Nelson & His World

While browsing the Times Digital Archive for reports of Lord Nelson’s visit to Birmingham (quoted on another thread), I had some amusement from the ‘gossip column’ of the day which reported on the comings-and-goings of the great and good.

Honours bestowed on Nelson were reported with some fawningly-flattering puns:

‘Lord Nelson was made a Doctor of Civil Laws on his visit to Oxford. From his knowledge of the cannon law, his Lordship might with equal propriety, have been made a Doctor of Divinity’. (The Times, 2 June 1802)

The Gardeners [does this mean the City Livery Company, The Worshipful Company of Gardeners?] have got into a great scrape with the nation in giving Lord Nelson’s name to one of their greenhouse plants. Bonaparte would give half his free and equal to hear he had ‘gone to pot’. Lord Nelson will gain very little addition to his honours by the Gardeners making him stand godfather to their plants. His Lordship has taken so many colours that it is an injustice to give his name to a single one.’ (The Times, 7 August 1802)

Query: ‘Napoleon would give half his free and equal…’ Does anyone know the origin of ‘free and equal’ used in this way? Though the expression is unfamiliar, the meaning is pretty clear: we should probably say something like ‘would give his right arm…..’. Maybe this usage was current then – but singularly tasteless in the context, perhaps?

I believe that "punning" was popular in Nelson's time.

I read somewhere that Collingwood was quite adept at it - but I don't have any specific example.

I am very fond of epigrams. Short, pithy poems, with a pun usually included somewhere within.

Here is one about Napoleon:

'Tis said, Napoleon has got thin,
Reflecting on his life of sin;
But tho' he's Boney, be it known
He's food for all the Wits in Town.

MB

Tycho,

I think the term 'free and equal' might be a slang reference to a passage in Rousseau's 'Social Contract', re. the rights of man, etc., Napolean being of course, to all intents and purposes (him being Corsican), French. Without going into it, and probably getting completely bogged down, I can't give the actual quote. These same ideals were of course alluded to by Lock and others at the time, were echoed in the American Declaration of Independence, and latterly I believe in the UN Charter.

'The Gardners' probably does refer to the WCG since, rather surprisingly, they were formed (or perhaps we should say raised) as far back as 1345.

Kester - forgot to thank you for those pointers; and Mark, here's another (not very good) epigram from 'Notices of Nelson', published on October 1798 - no other details given.

Frenchmen, no more with Britons vie,
Nelson destroys your warlike band,
Sees your designs with half an eye
And fights and beats you with one hand.