The Scotch Charlie o'er the water people have been very loud in the abuse of Lavengro - this again might be expected; the sarcasms of the Priest about the Charlie o'er the water nonsense of course stung them.Oh! it is one of the claims which Lavengro has to respect, that it is the first, if not the only work, in which that nonsense is, to a certain extent, exposed.Two or three of their remarks on passages of Lavengro, he will reproduce and laugh at.Of course your Charlie o'er the water people are genteel exceedingly, and cannot abide anything low.Gypsyism they think is particularly low, and the use of gypsy words in literature beneath its gentility; so they object to gypsy words being used in Lavengro where gypsies are introduced speaking -"What is Romany forsooth?" say they.Very good! And what is Scotch? has not the public been nauseated with Scotch for the last thirty years? "Ay, but Scotch is not" - the writer believes he knows much better than the Scotch what Scotch is and what it is not; he has told them before what it is, a very sorry jargon.He will now tell them what it is not - a sister or an immediate daughter of the Sanscrit, which Romany is."Ay, but the Scotch are" - foxes, foxes, nothing else than foxes, even like the gypsies - the difference between the gypsy and Scotch fox being that the first is wild, with a mighty brush, the other a sneak with a gilt collar and without a tail.
A Charlie o'er the water person attempts to be witty, because the writer has said that perhaps a certain old Edinburgh High-School porter, of the name of Boee, was perhaps of the same blood as a certain Bui, a Northern Kemp who distinguished himself at the battle of Horinger Bay.Apretty matter, forsooth, to excite the ridicule of a Scotchman! Why, is there a beggar or trumpery fellow in Scotland, who does not pretend to be somebody, or related to somebody? Is not every Scotchman descended from some king, kemp, or cow-stealer of old, by his own account at least?
Why, the writer would even go so far as to bet a trifle that the poor creature, who ridicules Boee's supposed ancestry, has one of his own, at least as grand and as apocryphal as old Boee's of the High School.
The same Charlie o'er the water person is mightily indignant that Lavengro should have spoken disrespectfully of William Wallace; Lavengro, when he speaks of that personage, being a child of about ten years old, and repeating merely what he had heard.All the Scotch, by the bye, for a great many years past, have been great admirers of William Wallace, particularly the Charlie o'er the water people, who in their nonsense-verses about Charlie generally contrive to bring in the name of William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace.The writer begs leave to say that he by no means wishes to bear hard against William Wallace, but he cannot help asking why, if William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace was such a particularly nice person, did his brother Scots betray him to a certain renowned southern warrior, called Edward Longshanks, who caused him to be hanged and cut into four in London, and his quarters to be placed over the gates of certain towns? They got gold, it is true, and titles, very nice things, no doubt;but, surely, the life of a patriot is better than all the gold and titles in the world - at least Lavengro thinks so -but Lavengro has lived more with gypsies than Scotchmen, and gypsies do not betray their brothers.It would be some time before a gypsy would hand over his brother to the harum-beck, even supposing you would not only make him a king, but a justice of the peace, and not only give him the world, but the best farm on the Holkham estate; but gypsies are wild foxes, and there is certainly a wonderful difference between the way of thinking of the wild fox who retains his brush, and that of the scurvy kennel creature who has lost his tail.
Ah! but thousands of Scotch, and particularly the Charlie o'er the water people, will say, "We didn't sell Willie Wallace, it was our forbears who sold Willie Wallace - If Edward Longshanks had asked us to sell Wullie Wallace, we would soon have shown him that - " Lord better ye, ye poor trumpery set of creatures, ye would not have acted a bit better than your forefathers; remember how ye have ever treated the few amongst ye who, though born in the kennel, have shown something of the spirit of the wood.Many of ye are still alive who delivered over men, quite as honest and patriotic as William Wallace, into the hands of an English minister, to be chained and transported for merely venturing to speak and write in the cause of humanity, at the time when Europe was beginning to fling off the chains imposed by kings and priests.And it is not so very long since Burns, to whom ye are now building up obelisks rather higher than he deserves, was permitted by his countrymen to die in poverty and misery, because he would not join with them in songs of adulation to kings and the trumpery great.So say not that ye would have acted with respect to William Wallace one whit better than your fathers - and you in particular, ye children of Charlie, whom do ye write nonsense-verses about? A family of dastard despots, who did their best, during a century and more, to tread out the few sparks of independent feeling still glowing in Scotland - but enough has been said about ye.
Amongst those who have been prodigal in abuse and defamation of Lavengro, have been your modern Radicals, and particularly a set of people who filled the country with noise against the King and Queen, Wellington, and the Tories, in '32.About these people the writer will presently have occasion to say a good deal, and also of real Radicals.As, however, it may be supposed that he is one of those who delight to play the sycophant to kings and queens, to curry favour with Tories, and to bepraise Wellington, he begs leave to state that such is not the case.
About kings and queens he has nothing to say; about Tories, simply that he believes them to be a bad set; about Wellington, however, it will be necessary for him to say a good deal, of mixed import, as he will subsequently frequently have occasion to mention him in connection with what he has to say about pseudo-Radicals.
