BOOK II.
P. 92. Burnet. I will therefore enlarge ... on the affairs of Scotland; both out of the inbred love that all men have for their native country, etc.—Swift. Could not he keep his inbred love to himself?
Ibid. Burnet. Sharp, who was employed by the resolutioners ... stuck neither at solemn protestations, ... nor at appeals to God of his sincerity in acting for the presbytery both in prayers and on other occasions, etc.—Swift. Sure there was some secret personal cause of all this malice against Sharp.
P. 93. Burnet, speaking of Charles II. says:—He was affable and easy, and loved to be made so by all about him. The great art of keeping him long was, the being easy, and the making everything easy to him.—Swift. Eloquence.
P. 99. Burnet says of Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington:—His parts were solid, but not quick.—Swift. They were very quick.
P. 100. Burnet says of the Duke of Buckingham:—Pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion was all that he laid to heart. He was true to nothing, for he was not true to himself.—Swift. No consequence. Burnet. He had no steadiness nor conduct: He could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it.—Swift. Nonsense.
P. 117. Burnet. It was visible that neither the late King nor the present were under any force when they passed ... those Acts [bringing in Presbyterian government].—Swift. Both Kings were under a force.
P. 118. Burnet. To annul a Parliament was a terrible precedent, which destroyed the whole security of government.—Swift. Wrong arguing.
Ibid. Burnet. Distress on his affairs was really equivalent to a force on his person.—Swift. It was so.
P. 119. Burnet. We went into it, he said, as knaves, and therefore no wonder if we miscarried in it as fools.—Swift. True.
Ibid. Burnet. No government was so well established, as not to be liable to a revolution. This [the Rescissory Act] would cut off all hopes of peace and submission, if any disorder should happen at any time thereafter.—Swift. Wrong weak reasoning.
P. 120. Burnet. Such care was taken that no public application should be made in favour of Presbytery. Any attempt that was made on the other hand met with great encouragement.—Swift. Does the man write like a bishop?
P. 126. Burnet, speaking of the execution of the Marquess of Argyle:—After some time spent in his private devotions he was beheaded.—Swift. He was the greatest villain of his age.
Ibid. Burnet. The kirk ... asserted all along that the doctrine delivered in their sermons did not fall under the cognisance of the temporal courts, till it was first judged by the church.—Swift. Popery.
P. 127. Burnet. The proceedings against Wariston were soon dispatched.—Swift. Wariston was an abominable dog.
P. 135. Burnet, of Bishop Leightoun's character:—The grace and gravity of his pronunciation was such, that few heard him without a very sensible emotion. ... His style was rather too fine.—Swift. Burnet is not guilty of that.
P. 140. Burnet. Leightoun did not stand much upon it. He did not think orders given without bishops were null and void. He thought, the forms of government were not settled by such positive laws as were unalterable; but only by apostolical practices, which, as he thought, authorized Episcopacy as the best form. Yet he did not think it necessary to the being of a church. But he thought that every church might make such rules of ordination as they pleased.—Swift. Think, thought, thought, think, thought.
P. 154. Burnet, speaking of a proclamation for shutting up two hundred churches in one day:—Sharp said to myself, that he knew nothing of it. ... He was glad that this was done without his having any share in it: For by it he was furnished with somewhat, in which he was no way concerned, upon which he might cast all the blame of all that followed. Yet this was suitable enough to a maxim that he and all that sort of people set up, that the execution of laws was that by which all governments maintained their strength, as well as their honour.—Swift. Dunce, can there be a better maxim?
P. 157. Burnet, speaking of those who enforced church discipline, says:—They had a very scanty measure of learning, and a narrow compass in it. They were little men, of a very indifferent size of capacity, and apt to fly out into great excess of passion and indiscretion.—Swift. Strange inconsistent stuff.
P. 160. Burnet. One Venner ... thought it was not enough to believe that Christ was to reign on earth, and to put the saints in the possession of the kingdom ... but added to this, that the saints were to take the kingdom themselves.—Swift. This wants grammar.
P. 163. Burnet. John Goodwin and Milton did also escape all censure, to the surprise of all people.—Swift. He censures even mercy.
Ibid. Burnet. Milton ... was ... much admired by all at home for the poems he writ, though he was then blind; chiefly that of "Paradise Lost," in which there is a nobleness both of contrivance and execution, that, though he affected to write in blank verse without rhyme, and made many new and rough words, yet it was esteemed the beautifullest and perfectest poem that ever was writ, at least in our language.—Swift. A mistake, for it is in English.
