BOOK III.
P. 346. Burnet. It was believed, if the design had succeeded, he [Lord Clifford] had agreed with his wife to take orders, and to aspire to a cardinal's hat.—Swift. Was he or she to take orders?
P. 362. Burnet. I told him, what afterwards happened, that most of these would make their own terms, and leave him in the lurch.—Swift. True sublime.
P. 370. Burnet. I was ever of Nazianzen's opinion, who never wished to see any more synods of the clergy.—Swift. Dog!
P. 372. Burnet, when he was struck out of the list of chaplains, says:—The King said, he was afraid I had been too busy; and wished me to go home to Scotland, and be more quiet.—Swift. The King knew him right.
Ibid. Burnet. I preached in many of the churches of London; and was so well received, that it was probable I might be accepted of in any that was to be disposed of by a popular election.—Swift. Much to his honour.
P. 373. Burnet. This violent and groundless prosecution lasted some months. And during that time I said to some, that Duke Lauderdale had gone so far in opening some wicked designs to me, that I perceived he could not be satisfied, unless I was undone. So I told what was mentioned before of the discourses that passed between him and me.—Swift. Scotch dog!
P. 374. Burnet. He [Lord Howard] went over in the beginning of the war, and offered to serve De Witt. But he told me, he found him a dry man.—Swift. Who told who? I guess Howard told Burnet.
P. 378. Burnet. At least he [Sir William Temple] thought religion was fit only for the mob.—Swift. A word of dignity for an historian. Burnet. He was a corrupter of all that came near him. And he delivered himself up wholly to study, ease, and pleasure.—Swift. Sir William Temple was a man of virtue, to which Burnet was a stranger.
P. 380. Burnet, speaking of his being pressed, before Parliament, to reveal what passed between him and the Duke of Lauderdale in private; and the Parliament, in case of refusal, threatening him, says:—Upon this I yielded, and gave an account of the discourse formerly mentioned.—Swift. Treacherous villain.
Ibid. Burnet. My love to my country, and my private friendships carried me perhaps too far.—Swift. Right.
P. 382. Burnet. [Sir Harbottle Grimstone] had always a tenderness to the Dissenters.—Swift. Burnet's test of all virtues.
Ibid. Burnet. [Lady Grimstone] was the humblest, the devoutest, and best tempered person I ever knew of that sort [having high notions for Church and Crown].—Swift. Rogue.
P. 384. Burnet, the country party maintained that:—if a Parliament thought any law inconvenient for the good of the whole, they must be supposed still free to alter it: And no previous limitation could bind up their legislature.—Swift. Wrong arguing.
P. 387. Burnet. It was said, a standing Parliament changed the constitution of England.—Swift. The present case under King George.
Ibid. Burnet. It was moved, that an address should be made to the King for dissolving the Parliament.—Swift. Tempora mutantur; for nothing now will do but septennial Parliaments.
P. 388 Burnet. He [Lord Russell] had from his first education an inclination to favour the Non-conformists.—Swift. So have all the author's favourites.
P. 392. Burnet. But with these good qualities Compton was a weak man, wilful, and strangely wedded to a party.—Swift. He means, to the Church.
Ibid. Burnet. Bancroft, Dean of St. Paul's, was raised to [the see of Canterbury]. ... He was a man of solemn deportment, had a sullen gravity in his looks, and was considerably learned. He had put on a monastic strictness, and lived abstracted from company. ... He was a dry, cold man, reserved, and peevish; so that none loved him, and few esteemed him.—Swift. False and detracting.
P. 396. Burnet. My way of writing history pleased him [Sir William Jones].—Swift. Very modest.
P. 399. Burnet. Men were now though silent, not quiet.—Swift. Nonsense, or printer's mistake. It should be, "Silent, though not quiet."
Ibid, Burnet. One Carstairs, a loose and vicious gentleman.—Swift. Epithets well placed.
P. 404. Burnet. It was an extraordinary thing that a random cannon shot should have killed him [Turenne].—Swift. How extraordinary? Might it not kill him as well as another man?
P. 406. Burnet, in the battle at St. Omer between the Prince of Orange (afterwards King William) and the Duke of Orleans:—some regiments of marines, on whom the Prince depended much, did basely run away. Yet the other bodies fought so well, that he lost not much, besides the honour of the day.—Swift. He was used to that.
