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.

WOODSTOCK. 31
and typically referred to the coming of the Messiah, was, in the opinion of
the military orator, most properly to be interpreted of Oliver Cromwell, the
victorious general of the infant Commonwealth, which was never destined
to come of age. "Gird on thy sword!" exclaimed the preacher emphatically;
" and was not that a pretty bit of steel as ever dangled from a corslet, or
rung against a steel saddle.? Ay, ye prick up your ears now, ye cutlers of
Woodstock, as if ye should know something of a good fox broad swordDid you forge it, I trow? - was the steel quenched with water from Rosamond's well, or the blade blessed by the old cuckoldy priest of Godstow?
You would have us think, I warrant me, that you wrought it and welded it,
grinded and polished it, and all the while it never came on a Woodstock
stithy! You were all too busy making whittles for the lazy crape-men of
Oxford, bouncing priests, whose eyes were so closed up with fat, that they
could not see Destruction till she had them by the throat. But I can tell
you where the sword was forged, and tempered, and welded, and grinded,
and polished. When you were, as I said before, making whittles for false
priests, and daggers for dissolute G-d d-n-me cavaliers, to cut the people
of England's throats with -it was forged at Long Marston Moor, where
blows went faster than ever rung hammer on anvil - and it was tempered,at Naseby, in the best blood of the cavaliers-and it was welded in Ireland
against the walls of Drogheda- and it was grinded on Scottish lives at
Dunbar- and now of late it was polished in Worcester, till it shines as
bright as the sun in the middle heaven, and there is no light in England
that shall come nigh unto it."
Here the military part of the congregation raised a hum of approbation,
which, being a sound like the " hear, hear," of the British House of Commons,
was calculated to heighten the enthusiasm of the orator, by intimating the
sympathy of the audience. " And then," resumed the preacher, rising in
energy as he found that his audience partook in these feelings, " what saith
the text?- Ride on prosperously-do not stop-do not call a halt-do not
quit the saddle - pursue the scattered fliers - sound the trumpet - not a
levant or a flourish, but a point of war - sound, boot and saddle - to horse,nd away-a charge! -follow after the young Man! - what part have we
in him? - Slay, take, destroy, divide the spoil! Blessed art thou, Oliver,
on account of thine honour- thy cause is clear, thy call is undoubted -
never has defeat come near thy leading-staff, nor disaster attended thy
banner. Ride on, flower of England's soldiers! ride on, chosen leader of
God's champions! gird up the loins of thy resolution, and be steadfast to
the mark of thy high calling."
Another deep and stern hum, echoed by the ancient embow'd arches of
the old chantry, gave him an opportunity of an instant's repose; when the
people of Woodstock heard him, and not without anxiety, turn the stream
of his oratory into another channel.
" But wherefore, ye people of Woodstock, do I say these things to you,
who claim no portion in our David, no interest in England's son of Jesse?
-You, who were fighting as well as your might could (and it was not very
formidable) for the late Man, under that old blood-thirsty papist Sir Jacob
Aston —are you not now plotting, or ready to plot, for the restoring, as ye
call it, of the young Man, the unclean son of the slaughtered tyrant -the
fugitive after whom the true hearts of England are now following, that they
may take and slay him?-' Why should your rider turn his bridle our way?'
say you in your hearts;'we will none of him; if we may help ourselves,
we will rather turn us to wallow in the mire of monarchy, with the sow that
was washed but newly.' Come, men of Woodstock, I will ask, and do you
answer me. Hunger ye still after the flesh-pots of the monks of Godstow?
and ye will say, Nay;-but wherefore, except that the pots are cracked and
broken, and the fire is extinguished wherewith thy oven used to boil? And