P. 164. Burnet. The great share he [Sir Henry Vane] had in the attainder of the Earl Strafford, and in the whole turn of affairs to the total change of government, but above all the great opinion that was had of his parts and capacity to embroil matters again, made the court think it was necessary to put him out of the way.—Swift. A malicious turn. Vane was a dangerous enthusiastic beast.
Ibid. Burnet. When he [Sir Henry Vane] saw his death was designed, he composed himself to it, with a resolution that surprised all who knew how little of that was natural to him. Some instances of this were very extraordinary, though they cannot be mentioned with decency.—Swift. His lady conceived of him the night before his execution.
Ibid. Burnet. Sir Henry Vane died with so much composedness, that it was generally thought, the government had lost more than it had gained by his death.—Swift. Vane was beheaded for new attempts, not here mentioned.
P. 179. Burnet. [The Papists] seemed zealous for the Church. But at the same time they spoke of toleration, as necessary both for the peace and quiet of the nation, and for the encouragement of trade.—Swift. This is inconsistent.
P. 180. Burnet says that Mr. Baxter:—was a man of great piety; and, if he had not meddled in too many things, would have been esteemed one of the learned men of the age: He writ near two hundred books.—Swift. Very sad ones.
P. 184. Burnet. The Convocation that prepared those alterations, as they added some new holy days, St. Barnabas, and the Conversion of St. Paul, so they took in more lessons out of the Apocrypha, in particular the story of Bel and the Dragon.—Swift. I think they acted wrong.
Ibid. Burnet. Reports were spread ... of the plots of the Presbyterians in several counties. Many were taken up on those reports: But none were ever tried for them.—Swift. A common practice.
Ibid. Burnet, writing of the ejection of the Nonconformists on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662, says:—A severity neither practised by Queen Elizabeth in the enacting her Liturgy, nor by Cromwell in ejecting the Royalists.—Swift. But by King William.
P. 186. Burnet, speaking of the great fines raised on the church estates ill applied, proceeds:—If the half had been applied to the buying of tithes or glebes for small vicarages, here a foundation had been laid down for a great and effectual reformation.—Swift. He judges here right, in my opinion.
Ibid. Burnet, continuing the same subject:—The men of merit and service were loaded with many livings and many dignities. With this great accession of wealth there broke in upon the Church a great deal of luxury and high living, on the pretence of hospitality; while others made purchases, and left great estates, most of which we have seen melt away.—Swift. Uncharitable aggravation; a base innuendo.
P. 189. Burnet. Patrick was a great preacher. He wrote ... well, and chiefly on the Scriptures. He was a laborious man in his function, of great strictness of life, but a little too severe against those who differed from him. But that was, when he thought their doctrines struck at the fundamentals of religion. He became afterwards more moderate.—Swift. Yes, for he turned a rank Whig.
P. 190. Burnet. [Archbishop Tenison] was a very learned man.—Swift. The dullest, good-for-nothing man I ever knew.
P. 191. Burnet, condemning the bad style of preaching before Tillotson, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet, says their discourses were:—long and heavy, when all was pie-bald, full of many sayings of different languages.—Swift. A noble epithet. Burnet. The King ... had got a right notion of style.—Swift. How came Burnet not to learn this style?
P. 193. Burnet, speaking of the first formation of the Royal Society:—Many physicians, and other ingenious men went into the society for natural philosophy. But he who laboured most ... was Robert Boyle, the Earl of Cork's youngest son. He was looked on by all who knew him as a very perfect pattern. ... He neglected his person, despised the world, and lived abstracted from all pleasures, designs, and interests.—Swift. Boyle was a very silly writer.
P. 195. Burnet. Peter Walsh, ... who was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among [the Popish clergy, often told me] ... there was nothing which the whole Popish party feared more than an union of those of the Church of England with the Presbyterians. ... The Papists had two maxims, from which they never departed: The one was to divide us: And the other was to keep themselves united.—Swift. Rogue.
P. 202. Burnet. The queen-mother had brought over from France one Mrs. Steward, reckoned a very great beauty.—Swift. A pretty phrase.
P. 203. Burnet. One of the first things that was done in this session of Parliament [1663] was the execution of my unfortunate uncle, Wariston.—Swift. Was he hanged or beheaded? A fit uncle for such a bishop.