P. 407. Burnet. These leading men did so entangle the debates, and over-reached those on whom he had practised, that they, working on the aversion that the English nation naturally has to a French interest, spoiled the hopefullest session the court had had of a great while, before the court was well aware of it.—Swift. Rare style!
P. 409. Burnet, Lord Danby, speaking to King Charles II., said:—If they saw his [the Duke of York's] daughter given to one that was at the head of the Protestant interest, it would very much soften those apprehensions, when it did appear that his religion was only a personal thing, not to be derived to his children after him. With all this the King was convinced.—Swift. Then how was the King for bringing in Popery?
P. 413. Burnet. His friend answered, He hoped he did not intend to make use of him to trepan a man to his ruin. Upon that, with lifted up hands, Sharp promised by the living God, that no hurt should come to him, if he made a full discovery.—Swift. Malice.
Ibid. Burnet, upon the examination of Mitchell before the privy-council for the intended assassination of Archbishop Sharp, it being first proposed to cut off the prisoner's right hand, and then his left:—Lord Rothes, who was a pleasant man, said, "How shall he wipe his breech then?" This is not very decent to be mentioned in such a work, if it were not necessary.—Swift. As decent as a thousand other passages; so he might have spared his apology.
P. 414. Burnet, in the last article of the above trial, observes:— But the judge, who hated Sharp, as he went up to the bench, passing by the prisoner said to him, "Confess nothing, unless you are sure of your limbs as well as of your life."—Swift. A rare judge.
Ibid. Burnet, mentioning Mackenzie's appointment as king's advocate, says of him:—He has published many books, some of law, but all full of faults; for he was a slight and superficial man.—Swift. Envious and base.
P. 416. Burnet, speaking of the execution of the above Mitchell for the attempt against Sharp, says:—Yet Duke Lauderdale had a chaplain, Hickes, afterwards Dean of Worcester, who published a false and partial relation of this matter, in order to the justifying of it—Swift. A learned, pious man.[4]
[Footnote 4: The "Ravillac [sic] Redivivus" of Hickes, is, notwithstanding his learning and piety, in every respect deserving of the censures passed upon it by Burnet. [S.]
P. 425. Burnet. [Titus Oates] got to be a chaplain in one of the king's ships, from which he was dismissed upon complaint of some unnatural practices, not to be named.—Swift. Only sodomy.
P. 434. Burnet. He [Staley] was cast.—Swift. Anglicê, found guilty.
P. 441. Burnet, on the impeachment of Lord Danby:—Maynard, an ancient and eminent lawyer, explained the words of the statute of 25 Edward III. that the courts of law could not proceed but upon one of the crimes there enumerated: But the Parliament had still a power, by the clause in that Act, to declare what they thought was treason.—Swift. Yes, by a new Act, but not with a retrospect; therefore Maynard was a knave or a fool, with all his law.
P. 442. Burnet. This indeed would have justified the King, if it had been demanded above board.—Swift. Style of a gamester.
P. 451. Burnet. Yet many thought, that, what doctrines soever men might by a subtlety of speculation be earned into, the approaches of death, with the seriousness that appeared in their deportment, must needs work so much on the probity and candour which seemed footed in human nature, etc.—Swift. Credat Judaeus Apella.
P. 455. Burnet, the Bill of Exclusion disinherited:—the next heir, which certainly the King and Parliament might do, as well as any private man might disinherit his next heir.—Swift. That is not always true. Yet it was certainly in the power of King and Parliament to exclude the next heir.
P. 457. Burnet. Government was appointed for those that were to be governed, and not for the sake of governors themselves.—Swift. A true maxim and infallible.
P. 458. Burnet. It was a maxim among our lawyers, that even an Act of Parliament against Magna Charta was null of itself.—Swift. A sottish maxim.
P. 459. Burnet. For a great while I thought the accepting the limitations [proposed in the Exclusion Bill] was the wisest and best method.—Swift. It was the wisest, because it would be less opposed; and the King would consent to it; otherwise an exclusion would have done better.
P. 471. Burnet. The guards having lost thirty of their number were forced to run for it.—Swift. For what?
P. 475. Burnet. Dangerfield, a subtle and dexterous man, who ... was a false coiner, undertook now to coin a plot for the ends of the Papists.—Swift. Witty.
