aving been taught at
Oxford for about that number of years. But whence did the pedants get
the Popish nonsense with which they have corrupted youth? Why, from the
same quarter from which they got the Jacobite nonsense with which they
have inoculated those lads who were not inoculated with it before--Scott's
novels. Jacobitism and Laudism, a kind of half Popery, had at one time
been very prevalent at Oxford, but both had been long consigned to
oblivion there, and people at Oxford cared as little about Laud as they
did about the Pretender. Both were dead and buried there, as everywhere
else, till Scott called them out of their graves, when the pedants of
Oxford hailed both--ay, and the Pope, too, as soon as Scott had made the
old fellow fascinating, through particular novels, more especially the
"Monastery" and "Abbot." Then the quiet, respectable, honourable Church
of England would no longer do for the pedants of Oxford; they must belong
to a more genteel Church--they were ashamed at first to be downright
Romans--so they would be Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly
genteel non-juring clergyman in "Waverley" was a Laud; but they soon
became tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gewgawish and idolatrous
as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous for them, so they
must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still calling themselves Church of
England men, in order to batten on the bounty of the Church which they
were betraying, and likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads
as might still resort to Oxford with principles uncontaminated. So the
respectable people, whose opinions are still sound, are, to a certain
extent, right when they say that the tide of Popery, which has flowed
over the land, has come from Oxford. It did come immediately from
Oxford, but how did it get to Oxford? Why, from Scott's novels. Oh!
that sermon which was the first manifestation of Oxford feeling, preached
at Oxford some time in the year '38 by a divine of a weak and confused
intellect, in which Popery was mixed up with Jacobitism? The present
writer remembers perfectly well, on reading some extracts from it at the
time in a newspaper, on the top of a coach, exclaiming--"Why, the
simpleton has been pilfering from Walter Scott's novels!"

O Oxford pedants! Oxford pedants! ye whose politics and religion are
both derived from Scott's novels! what a pity it is that some lad of
honest parents, whose mind ye are endea