P. 211. Burnet. Many were undone by it [religious persecution], and went over to the Scots in Ulster, where they were well received, and had all manner of liberty as to their way of religion.—Swift. The more the pity.
P. 214. Burnet. The blame of all this was cast upon Sharp..... And the Lord Lauderdale, to complete his disgrace with the King, got many of his letters ... and laid these before the King; So that the King looked on him as one of the worst of men.—Swift. Surely there was some secret cause for this perpetual malice against Sharp.
P. 220. Burnet. Pensionary De Witt had the notions of a commonwealth from the Greeks and Romans. And from them he came to fancy, that an army commanded by officers of their own country was both more in their own power, and would serve them with the more zeal, since they themselves had such an interest in their success.—Swift. He ought to have judged the contrary.
P. 236. Burnet, speaking of the slight rebellion in the west of Scotland, 1666, says:—The rest [of the rebels] were favoured by the darkness of the night, and the weariness of the King's troops that were not in case to pursue them. ... For they were a poor harmless company of men, become mad by oppression.—Swift. A fair historian!
P. 237. Burnet. They might all have saved their lives, if they would have renounced the Covenant: So they were really a sort of martyrs for it.—Swift. Decent term.
P. 238. Burnet. [Sir John Cunningham] was not only very learned in the civil and canon law ... [but] was above all, a man of eminent probity, and of a sweet temper, and indeed one of the piousest men of the nation.—Swift. Is that Scotch?
P. 242. Burnet. When the peace of Breda was concluded, the King wrote to the Scottish council, and communicated that to them; and with that signified, that it was his pleasure that the army should be disbanded.—Swift. Four thats in one line.
P. 243. Burnet. [Archbishop Burnet] saw Episcopacy was to be pulled down, and ... writ upon these matters a long and sorrowful letter to Sheldon: And upon that Sheldon writ a very long one to Sir R. Murray; which I read, and found more temper and moderation in it than I could have expected from him.—Swift. Sheldon was a very great and excellent man.
P. 245. Burnet. [The Countess of Dysert] was a woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts. ... She had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was violent in everything she set about, a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy. ... [When Lauderdale] was prisoner after Worcester fight, she made him believe he was in great danger of his life, and that she saved it by her intrigues with Cromwell.—Swift. Cromwell had gallantries with her.
P. 248. Burnet. The clergy ... saw designs were forming to turn them all out: And, hearing that they might be better provided in Ireland, they were in many places bought out, and prevailed on to desert their cures.—Swift. So Ireland was well provided.
P. 252. Burnet. The King ... suspecting that Lord Cornbury was in the design, spoke to him as one in a rage that forgot all decency. ... In the afternoon he heard him with more temper, as he himself told me.—Swift. Who told him?
P. 253. Burnet, speaking of Sheldon's remonstrating with the King about his mistresses, adds:—From that day forward Sheldon could never recover the King's confidence.—Swift. Sheldon had refused the sacrament to the King for living in adultery.
Ibid. Burnet. Sir Orlando Bridgman ... was a man of great integrity, and had very serious impressions of religion on his mind. He had been always on the side of the Church.—Swift. What side should he be of?
P. 256. Burnet, speaking of the Earl of Clarendon's banishment:—It seemed against the common course of justice, to make all corresponding with him treason, when he himself was not attainted of treason.—Swift. Bishop of Rochester's case.
P. 257. Burnet. Thus the Lord Clarendon fell under the common fate of great ministers, whose employment exposes them to envy, and draws upon them the indignation of all who are disappointed in their pretensions. Their friends turning as violently against them, as they formerly fawned abjectly upon them.—Swift. Stupid moralist.
Ibid. Burnet, speaking of the Earl of Clarendon's eldest son, who afterwards succeeded him, says:—His judgement was not to be much depended on, for he was much carried by vulgar prejudices, and false notions. He was much in the Queen's favour. Swift. Much, much, much.
P. 258. Burnet, speaking of the Earl of Rochester, second son of Lord Clarendon:—[He] is a man of far greater parts [than his brother]. He has a very good pen, but speaks not gracefully.—Swift. I suppose it was of gold or silver.
Ibid. Burnet. [The King] told me, he had a chaplain, that was a very honest man, but a very great blockhead, to whom he had given a living in Suffolk, that was full of that sort of people [Nonconformists]. He had gone about among them from house to house, though he could not imagine what he could say to them, for he said he was a very silly fellow. But that, he believed, his nonsense suited their nonsense, for he had brought them all to church. And, in reward of his diligence, he had given him a bishopric in Ireland.—Swift. Bishop Wolley, of Clonfert.
