_ Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
_Poetry of the Antijacobin._
THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL
CHAPTER I
Now Scot and English are agreed,
And Saunders hastes to cross the Tweed,
Where, such the splendours that attend him,
His very mother scarce had kend him.
His metamorphosis behold,
From Glasgow frieze to cloth of gold;
His back-sword, with the iron hilt,
To rapier, fairly hatch'd and gilt;
Was ever seen a gallant braver!
His very bonnet's grown a beaver.
_The Reformation._
The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the
south and the north divisions of the Island of Britain, had been
happily terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to the
English Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland
was worn by the same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and
the succession of more than one generation, ere the inveterate
national prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister
kingdoms were removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed
brought to regard those upon the opposite bank as friends and as
brethren.
These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of
King James. The English subjects accused him of partiality to those of
his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal injustice, charged
him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with
neglecting those early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much
indebted.
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