“Only in theory,” said the man in black.  “Trust any of the clan MacSycophant for interfering openly and boldly in favour of any cause on which the sun does not shine benignantly.  Popery is at present, as you say, suing for grace in these regions in forma pauperis; but let royalty once take it up, let old gouty George once patronize it, and I would consent to drink puddle-water, if the very next time the canny Scot was admitted to the royal symposium he did not say, ’By my faith, yere Majesty, I have always thought, at the bottom of my heart, that popery, as ill scrapit tongues ca’ it, was a very grand religion; I shall be proud to follow your Majesty’s example in adopting it.’”

“I doubt not,” said I, “that both gouty George and his devoted servant will be mouldering in their tombs long before Royalty in England thinks about adopting popery.”

“We can wait,” said the man in black; “in these days of rampant gentility, there will be no want of Kings nor of Scots about them.”

“But not Walters,” said I. {159}

“Our work has been already tolerably well done by one,” said the man in black; “but if we wanted literature we should never lack in these regions hosts of literary men of some kind or other to eulogise us, provided our religion were in the fashion, and our popish nobles choose, and they always do our bidding, to admit the canaille to their tables, their kitchen tables.  As for literature in general,” said he, “the Santa Sede is not particularly partial to it, it may be employed both ways.  In Italy, in particular, it has discovered that literary men are not always disposed to be lick-spittles.”

“For example, Dante,” said I.

“Yes,” said the man in black.  “A dangerous personage; that poem of his cuts both ways; and then there was Pulci, that Morgante of his cuts both ways, or rather one way, and that sheer against us; and then there was Aretino, who dealt so hard with the poveri frati; all writers, at least Italian ones, are not lick spittles.  And then in Spain,—­’tis true, Lope de Vega and Calderon were most inordinate lick-spittles; the ’Principe Constante’ of the last is a curiosity in its way; and then the ’Mary Stuart’ of Lope; I think I shall recommend the perusal of that work to the Birmingham ironmonger’s daughter; she has been lately thinking of adding ‘a slight knowledge of the magneeficent language of the Peninsula’ to the rest of her accomplishments, he! he! he! but then there was Cervantes, starving, but straight; he deals us some hard knocks in that second part of his Quixote; then there were some of the writers of the picaresque novels.  No; all literary men are not lick-spittles, whether in Italy or Spain, or, indeed, upon the Continent; it is only in England that all—­”

“Come,” said I, “mind what you are about to say of English literary men.”

“Why should I mind?” said the man in black, “there are no literary men here.  I have heard of literary men living in garrets, but not in dingles, whatever philologists may do; I may, therefore, speak out freely.  It is only in England that literary men are invariably lick-spittles; on which account, perhaps, they are so despised, even by those who benefit by their dirty services.  Look at your fashionable novel writers, he! he! and above all at your newspaper editors, ho! ho!”