But whence did the pedants get the Popish nonsense with
which they have corrupted youth? Why, from the same quarter from
which they got the Jacobite nonsense with which they have
inoculated those lads who were not inoculated with it before--
Scott's novels. Jacobitism and Laudism, a kind of half Popery, had
at one time been very prevalent at Oxford, but both had been long
consigned to oblivion there, and people at Oxford cared as little
about Laud as they did about the Pretender. Both were dead and
buried there, as everywhere else, till Scott called them out of
their graves, when the pedants of Oxford hailed both--ay, and the
Pope, too, as soon as Scott had made the old fellow fascinating,
through particular novels, more especially the "Monastery" and
"Abbot." Then the quiet, respectable, honourable Church of England
would no longer do for the pedants of Oxford; they must belong to a
more genteel church--they were ashamed at first to be downright
Romans--so they would be Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly
genteel non-juring clergyman in Waverley was a Laud; but they soon
became tired of being Lauds, for Laud's Church, gew-gawish and
idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and idolatrous
for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking way, still
calling themselves Church-of-England men, in order to batten on the
bounty of the church which they were betraying, and likewise have
opportunities of corrupting such lads as might still resort to
Oxford with principles uncontaminated.
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