datea;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;xc=1;q1=did+dwel
> <accessdate>07apr2021
> </extract>
>
> On 4/7/21 7:49 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> > Stephen Goranson wrote:
> >> Eightheeth Century Collection online has
> >>
> >> Lewd I did live & evil did I dwel
> >>
> >> Sept. 1793, The Kentish Register, p. 59. Letter to the Editor, and including the John Taylor,
> >> Water-Poet attribution, who was said to have offered a money reward (50l. [?])for a better
> >> English example.
> >
> > Here is a slightly earlier instance of "Lewd did I live, evil I did
> > dwell" together with a Latin palindrome.
> >
> > Date: July 1790
> > Periodical: The Gentleman's Magazine
> > Publication Location: London, England
> > Printer: John Nichols for D. Henry
> > Quote Page 605
> >
> > https://books.google.com/books?id=BnYdAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Lewd+did%22#v=snippet&
> >
> > [Begin excerpt - double-check for typos]
> > For, as to the mere artifice shewn in the construction of the verse,
> > it is clearly out-done in the verses quoted by Brodæus, and in a line
> > I remember to have met with:
> >
> > Odo tenet malam, madidam mappam tenet Anna.
> > Anna tenet mappam madidam, malam tenet Odo.
> >
> > In this verse we read backward, according to the order of the letters;
> > in that quoted by Mr. Row, according to the order of the words; and,
> > in point of composition, the difficulty in the former case is
> > certainly much greater than in the latter.
> >
> > I remember to have seen one English verse of this kind:
> >
> > Lewd did I live, evil I did dwell.
> >
> > It is, indeed, a very shabby verse; and I have some pleasure in
> > finding that these difficiles nugæ make no figure in our language.
> > Stultus labor eft ineptiarum
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > Garson
>
>
> --
> James Eric Lawson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org