WHIG. This term, like that of Tony, was adopted as a term of reproach, although its origin is by no means certain. North, in his • Examen,' says it " was very siguitieativo as well as ready, being ver nacular in Scotland (from whence it was borrowed) for corrupt and sour whey." In point of fact, eddy, according to the Scottish lexicographers, is not whey, but the slightly acidulated serum of butter-milk.
Quito a different account from this, however, is given by Burnet, in Ids History of his Own Time,' under the year 1648. That writer says, " The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to nerve them round the year ; and the northern parts producing more than they need, those in the west came in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north ; and from a word whiggam, used in driving their horses, all that drove were called whiygamors and, shorter, the teldoos. Now, in that year, after the news came down of Duke defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise nod march to Edinburgh ; and they came up marching on the head of their parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and bearded them, they being about 6000. This was called the whigga mons' Inroad ; and ever after that all that opposed the court carne in contempt to be called whiff/a; and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction." Probably this is the true origin of the name Whig, and that It was really its previous application to the Scotch Covenanters which led to its revival ae a desiguation for the opponents of the court in England in 1670. Kirkton, rn his' history of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to 1678' (edited by C. K. Sharpe, Esq., 4to., Edinb., 1817), says, under the veer 1667, " The poor people, who were in contempt called Whims, became name-fathers to all that owned one honest Interest in Britain, who were called Whiggs, after them, even at the court of England : so strangely doth providence improve man's mistakes for the furthering of the Lord's purposes." With regard to the party opinions of the Whigs, it is scarcely nem. eery to add anything to what has been stated under the word TORY.
The Whigs of the last century and a half are generally viewed as the representatives of the friends of reform or change in the ancient con stitution of the country, ever since the popular element became active in the legislature, whether they were called puritans, nonconformists, round-heads, covenanters, or by any other name. Down to the
Revolution of 1688 the object of this reform party was to make such Change ; since that event, at least till recently, it has principally been to maintain the principles of the change then made. Of course, how ever, this party, like all other parties, has both shifted or modified its professions, principles, and modes of action within certain limits from time to time, in conformity with the continual variations of circum stances, and has seldom been without several shades of opinion among the been belonging to it in the same age. These differ ences have been sometimes less, sometimes more distinctive ; at one time referring to matters of apparently mere temporary policy, as was thought to be the case when the Whigs of the last age, soon after the breaking out of the French Revolution, split into two sections, which came to be kuown as the Old and New Whigs; at another, seem ing to involve eo fundamental a discordance of ultimate views and objects, if not of first principles, as perhaps to make it expedient for one extreme of the party to drop the name of Whig altogether and to call itself something else, as we have seen the Radicals do in our own day. All parties in polities indeed are liable to be thus drawn or forced to shift their ground front time to time ; even thit /arty whose general object is to resist change and to preserve what exists, although it has no doubt a more definite course marked out for it than the opposite party, must still often, as Burke expresses it, vary its means to secure the unity of its cud; besides, upon no principles will precisely the same objects seem the most desirable or impor tant at all times. But the innovating party, or party of the move ment, is more especially subject to this change of views, aims, and character : it can, properly speaking, have no fixed principles ; as soon as it begins to assume or profess such, it loses its true character and really passes into its opposite. Accordingly, in point of fact, much of what was once Whiggism has now become Toryism or Conserva tism, the changes in the constitution which were formerly sought for being now attained ; and, on the other hand, as new objects have presented themselves to it, Whiggism has, iu so far as it retains its proper character, put on new aspects, and even taken to itself new names.