The library
at Waverley-Honour, a large Gothic room, with double arches and a
gallery, contained such a miscellaneous and extensive collection of
volumes as had been assembled together, during the course of two hundred
years, by a family which had been always wealthy, and inclined, of
course, as a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the
current literature of the day, without much scrutiny, or nicety of
discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted to
roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church politics and
controversial divinity, together with a love of learned ease, though
they did not withdraw his attention at stated times from the progress
of his patron's presumptive heir, induced him readily to grasp at any
apology for not extending a strict and regulated survey towards his
general studies. Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and,
like his sister Miss Rachel Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that
idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere
tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful
and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas
or doctrines they may happen to convey.
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