George Borrow

“ Is not the Church of these regions going to lose its prerogative?'
'Its prerogative?'
'Yes; those who should be the guardians of the religion of England are about to grant Papists emancipation, and to remove the disabilities from Dissenters, which will allow the Holy Father to play his own game in England.'
On my inquiring how the Holy Father intended to play his game, the man in black gave me to understand that he intended for the present to cover the land with temples, in which the religion of Protestants would be continually scoffed at and reviled. ”

“ But what we most rely upon as an instrument to bring the Dissenters over to us is the mania for gentility, which amongst them has of late become as great, and more ridiculous than amongst the middle classes belonging to the Church of England. ”

“ All the plain and simple fashions of their forefathers they are either about to abandon, or have already done so. Look at the most part of their chapels—no longer modest brick edifices, situated in quiet and retired streets, but lunatic-looking erections, in what the simpletons call the modern Gothic taste, of Portland stone, with a cross upon the top, and the site generally the most conspicuous that can be found. ”

“ And look at the manner in which they educate their children—I mean those that are wealthy. They do not even wish them to be Dissenters—“the sweet dears shall enjoy the advantages of good society, of which their parents were debarred.” ”

“ On my attempting to argue against the propriety of such behaviour, the man in black cut the matter short by saying that if one party was a fool he saw no reason why the other should imitate it in its folly. ”

“ I don't wish to be hard, at present, upon those Whigs,' he continued, 'for they are playing our game; but a time will come when, not wanting them, we will kick them to a considerable distance: and then, when toleration is no longer the cry, and the Whigs are no longer backed by the populace, see whether the editors of the will stand by them; they will prove themselves as expert lickspittles of despotism as of liberalism. ”

“ It is the opinion of my See that it would hardly do to send a missionary into a country like this who is not well versed in English—a country where, they think, so far from understanding any language besides his own, scarcely one individual in ten speaks his own intelligibly ”

“ With the barons of England, who fight for the crown?— he! he! their own names. Whilst the lads are sent to those hotbeds of pride and folly—colleges, whence they return with a greater contempt for everything “low,” and especially for their own pedigree, than they went with. I tell you, friend, the children of Dissenters, if not their parents, are going over to the Church, as you call it, and the Church is going over to Rome.'
'I do not see the justice of that latter assertion at all,' said I ”

“ I think your strictures upon them in general are rather too sweeping—they are not altogether the foolish people which you have described. Look, for example, at that very powerful and numerous body the Dissenters, the descendants of those sturdy Patriots who hurled Charles the Simple from his throne.'
'There are some sturdy fellows amongst them, I do not deny,' said the man in black, 'especially amongst the preachers, clever withal—two or three of that class nearly drove Mr. ”