And never did a wise one.”
We see the Duchess of Portsmouth, and many another lady of rank, who had more regard for ancient titles than for ancestral virtues; we see George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a man of princely fortune and excellent talents, tossed about in a whirlpool of frivolous pleasures, whose character the great Dryden embalmed in vigorous lines:
“A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
Stiff in opinions—always in the wrong—
Was everything by starts, but nothing long;
Who in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.”
Through the imprisonment of Julian Peveril we are made acquainted with the Tower and Newgate—a sad picture, but somewhat relieved by Scott’s humor in the portrait that he gives us of the well-known doughty dwarf, Sir Geoffrey Hudson; we see London given over to monopolies, to stock-jobbing, and South Sea speculations; we attend a conventicle held in a secret hall of the city, and trace a conspiracy designed to place the Duke of Buckingham upon the throne; until our story, one of the longest and most carefully prepared of the Waverley series, concludes with a court scene in Whitehall, where the faithful love of Edith Bridgenorth and Julian Peveril is announced to the satisfaction at least of two individuals.
“Old Mortality,” our next volume, deals directly with the Covenanters of Scotland. It will be remembered that Charles the Second, on a former expedition into Scotland, before his restoration, had deliberately sworn to support the Solemn League and Covenant. The Presbyterian Church, alive to its own interests, sent an agent to General Monk, who had declared for a free Parliament, and was on his way to London, holding as it were in his hand the destiny of Britain. The agent sent by the Scottish Church was James Sharpe, a man well educated, logical in mind and commanding in character; but, false to his trust, he bartered his principles for power, and received as the price of his infamy the title and office of Lord Bishop of Saint Andrews, and Primate of Scotland. “The great stain” says Scott, in his Miscellaneous Prose Works, “will always remain, that Sharpe deserted and probably betrayed a cause which his brethren entrusted to him. When he returned to Scotland, he pressed the acceptance of the See of Saint Andrews upon Mr. Robert Douglas, affecting himself no ambition for the prelacy. The stern Presbyterian saw into his secret soul, and, when he had given his own positive rejection, demanded of Sharpe what he would do if the offer was made to him? He hesitated. ‘I perceive,’ said Douglas, ‘you are clear—you will engage—you will be Primate of Scotland; take it then,’ he added, laying his hand on his shoulder, ‘and take the curse of God along with it.’ The subject would suit a painter.” Subsequent history shows that the curse was fulfilled.