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Borrow, George Henry, 1803-1881

"The Romany Rye"

' 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.


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