P. 259. Burnet. If the sectaries were humble and modest, and would tell what would satisfy them, there might be some colour for granting some concessions.—Swift. I think so too.
P. 260. Burnet. The three volumes of the "Friendly Debate," though writ by a very good man.—Swift. Writ by Bishop Patrick.
Ibid. Burnet. After he [Samuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford] had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books, writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, etc.—Swift. What is a droll? Burnet. That not only humbled Parker, but the whole party. For the author of "The Rehearsal Transposed," etc.—Swift. Andrew Marvel.
P. 263. Burnet, speaking of the King's attachment to Nell Gwyn, says:—But after all he never treated her with the decencies of a mistress.—Swift. Pray what decencies are those?
Ibid. Burnet. The King had another mistress, that was managed by Lord Shaftesbury, who was the daughter of a clergyman, Roberts, in whom her first education had so deep a root, that, though she fell into many scandalous disorders, with very dismal adventures in them all, yet a principle of religion was so deep laid in her, that, though it did not restrain her, yet it kept alive in her such a constant horror at sin, that she was never easy in an ill course, and died with a great sense of her former ill life. I was often with her the last three months of her life.—Swift. Was she handsome then?
P. 264. Burnet. The King loved his [the Earl of Rochester's] company for the diversion it afforded, better than his person: And there was no love lost between them.—Swift. A noble phrase.
P. 265. Burnet. Sedley had a more sudden and copious wit, which furnished a perpetual run of discourse: But he was not so correct as Lord Dorset, nor so sparkling as Lord Rochester.—Swift. No better a critic in wit than style.
P. 266. Burnet. Lord Roberts, afterwards made Earl of Radnor, [who succeeded the Duke of Ormonde in his government of Ireland,] was a morose man, believed to be severely just, and as wise as a cynical humour could allow him to be.—Swift. How does that hinder wisdom?
P. 273. Burnet. Charles II. confessed himself a Papist to the Prince of Orange:—The Prince told me, that he never spoke of this to any other person, till after his death.—Swift. That is, his own death.
P. 277. Burnet quotes an exclamation of Archbishop Sharp's, after an attempt to assassinate him, and adds:—This was the single expression savouring of piety, that ever fell from him in all the conversation that passed between him and me.—Swift. Rank malice.
P. 285. Burnet. No body could ever tell me how the word "Ecclesiastical matters" was put in the Act. Leightoun thought, he was sure it was put in after the draught and form of the Act was agreed on.—Swift. Nonsense.
P. 287. Burnet, speaking of Archbishop Burnet, says:—He was not cut out for a court, or for the ministry.—Swift. A phrase of dignity.
Ibid. Burne, mentioning his own appointment as Professor of Divinity at Glasgow University, says:—There was no sort of artifice or management to bring this about: It came of themselves: And they did it without any recommendation of any person whatsoever.—Swift. Modest.
P. 288. Burnet. The Episcopal party thought I intended to make myself popular at their cost: So they began that strain of fury and calumny that has pursued me ever since from that sort of people.—Swift. A civil term for all who are Episcopal.
P. 298. Burnet. [In compiling the Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton,] I found there materials for a very large history. I writ it with great sincerity; and concealed none of their errors. I did indeed conceal several things that related to the King: I left out some passages that were in his letters; in some of which was too much weakness.—Swift. The letters, if they had been published, could not have given a worse character.
P. 300. Burnet, speaking of the Scotch clergy refusing to be made bishops, says:—They had an ill opinion of the court, and could not be brought to leave their retirement.—Swift. For that very reason they should have accepted bishoprics.
P. 301. Burnet, after mentioning the murder of the Duchess of Orleans, says:—I will set down one story of her, that was told me by a person of distinction, who had it from some who were well informed of the matter.—Swift. Poor authority.
P. 303. Burnet. Madame [the Duchess of Orleans] had an intrigue with another person, whom I knew well, the Count of Tréville. When she was in her agony, she said, "Adieu, Tréville." He was so struck with this accident, that it had a good effect on him; for he went and lived many years among the Fathers of the Oratory, and became both a very learned, and devout man. He came afterwards out into the world. I saw him often. He was a man of a very sweet temper, only a little too formal for a Frenchman. But he was very sincere. He was a Jansenist. He hated the Jesuits.—Swift. Pretty jumping periods.
