With much superstition, theology never molests him;
scholarship and poetry are no affairs of his. He doubts of himself
and others, and is as suspicious in his ignorance as Sir Thomas is
confident.
With these wide diversities, there are family features, such as are
likely to display themselves in different times and circumstances,
and some so generically prevalent as never to lie quite dormant in
the breed. In both of them there is parsimony, there is arrogance,
there is contempt of inferiors, there is abject awe of power, there
is irresolution, there is imbecility. But Sir Magnus has no
knowledge, and no respect for it. Sir Thomas would almost go thirty
miles, even to Oxford, to see a fine specimen of it, although, like
most of those who call themselves the godly, he entertains the most
undoubting belief that he is competent to correct the errors of the
wisest and most practised theologian.
EDITOR'S APOLOGY.
A part only of the many deficiencies which the reader will discover
in this book is attributable to the Editor. These, however, it is
his duty to account for, and he will do it as briefly as he can.
The fac-similes (as printers' boys call them, meaning specimens) of
the handwriting of nearly all the persons introduced, might perhaps
have been procured had sufficient time been allowed for another
journey into Warwickshire.
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