In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe a dream, partly of
study, partly of adventure, in which will be found copious notices of
books, and many descriptions of life and manners, some in a very unusual
form.
The scenes of action lie in the British Islands;--pray be not displeased,
gentle reader, if perchance thou hast imagined that I was about to
conduct thee to distant lands, and didst promise thyself much instruction
and entertainment from what I might tell thee of them. I do assure thee
that thou hast no reason to be displeased, inasmuch as there are no
countries in the world less known by the British than these selfsame
British Islands, or where more strange things are every day occurring,
whether in road or street, house or dingle.
The time embraces nearly the first quarter of the present century: this
information again may, perhaps, be anything but agreeable to thee; it is
a long time to revert to, but fret not thyself, many matters which at
present much occupy the public mind originated in some degree towards the
latter end of that period, and some of them will be treated of.
The principal actors in this dream, or drama, are, as you will have
gathered from the title-page, a Scholar, a Gypsy, and a Priest. Should
you imagine that these three form one, permit me to assure you that you
are very much mistaken. Should there be something of the Gypsy manifest
in the Scholar, there is certainly nothing of the Priest. With respect
to the Gypsy--decidedly the most entertaining character of the
three--there is certainly nothing of the Scholar or the Priest in him;
and as for the Priest, though there may be something in him both of
scholarship and gypsyism, neither the Scholar nor the Gypsy would feel at
all flattered by being confounded with him.
Many characters which may be called subordinate will be found, and it is
probable that some of these characters will afford much more interest to
the reader than those styled the principal. The favourites with the
writer are a brave old soldier and his helpmate, an ancient gentlewoman
who sold apples, and a strange kind of wandering man and his wife.
Amongst the many things attempted in this book is the encouragement of
charity, and free and genial manners, and the exposure of humbug, of
which there are various kinds, but of which the most perfidious, the most
debasing, and the most cruel, is the humbug of the Priest.
Yet let no one think that irreligion is advocated in this book. With
respect to religious tenets I wish to observe that I am a member of the
Church of England, into whose communion I was baptized, and to which my
forefathers belonged. Its being the religion in which I was baptized,
and of my forefathers, would be a strong inducement to me to cling to it;
for I do not happen to be one of those choice spirits 'who turn from
their banner when the battle bears strongly against it, and go over to
the enemy,' and who receive at first a hug and a 'viva,' and in the
sequel contempt and spittle in the face; but my chief reason for
belonging to it is, because, of all churches calling themselves Christian
ones, I believe there is none so good, so well founded upon Scripture, or
whose ministers are, upon the whole, so exemplary in their lives and
conversation, so well read in the book from which they preach, or so
versed in general learning, so useful in their immediate neighbourhoods,
or so unwilling to persecute people of other denominations for matters of
doctrine.
In the communion of this Church, and with the religious consolation of
its ministers, I wish and hope to live and die, and in its and their
defence will at all times be ready, if required, to speak, though humbly,
and to fight, though feebly, against enemies, whether carnal or
spiritual.
And is there no priestcraft in the Church of England? There is
certainly, or rather there was, a modicum of priestcraft in the Church of
England, but I have generally found that those who are most vehement
against the Church of England are chiefly dissatisfied with her because
there is only a modicum of that article in her--were she stuffed to the
very cupola with it, like a certain other Church, they would have much
less to say against the Church of England.
By the other Church, I mean Rome. Its system was once prevalent in
England, and, during the period that it prevailed there, was more
prolific of debasement and crime than all other causes united. The
people and the government at last becoming enlightened by means of the
Scripture spurned it from the island with disgust and horror, the land
instantly after its disappearance becoming a fair field, in which arts,
sciences, and all the amiable virtues flourished, instead of being a
pestilent marsh where swine-like ignorance wallowed, and artful
hypocrites, like so many Wills-o'-the-wisp, played antic gambols about,
around, and above debased humanity.
But Popery still wished to play her old part, to regain her lost
dominion, to reconvert the smiling land into the pestilential morass,
where she could play again her old antics. From the period of the
Reformation in England up to the present time, she has kept her
emissaries here, individuals contemptible in intellect, it is true, but
cat-like and gliding, who, at her bidding, have endeavoured, as much as
in their power has lain, to damp and stifle every genial, honest, loyal,
and independent thought, and to reduce minds to such a state of dotage as
would enable their old Popish mother to do what she pleased with them.
And in every country, however enlightened, there are always minds
inclined to grovelling superstition--minds fond of eating dust and
swallowing clay--minds never at rest, save when prostrate before some
fellow in a surplice; and these Popish emissaries found always some weak
enough to bow down before them, astounded by their dreadful denunciations
of eternal woe and damnation to any who should refuse to believe their
Romania; but they played a poor game--the law protected the servants of
Scripture, and the priest with his beads seldom ventured to approach any
but the remnant of those of the eikonolatry--representatives of
worm-eaten houses, their debased dependents, and a few poor crazy
creatures amongst the middle classes--he played a poor game, and the
labour was about to prove almost entirely in vain, when the English
legislature, in compassion or contempt, or, yet more probably, influenced
by that spirit of toleration and kindness which is so mixed up with
Protestantism, removed almost entirely the disabilities under which
Popery laboured, and enabled it to raise its head and to speak out almost
without fear.
And it did raise its head, and, though it spoke with some little fear at
first, soon discarded every relic of it; went about the land uttering its
damnation cry, gathering around it--and for doing so many thanks to
it--the favourers of priestcraft who lurked within the walls of the
Church of England; frightening with the loudness of its voice the weak,
the timid, and the ailing; perpetrating, whenever it had an opportunity,
that species of crime to which it has ever been most partial--_Deathbed
robbery_; for as it is cruel, so is it dastardly. Yes, it went on
enlisting, plundering, and uttering its terrible threats till--till it
became, as it always does when left to itself, a fool, a very fool. Its
plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might its insolence, had
it been common insolence, but it--, and then the roar of indignation
which arose from outraged England against the viper, the frozen viper,
which it had permitted to warm itself upon its bosom.
But thanks, Popery, you have done all that the friends of enlightenment
and religious liberty could wish; but if ever there were a set of foolish
ones to be found under heaven, surely it is the priestly rabble who came
over from Rome to direct the grand movement--so long in its getting up.
But now again the damnation cry is withdrawn, there is a subdued meekness
in your demeanour, you are now once more harmless as a lamb. Well, we
shall see how the trick--'the old trick'--will serve you.