of
the two great Italian factions, that they carried their rancour even
into their domestic habits; at table the _Guelphs_ placed their knives
and spoons longwise, and the _Ghibellines_ across; the one cut their
bread across, the other longwise. Even in cutting an orange they could
not agree; for the _Guelph_ cut his orange horizontally, and the
_Ghibelline_ downwards. Children were taught these artifices of
faction--their hatreds became traditional, and thus the Italians
perpetuated the full benefits of their party-spirit from generation to
generation.[51]

Men in private life go down to their graves with some unlucky name, not
received in baptism, but more descriptive and picturesque; and even
ministers of state have winced at a political christening. Malagrida the
Jesuit and Jemmy Twitcher were nicknames which made one of our ministers
odious, and another contemptible.[52] The Earl of Godolphin caught such
fire at that of Volpone, that it drove him into the opposite party, for
the vindictive purpose of obtaining the impolitical prosecution of
Sacheverell, who, in his famous sermon, had first applied it to the
earl, and unluckily it had stuck to him.

"Faction," says Lord Orford, "is as capricious as fortune; wrongs,
oppression, the zeal of real patriots, or the genius of false ones, may
sometimes be employed for years in kindling substantial opposition to
authority; in other seasons the impulse of a moment, a _ballad_, a
_nickname_, a _fashion_ can throw a city into a tumult, and shake the
foundations of a state."

Such is a slight history of the human passions in politics! We might
despair in thus discovering that wisdom and patriotism so frequently
originate in this turbid source of party; but we are consoled when we
reflect that the most important political principles are immutable: and
that they are those which even the spirit of party must learn to
reverence.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] See Recueil Chronologique et Analytique de tout ce qui a fait en
Portugal la Societe de Jesus. Vol. ii. sect. 406.

[48] _Plunder_, observed Mr. Douce, is pure Dutch or
Flemish--_Plunderen_, from _Plunder_, which means _property_ of any
kind. May tells us it was brought by those officers who had returned
from the wars of the Netherlands.

[49] One of the best collections of political songs written during
the great Civil War, is entitled "The Rump," and has a curious
frontispiece representing the m