Here some people will exclaim - whose opinions remain sound and uncontaminated - what you say is perhaps true with respect to the Jacobite nonsense at present so prevalent being derived from Scott's novels, but the Popish nonsense, which people of the genteeler classes are so fond of, is derived from Oxford.We sent our sons to Oxford nice honest lads, educated in the principles of the Church of England, and at the end of the first term they came home puppies, talking Popish nonsense, which they had learned from the pedants to whose care we had entrusted them; ay, not only Popery but Jacobitism, which they hardly carried with them from home, for we never heard them talking Jacobitism before they had been at Oxford; but now their conversation is a farrago of Popish and Jacobite stuff - "Complines and Claverse." Now, what these honest folks say is, to a certain extent, founded on fact; the Popery which has overflowed the land during the last fourteen or fifteen years, has come immediately from Oxford, and likewise some of the Jacobitism, Popish and Jacobite nonsense, and little or nothing else, having been taught at Oxford for about that number of years.
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.
So the respectable people, whose opinions are still sound, are, to a certain extent, right when they say that the tide of Popery, which has flowed over the land, has come from Oxford.It did come immediately from Oxford, but how did it get to Oxford? Why, from Scott's novels.Oh! that sermon which was the first manifestation of Oxford feeling, preached at Oxford some time in the year '38 by a divine of a weak and confused intellect, in which Popery was mixed up with Jacobitism! The present writer remembers perfectly well, on reading some extracts from it at the time in a newspaper, on the top of a coach, exclaiming - "Why, the ******ton has been pilfering from Walter Scott's novels!"O Oxford pedants! Oxford pedants! ye whose politics and religion are both derived from Scott's novels! what a pity it is that some lad of honest parents, whose mind ye are endeavouring to stultify with your nonsense about "Complines and Claverse," has not the spirit to start up and cry, "Confound your gibberish! I'll have none of it.Hurrah for the Church, and the principles of my FATHER!"
