through
the paths of unbelief or of faith, never forgets to love, never courts
notoriety, and is neither a satirical court-fool nor a would-be
Mephistopheles.

In reflecting on these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an
anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a
rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was
astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the
hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe
in hany GOD!' 'Don't you, indeed?' was the placid reply. 'Noa,' answered
the guide; '_H'I'm a_ HINFIDEL!' 'Well, I hope you feel easy after it,'
quoth my friend.

There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may
be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous
and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have,
however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses
himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere
seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given
in a short lecture of the countess:

'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is
with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm
reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity
usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those
belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the
good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate
of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong,
or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be
such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious
for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed
existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities
presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal
fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more
learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar
interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the
public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross
fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning
the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the
vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to