er, and a'body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk
say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in
Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en
now, and we wad hae mair Christian-like kirks; for I hae
been sae lang in England, that naething will drived out o'
my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone-Hall is better
than mony a house o' God in Scotland.

Now this sentence is in the first place a piece of Scottish history of
quite inestimable and concentrated value. Andrew's temperament
is the type of a vast class of Scottish--shall we call it
'_sow_-thistlian'--mind, which necessarily takes the view of either Pope
or saint that the thistle in Lebanon took of the cedar or lilies in
Lebanon; and the entire force of the passions which, in the Scottish
revolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is told in this one
paragraph; the coarseness of it, observe, being admitted, not for the
sake of the laugh, any more than an onion in broth merely for its
flavour, but for the meat of it; the inherent constancy of that
coarseness being a fact in this order of mind, and an essential part of
the history to be told.

Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion of it, such
as there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, a
coward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, a
hypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind is
capable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not
in the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his master,
or any one else; he honestly scorns the 'carnal morality[171] as dowd
and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule' of the sermon in the upper
cathedral; and when wrapt in critical attention to the 'real savour o'
doctrine' in the crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of his fair
service as to return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard
punches of the elbow.

Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to the average
standard of Scottish common sense, not a low one; and, though incapable
of understanding any manner of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewd
measurer of weaknesses, and not without a spark or two of kindly
feeling. See first his sketch of his master's character to Mr.
Hammorgaw, beginning: 'He's no a'thegither sae void o' sense, neither;'
and then the close of the dialogue: 'But the lad's no a bad lad after
a', a