olesley] who presided over the first
radical meeting ever held in England--he was an atheist when he came over
to us, in the hope of mortifying his own church--but he is now--ho! ho!--a
real Catholic devotee--quite afraid of my threats; I made him frequently
scourge himself before me. Well, Radicalism does us good service,
especially amongst the lower classes, for Radicalism chiefly flourishes
amongst them; for though a baronet or two may be found amongst the
radicals, and perhaps as many lords--fellows who have been discarded by
their own order for clownishness, or something they have done--it
incontestably flourishes best among the lower orders. Then the love of
what is foreign is a great friend to us; this love is chiefly confined to
the middle and upper classes. {227} Some admire the French, and imitate
them; others must needs be Spaniards, dress themselves up in a zamarra,
stick a cigar in their mouths, 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
Sc