The female part, worthy to be the sisters and wives of such
wretches--unmarried, full of cold vice, kept under by vanity and
ambition, but which, after marriage, they seek not to restrain; in old
age, abandoned to vapours and horrors; do you think that such beings will
afford any obstacle to the progress of the Church in these regions, as
soon as her movements are unfettered?'

'I cannot give an opinion; I know nothing of them, except from a
distance. But what think you of the middle classes?'

'Their chief characteristic,' said the man in black, 'is a rage for
grandeur and gentility; and that same rage makes us quite sure of them in
the long run. Everything that's lofty meets their unqualified
approbation; whilst everything humble, or, as they call it, "low," is
scouted by them. They begin to have a vague idea that the religion which
they have hitherto professed is low; at any rate, that it is not the
religion of the mighty ones of the earth, of the great kings and emperors
whose shoes they have a vast inclination to kiss, nor was used by the
grand personages of whom they have read in their novels and romances,
their Ivanhoes, their Marmions, and their Ladies of the Lake.'

'Do you think that the writings of Scott have had any influence in
modifying their religious opinions?'

'Most certainly I do,' said the man in black. 'The writings of that man
have made them greater fools than they were before. All their
conversation now is about gallant knights, princesses, and cavaliers,
with which his pages are stuffed--all of whom were Papists, or very High
Church, which is nearly the same thing; and they are beginning to think
that the religion of such nice sweet-scented gentry must be something
very superfine. Why, I know at Birmingham the daughter of an ironmonger,
who screeches to the piano the Lady of the Lake's hymn to the Virgin
Mary, always weeps when Mary Queen of Scots is mentioned, and fasts on
the anniversary of the death of that very wise martyr, Charles the First.
Why, I would engage to convert such an idiot to popery in a week, were it
worth my trouble. O Cavaliere Gualtiero, avete fatto molto in favore
della Santa Sede!'

'If he has,' said I, 'he has done it unwittingly; I never heard before
that he was a favourer of the popish delusion.'

'Only in theory,' said the man in black. 'Trust any of the clan
Mac-Sycophant for interfering openly and boldly in favour of any cause on
which the sun does not