Sir Walter Scott to the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin. Edinburgh: February 25, 1823. My dear Sir, I was duly favoured with your letter, which proves one point against the unknown author of Waverley, namely, that he is certainly a Scotsman, since no other nation pretends to the advantage of the Second Sight. Be he who or where he may, he must certainly feel the very high honour which has selected him (Nominis Umbra) to a situation so worthy of envy. As his personal appearance in the fraternity is not like to be a speedy event, one may presume he may be desirous of offering some test of his gratitude in the shape of a reprint, or such like kickshaw; and for that purpose you had better send him the statutes of your learned body which I will engage shall reach him in safety. It will follow as a characteristic circumstance, that the table of the Roxburghe, like that of King Arthur, will have a vacant chair like that of Banquo's at Macbeth's banquet. But if this author who 'hath fern-seed and walketh invisible,' should not appear to claim it before I come to London (should I ever be there again), with permission of the Club, I, who have something of adventure in me, although a knight like Sir Andrew Aguecheek dubb'd with unhack'd rapier and on carpet consideration' would, rather than lose the chance of a dinner with the Roxburghe Club, take upon me the adventure of the siege perilous, and reap some amends for perils and scandals into which the invisible champion has drawn me by being his Locum tenens on so distinguished an occasion. It will be not uninteresting to you to know that a fraternity is about to be established here something on the plan of the Roxburghe Club, but having Scottish antiquities chiefly in view. It is to be called the Bannatyne Club, from the celebrated antiquary George Bannatyne, who compiled by far the greatest manuscript record of old Scottish poetry. Their first meeting is to be held on Thursday, when the health of the Roxburghe Club will not fail to be drank. I a am, dear Sir, &c. WALTER SCOTT. CCXLVI. A third letter from Sir Walter Scott on receipt of Dr. Dibdin's formal intimation of his election to the Club, closes the story of this literary fiction. In the preface to 'Peveril of the Peak,' Scott recorded with pride the circumstance that he had been elected to the Roxburghe Club merely as the author of 'Waverley' and without any other designation. Sir Walter Scott to the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin. Edinburgh: May 1, 1823. My dear Sir, I am duly honoured with your very interesting and flattering communication. Our highlanders have a proverbial saying, founded on the traditional renown of Fingal's dog, 'If it is not Bran,' they say, 'it is Bran's brother.' Now this is always taken as a compliment of the first class, whether applied to an actual cur or parabolically to a biped, and upon the same principle it is with no small pride and gratification that the Roxburghe Club have been so very flatteringly disposed to accept me as a locum tenens for the unknown author whom they have made the child of their adoption. As sponsor I will play my part as well as I can; and should the real Simon Pure make his appearance, to push me from my stool, why I shall have at least the satisfaction of having enjoyed it. They cannot say but what I had the crown. Besides, I hope the Devil does not owe me such a shame. Mad Tom tells us that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman, and this mysterious personage will I hope partake as much of his honourable feelings as of his invisibility, and resuming his incognito permit me to enjoy in his stead an honour which I value more than I do that which has been bestowed on me by the credit of having written any of his novels. I regret deeply I cannot goon avail myself of my new privileges, but Courts which I am under the necessity of attending officially set down in a few days, and hei mihi do not arise for Vacation until July. But I hope to be in Town next Spring, and certainly I have one strong additional reason for a London Journey furnished by the pleasure of meeting the Roxburghe Club. Make my most respectful compliments to the members at their next merry meeting, and express in the warmest manner my sense of obligation. I am always, my dear Sir, CCXLVII. Under the nom de plume of Peter Plymley, the Rev. Sydney Smith, in a series of ten letters addressed to my brother Abraham,' joined in that controversy which, lasting, as it did, from Pitt to Peel, was the most persistent and most wearying political quarrel of modern times. Ranging himself among the followers of Grenville and Fox in advocating liberal concessions to the Roman Catholics, he fired his first shot in 1807, the effect of which has been likened to that of a spark on a heap of gunpowder. Unfortunately the writer's vigorous arguments and cheerful humour were marred by overmuch bitterness and scoffing. Although the authorship of these letters was never really proved by the Government of the day, their vivid resemblance to the tone of Sydney Smith's conversation virtually betrayed him. Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham. 1807. Dear Abraham,-A worthier and better man than yourself does not exist; but I have always told you, from the time of our boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose. Your parochial affairs are governed with exemplary order and regularity: you are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval is in the House of Commons, and, I must say, with much more reason; nor do I know any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher. There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice; and that is, that the eyes so directed towards you are wide open; for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot control his animal habits, and, however loud he may snore, his face is perpetually turned toward the fountain of orthodoxy. Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours. In the first place, my sweet Abraham, the Pope is not landed -nor are there any curates sent out after him-nor has he been hid at St. Alban's by the Dowager Lady Spencer-nor dined privately at Holland House-nor been seen near Dropmore. If these fears exist (which I do not believe), they exist only in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; they emanate from his zeal for the Protestant interest; and, though they reflect the highest honour upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must certainly be considered as more ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigour of his understanding. By this time, however, the best informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumour is without foundation; and, though the Pope is probably hovering about our coast in a fishing-smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers; and it is certain he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our soil. Exactly in the same manner the story of the wooden gods seized at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be without the shadow of a foundation: instead of the angels and archangels, mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham, as a head piece for the Spanker gun-vessel : it was an exact resemblance of his Lordship in his military uniform, and therefore as little like a god as can well be imagined. Having set your fears at rest as to the extent of the conspiracy formed against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the argument itself. manner, You say these men interpret the Scriptures in an unorthodox and that they eat their god. Very likely. All this may seem very important to you, who live fourteen miles from a market town, and, from long residence upon your living, are become a kind of holy vegetable; and, in a theological sense, it is highly important. But I want soldiers and sailors for the state; I want to make a greater use than I now can do of a poor country full of men; I want to render the military service popular among the Irish; to check the power of France; to make every possible exertion for the safety of Europe, which in twenty years time will be nothing but a mass of French slaves and then you, and ten other such boobies as you, call out-'For God's sake, do not think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! . . . They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner from what we do i They eat a bit of wafer every Sunday, which they call their God!'. . . . I wish to my soul they would eat you, and such reasoners as you are. What! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this country; when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious persuasion; when the population of half the globe is up in arms against us, are we to stand examining our generals and armies as a bishop examines a candidate for holy orders, and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not agree with you about the 2nd of Timothy? You talk about Catholics! If you and your brotherhood have been able to persuade the country into a continuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have ten times the power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought of preventing the Protestants from fighting his battles; and gained accordingly some of his most splendid victories by the talents of his Protestant generals. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever thought for these hundred years past of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and well-tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule ; for he begins to think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment of this pleasure from one extremity of Europe to the other. I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you can be, and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the product of the earth, nor meddle with the ecclesiastical establishment in any shape; but what have I to do with the speculative nonsense of his theology, when the object is to elect the mayor of a country town, or to appoint a colonel of a marching regiment? Will a man discharge the solemn impertinences of the one office with less zeal, or shrink from the bloody boldness of the other with greater timidity, because the blockhead believes in all the Catholic nonsense of the real presence? I am sorry there should be such impious folly in the world, but I should be ten times a greater fool than he is, if I refused, in consequence of his folly, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. Your whole argument is wrong: the state has nothing whatever to do with theological errors which do not violate the common rules of morality, and militate against the fair power of the ruler: it leaves all these errors to you, and to such as you. You have every tenth |