ch the parties so
invidiously bestow on each other. They are ludicrous enough in their
origin. The friends of the court and the advocates of lineal succession
were, by the republican party, branded with the title of _tories_, which
was the name of certain Irish robbers;[50] while the court party in
return could find no other revenge than by appropriating to the
covenanters and the republicans of that class the name of the Scotch
beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they considered so expressive of
their dispositions, and which is called _whigg_. So ridiculous in their
origin were these pernicious nicknames, which long excited feuds and
quarrels in domestic life, and may still be said to divide into two
great parties this land of political freedom. But nothing becomes
obsolete in political factions, and the meaner and more scandalous the
name affixed by one party to another the more it becomes not only their
rallying cry or their password, but even constitutes their glory. Thus
the Hollanders long prided themselves on the humiliating nickname of
"Les Gueux:" the protestants of France on the scornful one of the
_Huguenots_; the non-conformists in England on the mockery of the
_puritan_; and all parties have perpetuated their anger by their
inglorious names. Swift was well aware of this truth in political
history: "each party," says that sagacious observer, "grows proud of
that appellation which their adversaries at first intended as a
reproach; of this sort were the _Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_,
_Huguenots_ and _Cavaliers_."

Nor has it been only by nicknaming each other by derisory or opprobrious
terms that parties have been marked, but they have also worn a livery,
and practised distinctive manners. What sufferings did not Italy endure
for a long series of years under those fatal party-names of the
_Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_; alternately the victors and the
vanquished, the beautiful land of Italy drank the blood of her children.
Italy, like Greece, opens a moving picture of the hatreds and jealousies
of small republics; her _Bianchi_ and her _Neri_, her _Guelphs_ and her
_Ghibellines_! In Bologna, two great families once shook that city with
their divisions; the _Pepoli_ adopted the French interests; the
_Maluezzi_ the Spanish. It was incurring some danger to walk the streets
of Bologna, for the _Pepoli_ wore their feathers on the right side of
their caps, and the _Maluezzi_ on the left. Such was the party-hatred