ly), and therefore cannot comfortably frame
their lovely and innocent lips to utter them (which, indeed, custom will
hardly allow us to expect), they had better hand over the passages to
the nearest male friend that happens to be with them, and get him to
read or to _initialize_ them instead. As to ourselves (for reasons also
to be presently given), we shall write the words at full length, out of
sheer sense of their nothingness; only premising, that such was not the
opinion entertained of them by this tremendous Lord Chancellor, or by
the age in which he lived; otherwise he would not have resorted to them
as clenches for his thunderbolts, neither would his contemporaries have
given them to the reading world under those mitigated and whispering
forms of initials and hyphens, which have come down to our own times,
and which are intended to impress their audacity by intimating their
guilt.

"_Damns_ have had their day," says the man in the "Rivals." So they
have; and so we would have the reader think, and treat them accordingly;
that is to say, as things of no account, one way or the other. But such
was not the case when the dramatist wrote; and therefore Lord Thurlow
was renowned as a swearer, even in a swearing age. It was his ambition
to be considered a swearer. He took to it, as a lad does, who wishes to
show that he has arrived at man's estate. Every thing with the judge was
"damned bad" or "damned good," damned hot or cold, damned stupid, &c. It
was his epithet, his adjective, his participle, his sign of positive and
superlative, his argument, his judgment. He could not have got on
without it. To deprive Thurlow of his "damn" would have been to shave
his eyebrows, or to turn his growl to a whisper.

"Lamenting," says Lord Campbell, "the great difficulty he had in
disposing of a high legal situation, he described himself as long
hesitating between the intemperance of A. and the corruption of B., but
finally preferring the man of bad temper. Afraid lest he should have
been supposed to have admitted the existence of pure moral worth, he
added, 'Not but that there was a d----d deal of corruption in A.'s
intemperance.' Happening to be at the British Museum, viewing the
Townley Marbles, when a person came in and announced the death of Mr.
Pitt, Thurlow was heard to say, 'a d----d good hand at turning a
period!' and no more.

"The following anecdote (continues his lordship) was related by Lord
Eldon:--

"After dinner,