Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

write for it; all the trumpery titled⁠—he will not call them great again⁠—would then be for him, and their masters the radicals, with their hosts of newspapers, would be for him, more especially if he would commence maligning the society whose colours he had once on his hat⁠—a society which, as the priest says in the text, is one of the very few Protestant institutions for which the Popish Church entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it respects nothing which it does not fear. The writer said that certain “rulers” would never forgive him for having been connected with that society; he went perhaps too far in saying “never.” It is probable that they would take him into favour on one condition, which is, that he should turn his pen and his voice against that society; such a mark “of a better way of thinking,” would perhaps induce them to give him a government, nearly as good as that which they gave to a certain ancient radical fox at the intercession of his radical friends (who were bound to keep him from the pauper’s kennel), after he had promised to foam, bark and snarl at corruption no more; he might even entertain hopes of succeeding, nay, of superseding, the ancient creature in his government; but even were he as badly off as he is well off, he would do no such thing. He would rather exist on crusts and water; he has often done so, and been happy; nay, he would rather starve than be a rogue⁠—for even the feeling of starvation is happiness compared with what he feels who knows himself to be a rogue, provided he has any feeling at all. What is the use of a mitre or knighthood to a man who has betrayed his principles? What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of a pair of scarlet breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail? Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the fox who has lost his tail; and with reason, for his very mate loathes him and more especially if, like himself, she has lost her brush. Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who has parted with his principles, or those which he professed⁠—for what? We’ll suppose a government. What’s the use of a government, if, the next day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in your ears?

“Lightly liar leaped and away ran.”

—⁠Piers Plowman.

But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against Popery; and thoroughgoing bigotry, indeed, will make a person say or do anything. But the writer is a very pretty bigot truly! Where will the public find traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against her, and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for anyone but a bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise; her doctrines, actions and machinations being what they are.

Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued, in the wrong Church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a Church which, had it been a bigoted Church, and not long suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at present. No! let those who are in search of bigotry, seek for it in a Church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a pervert to Rome will not say for his Church, and which his priests will not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible⁠—the more horrible indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he would be to do it⁠—which he will not do for it and which his priests will not encourage him in doing.

Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion, there is a curious illustration in the work of Luigi Pulci. This man, who was born in Florence in the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in the Bible, composed a poem, called the Morgante Maggiore, which he recited at the table of Lorenzo di Medici, the great patron of Italian genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which the legends of knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are turned to unbounded ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a converted giant, called Morgante; though his adventures do not occupy the twentieth part of the poem, the principal personages being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin Rinaldo of Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants, and in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent. Orlando, however, who is banished from the court of Charlemagne, arriving at the convent, undertakes to destroy them, and, accordingly, kills Passamonte and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind had been previously softened by a vision, in which the “Blessed Virgin” figures. No sooner is he converted than, as a sign of his penitence, what does he do, but hastens and cuts off the hands of his