] ].... A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished....
] I fear that this is a third-degree Austen post, for which I apologise in advance, but I couldn't resist. I found out recently that the above expression ( to pluck a rose ) was the universal euphemism for answering the call of nature during the eighteenth century. So the poor girl in the above quotation would have been doing something which put her in a much more vulnerable position than you might suppose.
] The phrase appears several times in Swift's poetry. In the poem below, he is poking fun at some rather elaborate male and female toilets which had been built on the grand estate of Sir Arthur Acheson in twenty weeks. Swift was a guest of the Achesons at the time, but this didn't save them from his satire:
] Two Temples of magnifick Size,
] Attract the curious Trav'llers Eyes,
] That might be envy'd by the Greeks;
] Rais'd up by you in twenty Weeks:
] Here, gentle Goddess Cloacine
] Receives all Off'rings at her Shrine.
] In sep'rate Cells the He's and She's
] Here pay their Vows with bended Knees:
] (For, 'tis prophane when Sexes mingle;
] And ev'ry Nymph must enter single;
] And when she feels an inward Motion,
] Comes fill'd with Rev'rence and Devotion.)
] The bashful Maid, to hide her Blush,
] Shall creep no more behind a Bush;
] Here unobserv'd, she boldly goes,
] As who should say, to pluck a Rose .