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.