[The Romany Rye by George Borrow]@TWC D-Link book
The Romany Rye

CHAPTER IX
12/13

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.


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