It was provoked by the peaked and pointed
hood ('cappuccio,' 'cappucino') which they wore. The story of the
'Gueux,' or 'Beggars,' of Holland, and how they appropriated their name,
is familiar, as I doubt not, to many. [Footnote: [See chapter on
Political Nicknames in D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_.]]
A 'Premier' or 'Prime Minister,' though unknown to the law of England,
is at present one of the institutions of the country. The acknowledged
leadership of one member in the Government is a fact of only gradual
growth in our constitutional history, but one in which the nation has
entirely acquiesced,--nor is there anything invidious now in the title.
But in what spirit the Parliamentary Opposition, having coined the term,
applied it first to Sir Robert Walpole, is plain from some words of his
spoken in the House of Commons, Feb. 11, 1742: 'Having invested me with
a kind of mock dignity, and styled me a _Prime Minister_, they [the
Opposition] impute to me an unpardonable abuse of the chimerical
authority which they only created and conferred.'
Now of these titles some undoubtedly, like 'Capuchin' instanced just
now, stand in no very intimate connexion with those who bear them; and
such names, though seldom without their instruction, yet plainly are
not so instructive as others, in which the innermost heart of the thing
named so utters itself, that, having mastered the name, we have placed
ourselves at the central point, from whence best to master everything
besides.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157