P. 479. Burnet. Godolphin ... had true principles of religion and virtue, and was free from all vanity, and never heaped up wealth: So that all things being laid together, he was one of the worthiest and wisest men that has been employed in our time.—Swift. All this very partial to my knowledge.
P. 483. Burnet. I laid open the cruelties of the Church of Rome in many instances that happened in Queen Mary's reign, which were not then known: And I aggravated, though very truly, the danger of falling under the power of that religion.—Swift. A BULL!
Ibid. Burnet. Sprat had studied a polite style much: But there was little strength in it: He had the beginnings of learning laid well in him: But he has allowed himself in a course of some years in much sloth and too many liberties.—Swift. Very false.
P. 489. Burnet. Here was a justice to be done, and a service to truth, towards the saving a man's life.... He advised with all his friends, and with my self in particular. The much greater number were of opinion that he ought to be silent.—Swift. Damned advice.
P. 496. Burnet. Jones stood upon a point of law, of the unseparableness of the prerogative from the person of the King.—Swift. A lawyer's way of arguing, very weak.
P. 509. Burnet, speaking of the grand juries in the latter end of King Charles's reign returning ignoramus so frequently on bills of indictment, states that:—in defence of these ignoramus juries it was said, that by the express words of their oath they were bound to make true presentments of what should appear true to them: And therefore, if they did not believe the evidence, they could not find a bill, though sworn to. A book was writ to support that, in which both law and reason were brought to confirm it: It passed as writ by Lord Essex, though I understood afterwards it was writ by Somers.—Swift. Lord Somers.
P. 516. Burnet says, on the imposition of a Test Act:—The bishops were earnest for this, which they thought would secure them for ever from a Presbyterian Parliament. It was carried in the vote: And that made many of the court more zealous than ever for carrying through the Act.—Swift. And it was very reasonable.
P. 519. Burnet mentions that, when the Test Act was passed:—about eighty of the most learned and pious of their clergy left all rather than comply with the terms of this law.... About twenty of them came up to England.—Swift. Enough to corrupt England.
P. 523. Burnet, describing the death of the Duke of Lauderdale, says—His heart seemed quite spent: There was not left above the bigness of a walnut of firm substance: The rest was spongy, liker the lungs than the heart.—Swift. Anglicé, more like.
P. 525. Burnet, Home was convicted on the credit of one infamous evidence:—Applications were made to the Duke [of York] for saving his life: But he was not born under a pardoning planet.—Swift. Silly fop.
P. 526. Burnet All the Presbyterian party saw they were now disinherited of a main part of their birth-right.—Swift. As much of Papists as of Presbyterians.
P. 527. Burnet, speaking of the surrender of the charters in 1682:—It was said, that those who were in the government in corporations, and had their charters and seals trusted to their keeping, were not the proprietors nor masters of those rights. They could not extinguish those corporations, nor part with any of their privileges. Others said, that whatever might be objected to the reason and equity of the thing, yet, when the seal of a corporation was put to any deed, such a deed was good in law. The matter goes beyond my skill in law to determine it.—Swift. What does he think of the surrenders of the charters of abbeys?
P. 528. Burnet The Non-conformists were now persecuted with much eagerness. This was visibly set on by the Papists: And it was wisely done of them, for they knew how much the Non-conformists were set against them.—Swift. Not so much as they are against the Church.
P. 531. Burnet Lord Hyde was the person that disposed the Duke to it: Upon that Lord Halifax and he fell to be in ill terms; for he hated Lord Sunderland beyond expression, though he had married his sister.—Swift. Who married whose sister?
P. 536. Burnet The truth is, juries became at that time the shame of the nation, as well as a reproach to religion: For they were packed, and prepared to bring in verdicts as they were directed and not as matters appeared on the evidence.—Swift. So they are now.
P. 538. Burnet He [Algernon Sidney] was ambassador in Denmark at the time of the Restoration.—Swift. For Cromwell.
P. 543. Burnet, on Rumbold's proposal to shoot the King at Hodsdon, in his way to Newmarket, adds:—They [the conspirators] ran into much wicked talk about the way of executing that. But nothing was ever fixed on: All was but talk.—Swift. All plots begin with talk.
