P. 589. Burnet, the Queen having sent a message to the Lords to adjourn, it was debated:—that the Queen could not send a message to any one House to adjourn, when the like message was not sent to both Houses: the pleasure of the Prince, in convening, dissolving, proroguing, or ordering the adjournment of Parliaments, was always directed to both Houses; but never to any one House, without the same intimation was made, at the same time, to the other.—Swift. Modern nonsense.
P. 591. Burnet. The House of Commons, after the recess, entered on the observations of the commissioners for taking the public accounts; and began with [Sir Robert] Walpole, whom they resolved to put out of the way of disturbing them in the House.—Swift. He began early, and has been thriving twenty-seven years, to January 1739.
P. 609. Burnet. A new set of addresses ran about.... Some of these addresses mentioned the Protestant succession, and the House of Hanover, with zeal; others did it more coldly; and some made no mention at all of it. And it was universally believed, that no addresses were so acceptable to the ministers, as those of the last sort.—Swift. Foolish and factious.
P. 610. Burnet. The Duke of Ormonde had given the States such assurances, of his going along with them through the whole campaign, that he was let into the secrets of all their counsels, which by that confidence were all known to the French: And, if the auxiliary German troops had not been prepared to disobey his orders, it was believed he, in conjunction with the French army, would have forced the States to come into the new measures.—Swift. Vile Scot, dare to touch Ormonde's honour, and so falsely.
P. 612. Burnet, the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun were engaged in litigation; and:—upon a very high provocation, the Lord Mohun sent him [the Duke] a challenge, which he tried to decline: but both being hurried, by those false points of honour, they fatally went out to Hyde Park, in the middle of November, and fought with so violent an animosity, that neglecting the rules of art, they seemed to run on one another, as if they tried who should kill first; in which they were both so unhappily successful, that the Lord Mohun was killed outright, and Duke Hamilton died in a few minutes after.[9]—Swift. Wrongly told.
[Footnote: 9: A footnote to the 1833 edition of Burnet says that "the duke in the belief of some was killed by General Macartney, the Lord Mohun's second." See also Chesterfield's letter quoted in Introduction, and Swift's own version in the "Four Last Years," p. 178. [T.S.]
P. 614. Burnet says of the Earl of Godolphin:—After having been thirty years in the Treasury, and during nine of those Lord Treasurer, as he was never once suspected of corruption, or of suffering his servants to grow rich under him, so in all that time his estate was not increased by him to the value of £4,000. Swift. A great lie.
THE CONCLUSION.
P. 669. Burnet, speaking of the progress of his own life, says:—The pleasures of sense I did soon nauseate.—Swift. Not so soon with the wine of some elections.