subs. (venery).—The sexual spasm: Fr. le plaisir. Hence, THE ART OF PLEASURE = the practise of love; THE DEED OF PLEASURE = the act of kind; PLEASURE-BOAT (-GARDEN, -GROUND, or -PLACE) = the female pudendum: also THE PALACE OF PLEASURE: see MONOSYLLABLE; PLEASURE-GARDEN PADLOCK = the menstrual cloth; PLEASURE-LADY (or LADY OF PLEASURE) = a harlot: Fr. fille de joie; A VOTARY OF PLEASURE = a whoremonger (BAILEY, 1748); TO PLEASURE (or PLEASE) A WOMAN = to give her an orgasm (as the Duchess of Marlborough wrote in her diary that the Duke had PLEASURED her thrice ‘in his boots’).

1

  c. 1500.  Roberte the Deuyll [HAZLITT, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, I. 222].

          He toke her in hys armes, and her kyste;
And of that Lady he had all hys PLEASURE,
And so begate a chylde.

2

  d. 1529.  SKELTON, Phyllyp Sparowe, 1194.

          Her kyrtell so goodly lased,
And vnder that is brased [ready]
Such PLASURES that I may
Neyther wryte nor say.

3

  1594.  J. LYLY, Mother Bombie, iii. 4. Rix. If you take your PLEASURE of me, I’le in and tell your practises against your masters. Half. In faith, soure hart, he that takes his PLEASURE on thee, is very PLEASURABLE.

4

  1596.  DAVIES, Epigrams, ‘In Katam,’ viii.

        Kate being PLEASED, wished that her PLEASURE could
Endure as long as a buff jerkin would:
Content thee Kate, although thy PLEASURE wasteth,
Thy PLEASURE’S PLACE like a buff jerkin lasteth.

5

  1605.  CHAPMAN, All Fools, i. 1.

        All day in ceaseless uproar with their households,
If all the night their husbands have not PLEAS’D them.

6

  1608.  SHAKESPEARE, Pericles, i. 1.

        By your untimely claspings with your child
(Which PLEASURE fits a husband, not a father);
And she an eater of her mother’s flesh.

7

  1623.  WEBSTER, The Duchess of Malfi, v. 2. We that are great WOMEN OF PLEASURE … join the sweet delight and the pretty excuse together.

8

  c. 1640–2.  SHIRLEY, Captain Underwit, i. [BULLEN, Old Plays, ii.].

          Sir Fr.  Custome and nature make it less offence
In women to comitt THE DEED OF PLEASURE
Then men to doubt their chastity.

9

  1663–85.  Old Ballad, ‘Poor Robin’s Prophesie.’

        Your LADY OF PLEASURE that us’d for to rant,
And Coach it about with her lusty Gallant,
Will then become modest, and find a new way
To live like a Nun in a Cloyster all day.

10

  1681.  A. RADCLIFFE, Ovid Travestie, 30.

        When first, with PLEASURE, I lay under you,
Would y’ad been lighter by a Stone or two.

11

  1736.  G. JACOB, The Rape of the Smock, 21.

        And ardently round Cælia’s Waist he twines.
Soft PLEASURE now succeeds an Age of Pain.

12

  1749.  SMOLLETT, Gil Blas (1812), ii. 77. Is it possible that a person of such delicacy can be a LADY OF PLEASURE? Ibid. [ROUTLEDGE], 89. A celebrated wanton … keeping open house night and day for the VOTARIES OF PLEASURE. She was … so perfect a mistress in the ART OF PLEASURE that she sold the waste and refuse of her beauty at a higher price than the first sample of the unadulterated article. Ibid., 286. Whether pimping was a virtue or a vice … what a promotion for me to be the provider of PLEASURE to a great prince. Ibid., 222. You cannot help admitting, that where a young man does insinuate himself slily into a girl’s bedchamber, he takes better care of his own PLEASURE than of her reputation.

13

  1754.  EARL OF CORK, Connoisseur [W. C. SYDNEY, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, i. 47]. [I was present] at an entertainment where a celebrated LADY OF PLEASURE was one of the party; her shoe was pulled off by a young man, who filled it with champagne and drank it off to her health.

14

  1772.  BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 97.

        A fine long nose, and proper measure
Of love, to give the fair ones PLEASURE.
    Ibid., 244.
He’d done his best to PLEASE.
    Ibid., 399.
Patroclus’ bed was warm’d the last,
And he his nights in PLEASURE past
By a fair maiden’s side.

15

  d. 1796.  BURNS, The Merry Muses, ‘O, Saw Ye my Maggie?’

        My Maggie has a treasure,
A hidden MINE O’ PLEASURE,
I’ll heuk it at my leisure,
  It’s a’ alane for me.
    Ibid., ‘Nine-Inch,’ &c.
I learned a sang in Annandale,
  Nine-inch will PLEASE a lady.

16

  1827.  BULWER-LYTTON, Pelham, xlix. The rest were made up of unfortunate women of the vilest … decrepit, but indefatigable VOTARIES OF PLEASURE.

17

  1866.  SWINBURNE, Poems and Ballads, ‘In the Orchard.’

        The PLEASURE lives there, when the sense has died.
    ‘Dolores.’
The froth of the serpents of PLEASURE,
  More salt than the foam of the sea,
Now felt as a flame, now at leisure,
  As wine shed for me. Et passim.

18