 The whole literary world was now united against John Knox, whose very name was the signal for ridicule or execration.The man whose heart was so hard and pitiless, who demolished stately architectures and fair churches from sheer hatred of things grand or beautiful, who shared in, or at least who countenanced, the foulest assassinations of the period, and who had finally imposed upon the land a sour, shrivelled, and soul-stunting creed, under the name of a reformation, which, thanks to Moderatism, the country was now getting rid of.This was he whom M'Crie, under every disadvantage, and at every hazard, was resolved to chronicle and to vindicate.