Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/448

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368


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn MAY n, 1907.


the phrase usually attributed to him ? And what is the authority for the amended ver- sion ? POLITICIAN.

[It may simplify matters to notice POLITICIAN'S last question first. Mr. E. Latham in his ' Famous Sayings and their Authors ' states, s.v. " Every man has his price ' :

" This saying is said to have originated from the following remark by Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745) to Mr. Leveson : ' You see with what zeal and vehemence those gentlemen oppose, and yet / knot* the price of every man in this house except three, and your brother [Lord Gower] is one of them.'

  • Flowery oratory he despised. He ascribed to the

interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said All those men hare their price ' (Coxe, ' Memoirs of Walpole,' 1800, vol. iv. p. 369). 'All those men, he said of " the patriots," hare their price ' (Coxe, vol. i. p. 757 ; ' Walpoliana,' vol. i. p. 88 ; see ' Diet. Nat. Bipg. ,' vol. lix. p. 203). ' But in case it be a septennial parliament, will he not then probably accept the 500/. pension, if he be one of those men that has a price?' (Speech of Sir Robert Walpole, 1734, Feb. 26; see vol. ii. p. 261 of Coxe.)"

The italics are not Mr. Latham's. The reference to the 'D.N.B.' is to the account of Walpole con- tributed by Mr. I. S. Leadam, who, in addition to Coxe, i. 757, and ' Walpoliana,' refers to Hervey's ' Memoirs,' i. 242, for the statement that Walpole


that Hervey's ' Memoirs of the Reign of George II. were edited by Croker in 3 vols. in 1884. Coxe's ' Memoirs ' he gives as published in 1798 in 3 vols. Perhaps some correspondent of 'N. & Q.' will say whether Coxe, ' Walpoliana,' and Hervey agree in quoting the phrase as "All those men have their price," and state under what year Hervey cites the words, and if there is anything in ' Walpoliana ' to show that their occurrence in that work is earlier than Coxe's use (in 1798 or 1800?). Is Walpole's remark to Mr. Leveson quoted from Coxe? and what is its date ? It would seem as if it ought to be earlier than the 1734 reference, ." if he be one of those men that has [#z'c] a price."

Mr. Gurney Benham in ' Cassell's Book of Quota- tions,' p. 461, states that Horace Walpole, in a letter dated 26 Aug., 1785, said that the maxim that every man has his price was ascribed to Sir Robert

' by his enemies." What was the exact form of the saying in this letter ?

POLITICIAN will be interested in the reply to his previous question contained in a communication from the late THOMAS KERSLAKE, of Bristol, which appeared at 6 S. viii. 158. MR. KERSLAKE said that he had made the following extract from the par- liamentary debates in The Bee, a weekly periodical published in 1733-4, and edited by Eustace Budgell : " It is an old Maxim, that every Man has his Price, it you can but come up to it >y (Sir W m W m, speech, Bee, vol. viii. p. 97). MR. KERSLAKE added :

' This seems to exonerate Sir Robert Walpole from the authorship on two grounds : first, that it was

an old maxim' ; second, enounced by Sir William Wyndham, and not Sir Robert Walpole." Will


1734, quoted above, j


' THE CONFINEMENT : A POEM.' I find in a list of books sold by William Crooke at the Green Dragon without Temple Bar,

Printed at the end of ' The Moores Baffled,' 681, under the heading of ' Poetry and Plays,' the following : " The Confinement, a Poem, with annotations upon it, octavo." Referring to Dr. Murray's dictionary in the library here, the earliest quotation under confinement, in the sense of " the being in child-bed " is from a work of Mrs. Delany in 1774. If, as I suspect, confinement in the title of the poem is used in the same sense, Dr. Murray's quotation is anticipated by nearly a century. I shall be much obliged for any information about the poem in verification or refutation of my conjecture. GEORGE H. RADFORD. House of Commons.

PAPAL STYLES : " PATER PATRTJM."- In his ' Chronicles of the House of Borgia," Frederick, Baron Corvo, says (Pref., xi-xii) :

"Touching the matter of names and styles, he has made an attempt to correct the slipshod and corrupt translations of the same, which, at present, are the vogue. To allude to Personages in term& which are appropriate enough for one s terrier, or for one's slave ; to speak of sovereigns as mere John, or of pontiffs as plain Paul, are breaches of etiquette of unpardonable grossness. The present writer has tried, at least, to accord to his characters the xise of the names, and the courtesy of the styles that they actually bore."

In pursuance of this laudable intention he always speaks (for example) of Roderigo Borgia when Pope as " The Lord Alexander,. P.P. VI.," and explains (p. 5, note) that P.P. stands for " Pater Patrum, the official style of the Roman Pontiff."

1 should be glad to know whether there is any foundation for this suggestion. I had the impression that the two conjoined minuscule p's surmounted by a double rising curve that follow the name of a Pope in official documents stood for papa.

Is there any list, supported by documents,, to show at what time, and why, certain styles were used by and of the Bishops of Rome ? When, for example, was the title " servus servorum " first used ? Is there any formal statement of the intention to adopt it in future ? Such a list should be the work of a man of " detached mind," like the lamented Downing Professor, and should include the titles applied to the Popes in. official documents, as well as those assumed by themselves. The latter are very few, I imagine. Q. V.

STAFFORD HOUSE. I have read some- where that Stafford House was built from.