The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

14 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
narrative? This much so plainly shows the devil himself dislikt their doings, (so much more bad were they than he would have them be,) severer
sure than was the devil to their Commissioners at Woodstock; for he warned
them, with dreadful noises, to drive them from their work. This councillor,
without more ado, would have all who retain'd conceits of allegiance to
their soveraign, to be absolutely cut off by the usurper's sword. A sad
sentence for a loyal party, to a lawful King. But Ieaven is always just;
the party is repriv'd, and do acknowledge the hand of God in it, as is
rightly apply'd, and as justly sensible of their deliverance in that the foundation which the councillor saith was already so well laid, is now turned
up, and what he calls day-dreams are come to passe. That old line which
(as with him) there seemed, aliquid divini, to the contrary is now restored.
And that rock which, as he saith, the prelates and all their adherents, nay,
and their master and supporter, too, with all his posterity, have split themselves upon, is nowhere to be heard. And that posterity are safely arrived
in their ports, and masters of that mighty navy, their enemies so much encreased to keep them out with. The eldest sits upon the throne, his place
by birthright and descent,
"Pacatumque regit Patnis virtutibus orbem;"
upon which throne long may he sit, and reign in peace. That by his just
government, the enemies of ours, the true Protestant Church, of that glorious martyr, our late sovereign, and of his royal posterity, may be either
absolutely converted, or utterly confounded.
If any shall now ask thee why this narrative was not sooner published,
as neerer to the times wherein the things were acted, he hath the reason for
it in the former lines; which will the more clearly appear unto his apprehension, if he shall perpend how much cruelty is requisite to the maintenance of rebellion; and how great care is necessary in the supporters, to obviate and divert the smallest things that tend to the unblinding of the people;
so that it needs will follow, that they must have accounted this amongst
the great obstructions to their sales of his majestie's lands, the devil not
joining with them in the security; and greater to the pulling down the
royal pallaces, when their chapmen should conceit the devil would haunt
them in their houses, for building with so ill got materials; as no doubt but
that he hath, so numerous and confident are the relations made of the same,
though scarce any so totally remarkeable as this, (if it be not that others
have been more concealed,) in regard of the strange circumstances as long
continuances, but especially the number of persons together, to whom all
things were so visibly both seen and done, so that surely it exceeds any
other; for the devils thus manifesting themselves, it appears evidently that
there are such things as devils, to persecute the wicked in this world as in
the next.
Now, if to these were added the diverse reall phantasms seen at White.
Hall in Cromwell's times, which caused him to keep such mighty guards in
and about his bedchamber, and yet so oft to change his lodgings; if those
things done at St. James', where the devil so joal'd the centinels against
the sides of the queen's chappell doors, that some of them fell sick upon it;
and others, not taking warning by it, kild one outright, whom they buried
in the place; and all other such dreadful things, those that inhabited the
royal houses have been affrighted with.
And if to these were likewise added, a relation of all those regicides and
their abettors the devil hath entered into, as he did the Gadarenes' swine,
with so many more of them who hath fallen mad, and dyed in hideous
forms of such distractions, that which hath been of this within these 12
last years in England, (should all of this nature our chronicles do tell, with
all the superstitious monks have writ, be put together,) would make the
greater volume, and of more strange occurrents.