'Quaker,' 'Puritan,'
'Roundhead,' were all, on the contrary, names devised by others, and
never accepted by those to whom they were attached. To the third class
'Whig' and 'Tory' belong. These were nicknames originally of bitterest
party hate, withdrawn from their earlier use, and fastened by two
political bodies in England each on the other, [Footnote: In North's
_Examen_. p. 321, is a very lively, though not a very impartial,
account of the rise of these names.] the 'Whig' being properly a
Scottish covenanter, [Footnote: [For a full account of the name see
Nares, and Todd's _Johnson_.]] the 'Tory' an Irish bog-trotting
freebooter; while yet these nicknames in tract of time so lost and let
go what was offensive about them, that in the end they were adopted by
the very parties themselves. Not otherwise the German 'Lutherans' were
originally so called by their antagonists. [Footnote: Dr. Eck, one of
the earliest who wrote against the Reformation, first called the
Reformed 'Lutherani.'] 'Methodist,' in like manner, was a title not
first taken by the followers of Wesley, but fastened on them by others,
while yet they have been subsequently willing, though with a certain
reserve, to accept and to be known by it. 'Momiers' or 'Mummers,' a
name in itself of far greater offence, has obtained in Switzerland
something of the same allowance. Exactly in the same way 'Capuchin' was
at first a jesting nickname, given by the gamins in the streets to that
reformed branch of the Franciscans which afterwards accepted it as
their proper designation.
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