 All this was enough for the novel-reading public, that was too ignorant to know, and too idle to inquire, and accordingly the statements of Sir Walter Scott, embodied as they were in so attractive a form, were received as veritable history.Nothing was now more common in England, and it may be added in Scotland also, than to hear the martyr-spirit of the days of the covenant laughed at, and its choicest adherents represented as madmen, fanatics, and cut-throats.It was needful that the "Author of Waverley" should be met by a fitting antagonist, and this he soon found in the author of the life of John Knox.