Everybody has heard of “Ditto to Mr. Burke”; the victim of this title was a Mr. Conger, who was elected with Burke to represent the city of Bristol. Utterly bewildered as to how to thank the electors after his associate’s splendid speech, he condensed his own address into these significant words: “Gentlemen, I say ditto to Mr. Burke, ditto to Mr. Burke!” “Chicken Taylor” was the name which, in the early part of the century, long stuck to Mr. M. A. Taylor; he contended against a great lawyer in the House, and then apologized that he, “a chicken in the law, should venture on a fight with the cock of Westminster.” “Adullamites,” or “Dwellers in the Cave,” the name given by Mr. Bright to Mr. Lowe and some of his Liberal friends,--a name derived from the Scripture story of David and his followers retiring to a cave,--will probably long continue to be applied to the members of a discontented faction.
Who does not remember the nickname, “The Spasmodic School of Poetry,” which was given to three or four young poets some thirty years ago? It was in the brain of Professor Aytoun that this title originated, and immediately these writers, whose salient faults were thus felicitously hit off, were everywhere recognized as “spasmodists.” For years after, no one of these minstrels could strike his lyre in public, even in the most humdrum, old-fashioned way, but the cry of “spasmodist” was raised so loudly that he was glad to retreat into his wonted obscurity. Even Ben Jonson, the sturdy old dramatist, did not escape a nickname. His envious rivals dubbed him “The Limestone and Mortar Poet,” in allusion to his lack of spontaneity as a poet, and his having begun life as a bricklayer.
Among the other memorable English nicknames, that of “Jemmy Twitcher,” taken from the chief of Macheath’s gang in “The Beggar’s Opera,” and applied to Lord Sandwich,--that of “Orange Peel,” given to Sir Robert Peel by the Irish, the inveterate foes of the House of Orange,--“the stormy Petrel of debate,” given to Mr. Bernal Osborne,--“Finality Russell,” fastened upon Lord John Russell because he wished a certain Reform measure to be final,--“The Dandy Demagogue,” given to Mr. T. S. Duncombe, the able parliamentary advocate of the people, who was distinguished by the remarkable elegance and finish of his attire,--the unique “Dizzy,” into which his enemies condensed the name of the celebrated Jewish premier,--and the “Who? Who? Ministry,” applied to Lord Derby’s Cabinet in 1852,--are preëminently significant and telling. Among the hundreds of American political nicknames, there are many which are not remarkably expressive; others, like “Old Bullion” and “Old Hickory,” are steeped in “the very brine of conceit,” and sum up a character as if by inspiration.