Chapter Pope to Port of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Pope to Port

Pope The Pope changing his name. According to Platina, Sergius II. was the first pope who changed his name on ascending the papal chair. His proper name was Hogsmouth. Chambers says his name was “Peter di Porca,” and it was the name Peter he changed, out of deference to St. Peter, thinking it arrogant to style himself Peter II. (844-847).
   I know no more about it than the Pope of Rome - than a man living as far off as the Cham of Tartary or Pope of Rome.
   Drunk like a pope. Benedict XII. was an enormous eater and such a wine-drinker that he gave rise to the bacchanalian expression, bibamus papaliter (See Drunk.)

Pope Titles assumed by the popes.
   Universal Bishop. Prior to Gregory the Great.
   Servus Servorum. Assumed by Gregory the Great in 591.
   The Lamb of God which taketh away the Sins of the World. Martin IV. in 1281.
   Divine Majesty; Husband of the Church; Prince of the Apostles; Key of the whole Universe; the Pastor and Physician possessed of all Power both in Heaven and Earth. Leo X. in 1513.
   Monarch of Christendom; Vice-God; Lord God the Pope. Paul V. in 1635.
   Master of the World; the Universal Father; Viceregent of the Most High. Subsequent to Paul V.
   (See Brady: Clavis Calendaria, 247.)

Pope Joan Said to have succeeded Leo IV. Gibbon says, “Two Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, annihilated her;” but Mosheim seems half-inclined to believe there was such a person. The vulgar tale is that Joan conceived a violent passion for the monk Folda, and in order to get admission to him assumed the monastic habit. Being clever and popular, she got to be elected pope.

Pope's Sermon (A). Only once has a pope been known to preach a sermon in three hundred years. In 1847 a great crowd had assembled to hear the famous Padre Ventura preach in Santa Andrea della Valle, of Rome, but the preacher failed to appear; whereupon Pius IX. ascended the pulpit, and gave a sermon. (De Liancourt: History of Pius IX.)
   The Pope's slave. So Cardinal Cajetan calls the Church. (Sixteenth century.)

Pope's Tiara (The). He calls himself (1) Head of the Catholic or Universal Church; (2) Sole Arbiter of its Rights; and (3) Sovereign Father of all the kings of the earth. From these assumptions he wears a triple crown- one as High Priest, one as Emperor, and one as King. (See Brady, 250, 251.)
    For the first five centuries the Bishops of Rome wore a bonnet, like other ecclesiastics.
   Pope Hormasdas (514-523) placed on his bonnet the crown sent him by Clovis.
   Boniface VIII. (1224-1303) added a second crown during his struggles with Philip the Fair.
   John XXII. (1410-1415) assumed the third crown.

Popefigland An island inhabited by the Gaillardets (French, gaillard, gay people), rich and free, till, being shown one day the pope's image, they exclaimed, “A fig for the pope!” whereupon the whole island was put to the sword. Its name was then changed to Popefigland, and the people were called Popefigs.

Popinjay A butterfly man, a fop; so called from the popinjay or figure of a bird shot at for practice. The jay was decked with parti-coloured feathers so as to resemble a parrot, and, being suspended on a pole, served as a target. He whose ball or arrow brought down the bird by cutting the string by which it was hung, received the proud title of “Captain Popinjay,” or “Captain of the Popinjay,” for the rest of the day, and was escorted home in triumph. (See Old Mortality, ch. ii.)

“I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Answered neglectingly I know not what,
He should or he should not.”
Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., i. 3.

   The Festival of the Popinjay. The first Sunday in May. (See above.)

Popish Plot A plot in the reign of Charles II. to massacre the Protestants, burn London, and assassinate the king. Titus Oates invented this “wise” scheme, and obtained great wealth by revealing it; but ultimately he was pilloried, whipped, and imprisoned. (See Gunpowder Plot .)

Poplar (The). (Latin, populus, from populus, the people.) Being symbolical of the people, both because its leaves are dark on one side and white on the other, and also because they are never still, but blown about by the least gust of wind. In France, to the present day, the poplar is an emblem of democracy. There are black and white poplars, and the aspen-tree is one of the species.
   The white poplar was consecrated