P. 304. Burnet. Lord Shaftesbury laid the blame of this chiefly on the Duke of Buckingham: For he told me, ... And therefore he blamed him.—Swift. Who blamed whom.
Ibid. Burnet. The Duke of Savoy was encouraged to make a conquest of Genoa.—Swift. Geneva.
Ibid. Burnet. When a foreign minister asked the King's leave to treat with him [Lockhart] in his master's name, the King consented; but with this severe reflection, That he believed he would be true to anybody but himself.—Swift. Does he mean, Lockhart would not be true to Lockhart?
P. 305. Burnet. They [the French] so possessed De Groot, then the Dutch ambassador at Paris, or they corrupted him into a belief that they had no design on them, etc.—Swift. Who on whom?
P. 306. Burnet. The Earl of Shaftesbury was the chief man in this advice [recommending the King to shut up the exchequer].—Swift. Clifford had the merit of this.
P. 318. Burnet, after mentioning the death of William II., Prince of Orange, says of the Princess:—As she bore her son a week after his death, in the eighth month of her time, so he came into the world under great disadvantages.—Swift. A pretty contrast.
Ibid. Burnet mentions an astrological prediction of the Prince's fate, and adds:—But that which was most particular was, that he was to have a son by a widow, and was to die of the small-pox in the twenty-fifth year of his age.—Swift. Was, was, was, was.
P. 320. Burnet. They set it also up for a maxim.—Swift. He can vary a phrase; set up for a maxim, and lay down for a maxim.
P. 321. Burnet. His oath was made to them, and by consequence it was in their power to release the obligation that did arise from it to themselves.—Swift. Bad casuist.
Ibid. Burnet. As soon as he [the Prince of Orange] was brought into the command of the armies, he told me, he spoke to De Witt, and desired to live in an entire confidence with him. His answer was cold: So he saw that he could not depend upon him. When he told me this, he added, that he was certainly one of the greatest men of the age, and he believed he served his country faithfully—Swift. Yet the Prince contrived that he should be murdered.
Ibid. Burnet. Now I come to give an account of the fifth crisis brought on the whole reformation, which has been of the longest continuance, since we are yet in the agitations of it.—Swift. Under the Queen and Lord Oxford's ministry.
P. 322. Burnet. [In this famous campaign of Louis XIV. against the Dutch, (1672,)] there was so little heart or judgement shewn in the management of that run of success, etc.—Swift. A metaphor, but from gamesters.
P. 326. Burnet, referring to the action of the rabble when Cornelius de Witt was banished, says of the Prince of Orange:—His enemies have taken advantages from thence to cast the infamy of this on him, and on his party, to make them all odious; though the Prince spoke of it always to me with the greatest horror possible.—Swift. Yet he was guilty enough.
P. 328. Burnet. Prince Waldeck was their chief general: A man of a great compass.—Swift, i.e. very fat.
P. 330. Burnet. He broke twice with the Prince, after he came into a confidence with him. He employed me to reconcile him to him for the third time—Swift. Perspicuity.
Ibid. Burnet. The actions sinking on the sudden on the breaking out of a new war, that sunk him into a melancholy, which quite distracted him.—Swift. Eloquent.
P. 335. Burnet. I will complete the transactions of this memorable year:—P. 337. Thus I have gone far into the state of affairs of Holland in this memorable year.—Swift. Why, you called it so but just now before.
P. 337. Burnet. It seems, the French made no great account of their prisoners, for they released 25,000 Dutch for 50,000 crowns—Swift. What! ten shillings a piece! By much too dear for a Dutchman.
Ibid. Burnet. This year [1672] the King declared a new mistress, and made her Duchess of Portsmouth. She had been maid of honour to Madame, the King's sister, and had come over with her to Dover; where the King had expressed such a regard to her, that the Duke of Buckingham, who hated the Duchess of Cleveland, intended to put her on the King.—Swift. Surely he means the contrary.
P. 341. Burnet. [The Duke of Lauderdale] called for me all on the sudden, and put me in mind of the project I had laid before him, of putting all the outed ministers by couples into parishes: So that instead of wandering about the country to hold conventicles in all places, they might be fixed to a certain abode, and every one might have the half of a benefice.—Swift. A sottish project; instead of feeding fifty, you starve a hundred.