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.