P. 548. Burnet. At the time of Lord Russell's plot, Baillie being asked by the King whether they had any design against his person? he frankly said not; but being asked:—if they had been in any consultations with lords or others in England, in order to an insurrection in Scotland? Baillie faltered at this. For his conscience restrained him from lying;—Swift. The author and his cousins could not tell lies, but they could plot.
P. 549. Burnet. Next morning he went with him to the Tower gate, the messenger being again fast asleep.—Swift. Is this a blunder?
P. 553. Burnet, speaking of Lord Essex's suicide (1683)—His man, thinking he stayed longer than ordinary in his closet, looked through the key hole, and there saw him lying dead.—Swift. He was on the close stool.
P. 555. Burnet, on Lord Russell's trial—Finch summed up the evidence against him. But ... shewed more of a vicious eloquence, in turning matters with some subtlety against the prisoners, than of solid or sincere reasoning.—Swift. Afterwards Earl of Aylesford, an arrant rascal.
P. 562. Burnet. I offered to take my oath, that the speech [of Lord Russell] was penned by himself, and not by me.—Swift. Jesuitical.
P. 567. Burnet. I knew Spanheim particularly, who was envoy from the Elector of Brandenburg, who is the greatest critic of the age in all ancient learning.—Swift. Who was—who is, pure nonsense.
P. 568. Burnet. All people were apprehensive of very black designs, when they saw Jeffreys made Lord Chief Justice, who ... run out upon all occasions into declamations, that did not become the bar, much less the bench. He was not learned in his profession: And his eloquence, though viciously copious, yet was neither correct nor agreeable.—Swift. Like Burnet's eloquence.
P. 572. Burnet, on Algernon Sidney's trial, observes, that:—Finch aggravated the matter of the book, as a proof of his intentions, pretending it was an overt act, for he said, Scribere est agere.—Swift. Yet this Finch was made Earl of Aylesford by King George.
Ibid. Burnet, when Sidney charged the sheriffs who brought him the execution-warrant with having packed the jury—one of the sheriffs ... wept. He told it to a person, from whom Tillotson had it, who told it me.—Swift. Admirable authority.
P. 577. Burnet. So that it was plain, that after all the story they had made of the [Rye-house] Plot, it had gone no further, than that a company of seditious and inconsiderable persons were framing among themselves some treasonable schemes, that were never likely to come to anything.—Swift. Cursed partiality.
P. 579. Burnet. The King [Charles II.] had published a story all about the court, ... as the reason of this extreme severity against Armstrong: He said, that he was sent over by Cromwell to murder him beyond sea; ... and that upon his confessing it he had promised him never to speak of it any more as long as he lived. So the King, counting him now dead in law, thought he was free from that promise.—Swift. If the King had a mind to lie, he would have stayed till Armstrong was hanged.
P. 583. Burnet. It ended in dismissing Lord Aberdeen, and making Lord Perth chancellor, to which he had been long aspiring in a most indecent manner.—Swift. Decent and indecent, very useful words to this author.
P. 585. Burnet. I saved myself out of those difficulties by saying to all my friends, that I would not be involved in any such confidence; for as long as I thought our circumstances were such that resistance was not lawful, I thought the concealing any design in order to it was likewise unlawful.—Swift. Jesuitical.
Ibid. Burnet says, after relating how the thumb-screws were applied to Spence and Carstairs:—Upon what was thus screwed out of these two persons, etc.—Swift. Witty the second time.
P. 586. Burnet, Baillie suffered several hardships and fines for being supposed to be in the Rye-house Plot; yet:—seemed all the while so composed, and even so cheerful, that his behaviour looked like the reviving of the spirit of the noblest of the old Greeks or Romans.—Swift. For he was our cousin.
P. 587. Burnet, speaking of Baillie's execution, says:—The only excuse that was ever pretended for this infamous prosecution was, that they were sure he was guilty.—Swift. Bishop of Rochester.
P. 588. Burnet, Lord Perth wanting to see Leightoun, I writ so earnestly to him, that he came to London; and, on—his coming to me, I was amazed to see him at above seventy look so fresh and well.... [Two days afterwards] Leightoun sunk so, that both speech and sense went away of a sudden: And he continued panting about twelve hours; and then died without pangs or convulsions.—Swift. Burnet killed him by bringing him to London.
