The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a
novel writer, the panegyrist of great folk and genteel people;
became insolvent because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel
to be mixed up with the business part of the authorship; died
paralytic and broken-hearted because he could no longer give
entertainments to great folks, leaving behind him, amongst other
children, who were never heard of, a son, who, through his father's
interest, had become lieutenant-colonel in a genteel cavalry
regiment. A son who was ashamed of his father because his father
was an author; a son who--paugh--why ask which was the best blood?
So, owing to his rage for gentility, Scott must needs become the
apologist of the Stuarts and their party; but God made this man pay
dearly for taking the part of the wicked against the good; for
lauding up to the skies the miscreants and robbers, and
calumniating the noble spirits of Britain, the salt of England, and
his own country. As God had driven the Stuarts from their throne,
and their followers from their estates, making them vagabonds and
beggars on the face of the earth, taking from them all that they
cared for, so did that same God, who knows perfectly well how and
where to strike, deprive the apologist of that wretched crew of all
that rendered life pleasant in his eyes, the lack of which
paralysed him in body and mind, rendered him pitiable to others,
loathsome to himself,--so much so, that he once said, "Where is the
beggar who would change places with me, notwithstanding all my
fame?" Ah! God knows perfectly well how to strike.
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