The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.

The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.
been forgotten, and deservedly so; but he possessed talents, and by his talents rose like Murat, and like him will be remembered for his talents alone, and deservedly so.  “Yes, but Murat was still the son of a pastry-cook, and though he was certainly good at the sabre, and cut his way to a throne, still—­” Lord! what fools there are in the world; but as no one can be thought anything of in this world without a pedigree, the writer will now give a pedigree for Murat, of a very different character from the cow-stealing one of Scott, but such a one as the proudest he might not disdain to claim.  Scott was descended from the old cow-stealers of Buccleuch--was he?  Good! and Murat was descended from the old Moors of Spain, from the Abencerages (sons of the saddle) of Granada.  The name Murat is Arabic, and is the same as Murad (Le Desire, or the wished-for one).  Scott in his genteel Life of Bonaparte, says that “when Murat was in Egypt, the similarity between the name of the celebrated Mameluke Mourad and that of Bonaparte’s Meilleur Sabreur was remarked, and became the subject of jest amongst the comrades of the gallant Frenchman.”  But the writer of the novel of Bonaparte did not know that the names were one and the same.  Now which was the best pedigree, that of the son of the pastry-cook, or that of the son of the pettifogger?  Which was the best blood?  Let us observe the workings of the two bloods.  He who had the blood of the “sons of the saddle” in him, became the wonderful cavalier of the most wonderful host that ever went forth to conquest, won for himself a crown, and died the death of a soldier, leaving behind him a son, only inferior to himself in strength, in prowess, and in horsemanship.  The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a novel writer, the panegyrist of great folk and genteel people; became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel to be mixed up with the business part of the authorship; died paralytic and broken-hearted because he could no longer give entertainments to great folks, leaving behind him, amongst other children, who were never heard of, a son, who, through his father’s interest, had become lieutenant-colonel in a genteel cavalry regiment.  A son who was ashamed of his father because his father was an author; a son who—­paugh—­why ask which was the best blood?

So, owing to his rage for gentility, Scott must needs become the apologist of the Stuarts and their party; but God made this man pay dearly for taking the part of the wicked against the good; for lauding up to the skies the miscreants and robbers, and calumniating the noble spirits of Britain, the salt of England, and his own country.  As God had driven the Stuarts from their throne, and their followers from their estates, making them vagabonds and beggars on the face of the earth, taking from them all that they cared for, so did that same God, who knows perfectly well how and where to strike, deprive the apologist

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The Romany Rye from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.