Ibid. Burnet Leightoun ... retained still a peculiar inclination to Scotland.—Swift. Yet he chose to live in England.
P. 589. Burnet, speaking of Leightoun's views of the Church of England, says:—As to the administration, both with relation to the ecclesiastical courts, and the pastoral care, he looked on it as one of the most corrupt he had ever seen.—Swift. Very civil.
Ibid. Burnet. There were two remarkable circumstances in his [Leightoun's] death. He used often to say, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it looking like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this world was all as an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it.—Swift. Canting puppy.
P. 590. Burnet. Sterne, Archbishop of York, died in the 86th year of his age: He was a sour ill-tempered man, and minded chiefly the enriching his family.—Swift. Yet thought author of "The Whole Duty of Man."
P. 591. Burnet says of Bishop Mew:—Though he knew very little of divinity, or of any other learning, and was weak to a childish degree, yet obsequiousness and zeal raised him through several steps to this great see [Bath and Wells].—Swift. This character is true.
P. 595. Burnet. And now the tables were turned—Swift. Style of a gamester.
P. 596. Burnet, being appointed to preach the sermon on the Gunpowder Plot, (1684,) at the Rolls Chapel:—I chose for my text these words: "Save me from the lion's mouth, thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." I made no reflection in my thoughts on the lion and unicorn, as being the two supporters of the King's scutcheon.—Swift. I doubt that.
P. 600. Burnet relates a story of a quarrel between three gentlemen, one of whom was killed. He says that one of the others:—was prevailed on to confess the indictment, and to let sentence pass on him for murder; a pardon being promised him if he should do so. [After this he had to pay £16,000 for his pardon.]—Swift. The story is wrong told.
P. 604. Burnet mentions a scheme to raise dissensions between Charles II. and the Duke of York, and adds:—Mr. May of the privy purse told me, that he was told there was a design to break out, with which he himself would be well pleased.—Swift. The bishop told me this with many more particulars.
P. 609. Burnet, speaking of the suspicion of Charles II. being poisoned, says that:—Lower and Needham, two famous physicians, ... [noticed some] blue spots on the outside of the stomach. Needham called twice to have it opened: but the surgeons seemed not to hear him. And when he moved it the second time, he, as he told me, heard Lower say to one that stood next him, "Needham will undo us, calling thus to have the stomach opened, for he may see they will not do it." ... Le Fevre, a French physician, told me, he saw a blackness in the shoulder; Upon which he made an incision, and saw it was all mortified. Short, another physician, who was a Papist, but after a form of his own, did very much suspect foul dealing.—Swift. One physician told me this from Short himself.
P. 611. Burnet, describing the behaviour of Charles II. when in hiding after the battle of Worcester, says:—Under all the apprehensions he had then upon him, he shewed a temper so careless, and so much turned to levity, that he was then diverting himself with little household sports, in as unconcerned a manner, as if he had made no loss, and had been in no danger at all.—Swift. This might admit a more favourable turn.
P. 613. Burnet, in his character of Charles II., says:—His person and temper, his vices as well as his fortunes, resemble the character that we have given us of Tiberius so much, that it were easy to draw the parallel between them. Tiberius's banishment, and his coming afterwards to reign, makes the comparison in that respect come pretty near. His hating of business, and his love of pleasures, his raising of favourites, and trusting them entirely; and his pulling them down, and hating them excessively; his art of covering deep designs, particularly of revenge, with an appearance of softness, brings them so near a likeness, that I did not wonder much to observe the resemblance of their face and person.—Swift. Malicious, and in many circumstances false.
P. 615. Burnet concludes his character of Charles II. with these words:—How ungrateful soever this labour has proved to my self, and how unacceptable soever it may be to some, who are either obliged to remember him gratefully, or by the engagement of parties and interests are under other biasses, yet I have gone through all that I knew relating to his life and reign with that regard to truth, and what I think may be instructive to mankind, which became an impartial writer of history, and one who believes, that he must give an account to God of what he writes, as well as of what he says and does.—Swift. He was certainly a very bad prince, but not to the degree described in this character, which is poorly drawn, and mingled with malice very unworthy an historian, and the style abominable, as in the whole history, and the observations trite and vulgar.