Quakers.'

The Priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this gentility
nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more thoroughly than that
very remarkable individual seems to do, yet he hails its prevalence with
pleasure, knowing the benefits which will result from it to the church of
which he is the sneering slave. 'The English are mad after gentility,'
says he; 'well, all the better for us. Their religion for a long time
past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently by no means
genteel; they'll quit it for ours, which is the perfection of what they
admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers, mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys,
long-drawn aisles, golden censers, incense, et cetera, are connected;
nothing, or next to nothing, of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the
balance against gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking
against the beam--ho! ho!' And in connection with the gentility nonsense
he expatiates largely, and with much contempt, on a species of literature
by which the interests of his church in England have been very much
advanced--all genuine priests have a thorough contempt for everything
which tends to advance the interests of their church--this literature is
made up of pseudo-Jacobitism, Charlie o'er the waterism, or nonsense
about Charlie o'er the water. And the writer will now take the liberty
of saying a few words about it on his own account.

CHAPTER VI

ON SCOTCH GENTILITY-NONSENSE--CHARLIE O'ER THE WATERISM

Of the literature just alluded to Scott was the inventor. It is founded
on the fortunes and misfortunes of the Stuart family, of which Scott was
the zealous defender and apologist, doing all that in his power lay to
represent the members of it as noble, chivalrous, high-minded,
unfortunate princes; though, perhaps, of all the royal families that ever
existed upon earth, this family was the worst. It was unfortunate
enough, it is true; but it owed its misfortunes entirely to its crimes,
viciousness, bad faith, and cowardice. Nothing will be said of it here
until it made its appearance in England to occupy the English throne.

The first of the family which we have to do with, James, was a dirty,
cowardly miscreant, of whom the less said the better. His son, Charles
I., was a tyrant, exceedingly cruel and revengeful, but weak and
dastardly; he caused a poor fellow to be hanged in London, who was not
his subject, because he had heard that the unfortuna