the love of what is foreign is a great friend to us;
this love is chiefly confined to the middle and upper
classes. Some admire the French, and imitate
them; others must needs be Spaniards, dress themselves
up in a zamarra, stick a cigar in their mouth, and
say, ‘Carajo.’ Others would pass
for Germans; he! he! the idea of any one wishing to
pass for a German! but what has done us more service
than anything else in these regions—I mean
amidst the middle classes—has been the
novel, the Scotch novel. The good folks, since
they have read the novels, have become Jacobites; and,
because all the Jacobs were Papists, the good folks
must become Papists also, or, at least, papistically
inclined. The very Scotch Presbyterians, since
they have read the novels, are become all but Papists;
I speak advisedly, having lately been amongst them.
There’s a trumpery bit of a half papist sect,
called the Scotch Episcopalian Church, which lay dormant
and nearly forgotten for upwards of a hundred years,
which has of late got wonderfully into fashion in
Scotland, because, forsooth, some of the long-haired
gentry of the novels were said to belong to it, such
as Montrose and Dundee; and to this the Presbyterians
are going over in throngs, traducing and vilifying
their own forefathers, or denying them altogether,
and calling themselves descendants of—ho!
ho! ho!—Scottish Cavaliers!!! I have
heard them myself repeating snatches of Jacobite ditties
about ‘Bonnie Dundee,’ and —
“’Come, fill up my cup, and fill up my
can, And saddle my horse, and call up my man.’
There’s stuff for you! Not that I object
to the first part of the ditty. It is natural
enough that a Scotchman should cry, ’Come, fill
up my cup!’ more especially if he’s drinking
at another person’s expense—all Scotchmen
being fond of liquor at free cost: but ’Saddle
his horse!!!’—for what purpose, I
would ask? Where is the use of saddling a horse,
unless you can ride him? and where was there ever
a Scotchman who could ride?”
“Of course you have not a drop of Scotch blood
in your veins,” said I, “otherwise you
would never have uttered that last sentence.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said
the man in black; “you know little of Popery
if you imagine that it cannot extinguish love of country,
even in a Scotchman. A thorough-going Papist—and
who more thorough-going than myself?—cares
nothing for his country; and why should he? he belongs
to a system, and not to a country.”
“One thing,” said I, “connected
with you, I cannot understand; you call yourself a
thorough-going Papist, yet are continually saying
the most pungent things against Popery, and turning
to unbounded ridicule those who show any inclination
to embrace it.”