Not that it can be altogether denied that there are other contrivances whereby the members of the fraternity succeed in courting mutual recognition. The topic of sporting is, perhaps, the most effectual of these, and it must be understood that a man’s convivial condition is often undergoing a crucial investigation when he is questioned as to his views upon such subjects as the Cesarewitch or the Cambridgeshire. The several processes of swearing would seem however to supply the readiest hall-mark, and are rather of an easier manipulation. This theory of indulgence might go far to explain the leniency of men like Jonathan Swift towards a custom which, had they wished it, they might have deposed from its high places by their ridicule. Swearing was far from being a rock of offence to the society of Harley and St. John. Why else, again, has it been permitted from commanders of the stamp of Picton in the field, and from lawyers of the pattern of Thurlow on the woolsack? “I will now proceed to my seventh point,” pursued Sir Ilay Campbell, arguing an interminable Scotch appeal in the House of Lords. “I’m damned if you do,” shrieked Lord Thurlow, and the House adjourned neither angry or scandalised. And again, how else explain the exuberance of the Duchess of Marlborough’s language when calling at Lord Mansfield’s lodgings? His lordship, as we know, was away, and on his return questioned the doorkeeper as to the name of his visitor. “I do not know who she was,” replied the man, “but she swore like a lady of quality.”
Of Thurlow it has been said that he was renowned as a swearer even in a swearing age. “He took it as a lad who wishes to show that he has arrived at man’s estate. He could not have got on without it.”[33] At one time a dispute was pending as to the right to present to a vacant benefice. A certain bishop who claimed the right sent his secretary to argue with Lord Thurlow, who, for his part, obstinately maintained the counter-claim of the Crown. The envoy no sooner opened his case and made known his message, than Thurlow cut short all further argument. “Give my compliments to his lordship, and tell him I will see him damned before he present.” “That,” remonstrated the secretary, “is a very unpleasant message to deliver to a bishop.” “You are right,” replied Thurlow, “so it is. Tell him I will see myself damned before he present.”
Another professor in the same uncompromising school of hard swearers would seem to have been Sir Thomas Maitland, His Majesty’s Lord High Commissioner administering the government of the Ionian Islands, at that time and long afterwards under the British dominion. Sir Charles Napier relates that on arriving at Corfu to enter upon a military appointment, and being ushered into his Excellency’s presence, he was received with a sullen “Who the devil are you?” and on explaining his business, Sir Thomas rejoined, “Then I hope you are not such a damned scoundrel as your predecessor.” Sir Thomas seems to have been in the habit of dealing out abuse the most flagrant towards those with whom he was brought into contact. “On one occasion,”—we may follow Sir Charles Napier’s words,—“the senate having been assembled in the saloon of the palace waiting in all form for his Excellency’s appearance, the door slowly opened and Sir Thomas walked in with the following articles of clothing upon him:
“One shirt, which like Tam o’ Shanter’s friend, the cutty-sark,
“In longitude was sorely scanty.”
“One red night-cap,
“One pair of slippers.
“The rest of his Excellency’s person was perfectly divested of garments. In this state he walked into the middle of the saloon, looked round at the assembled senators and then said, addressing the secretary, “Damn them, tell them all to go to hell.”[34]
What reception this outburst provoked from the assembled notables we are not informed. When Thurlow once at a dinner-party administered a similar admonition to a blundering man-servant, telling him he wished he was in hell, the terrified man wearily replied, “I wish I was, my lord! I wish I was.”
There can be little doubt that the practice of gentlemen “damning themselves as black as butter-milk” was intended to overawe, and on the whole it has answered the intention. It is however but a cheap substitute for authority, and belongs of right to a rampant jingoism of a past age. We are here reminded of a kind of oath which, having conferred a nick-name upon a political party, seems likely to pass into the language in some altered form. The “Jingos,” as will be remembered, were the faction in the country who favoured an aggressive policy during the recent Russian war. The name came to be given them from a circumstance of quite an insignificant kind. At a certain London singing-room a patriotic song happened to be nightly delivered, in which the vocalist emphasised his warlike utterances with a constant recurrence of this oath. The Radicals seized the moment, and in a short space of time the term “by Jingo” was pinned to the backs of the Tory party like a tin kettle tied to a dog’s tail. Men soon began to ask themselves where first they could have met with this undignified expression? The ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ seemed the most likely ground, only that readers of Goldsmith referred to the example of the town-bred lady who, when introduced into the Vicar’s family, swore “by the living Jingo!”