Money abounds with the
husband, who buys the house, and then the house becomes the rankest
Popish house in Britain. A superstitious person might almost
imagine that one of the old Scottish Covenanters, whilst the grand
house was being built from the profits resulting from the sale of
writings favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of
Scotland's saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave, and banned
Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain psalm.
In saying what he has said about Scott, the author has not been
influenced by any feeling of malice or ill-will, but simply by a
regard for truth, and a desire to point out to his countrymen the
harm which has resulted from the perusal of his works;--he is not
one of those who would depreciate the talents of Scott--he admires
his talents, both as a prose writer and a poet; as a poet
especially he admires him, and believes him to have been by far the
greatest, with perhaps the exception of Mickiewicz, who only wrote
for unfortunate Poland, that Europe has given birth to during the
last hundred years. As a prose writer he admires him, less, it is
true, but his admiration for him in that capacity is very high, and
he only laments that he prostituted his talents to the cause of the
Stuarts and gentility.
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