No More Learning

By far the most important of his
productions in these London years in which, it should be re-
membered, fell the so-called discovery of the popish plot and the
ensuing agitation) was The History of the Reformation of the
Church of England. The first volume of this work, on which
he had been busy during a large part of the years 1677 and 1678,
was published in the summer of 1679. No historical work was
ever more fortunate in the time of its appearance; a protestant
terror was sweeping the country; and the opposition, with which
his relations had become very friendly, at last seemed to have the
game in its own hands. So late as December 1680, he preached
before the Commons on the occasion of a public fast for the
prevention of all popish plots, and was thanked by the House for
his sermon and for his History, the Lords joining in the latter
acknowledgment. And so much importance was attached to his
ability and address, that, a year or two earlier (1678—9), he was
repeatedly summoned to a secret audience with the king, when,
however (as was not unfrequently the case with him), his in-
discretions completely ruined the situation.
Quite apart, however, from the circumstances which made The
History of the Reformation a book of the moment, there are con-
siderations which go far to justify the opinion of Burnet's most
recent biographer that this work 'forms an epoch in our historical
literature? ' This tribute is its due, not so much because of the
style of the book, which, besides being far more readable than
any historical work proper which had preceded it, has the great
merit of sincerity and clearly reflects the reasoned convictions of
its author, a protestant and an erastian to the core. But the
distinctive excellence of The History lies in its combination of
these qualities with a sustained endeavour on the part of the author
to base his narrative upon a personal investigation of the original
documents at his command. In other words, he seeks, however
1 Cf. ante, vol. viri, chap. XI.
Foxcroft, H. C. , A Life of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, p. 151.
13_2


## p. 196 (#220) ############################################

196 Historical and Political Writers
1
imperfectly, to apply to the exposition of his subject the principles
underlying a scientific treatment of history ; in yet other words,
he desires to reproduce so much of the truth concerning that
subject as has become visible to his eye. These ideas, as has been
seen, had been present to his mind when he set out to write The
Hamilton Memoirs; and now he undertook to carry them out
on a much larger scale and in reference to a body of events and
transactions of the highest historical significance. Indeed, he
seems to have contemplated the execution of the still more com-
prehensive design of a history of England, suggested to him by
Sir William Jones, when he was diverted from this by the ap-
pearance, in 1676, of a new French translation, by F. de Mancroix, e
of Nicholas Sanders’s De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis
Anglicani, first printed in 1585, and first translated into French
in the following year. The collection of materials, which Burnet
was resolved upon obtaining, so far as possible, at first hand,
proved a matter of great difficulty ; for, though he had the en-
couragement and the advice of Stillingfleet and Lloyd' (to whom,
with Tillotson, the first draft of the work was submitted), as well
as that of Sir John Marsham and William Petyt, he confesses to
have had little experience in the very first requisite of the modern
historian's task, the search for materials; and, to the chief store-
house of them, in the present case, Sir John Cotton's library, he
and his amanuensis had only surreptitious access for a few days
during the absence of the owner. In addition to Burnet's in-
.
experience in the work of transcription, and the baste in which
much of it had to be performed, the natural impatience of his
disposition, and an inborn readiness to overleap difficulties in the
way of conclusions, could not but affect the actual result of his
labours. A great deal of fault has been found—and, no doubt,
justly--with the inaccuracy and general imperfection of the
transcripts on which his work was largely founded and which
gave rise to endless blunders, although, of the myriad which his
conscientious editor declares himself to have corrected', a large
proportion must have been excusable, and many, of course, are
trivial. Some, however, were prompted by the strong opinions
which Burnet never made any pretence of concealing. But, as
1 As to Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester, see vol. viii, chapters XI and xvi ante
as to William Lloyd, successively bishop of St Asaph, Lichfield and Coventry and
Worcester, see ib. chap. XII.
2 See the elaborate preface in the concluding (seventh) volume of N. Pocock's edition
(Oxford, 1865); where the critical and controversial literature connected with Burnet's
work is examined at length. For the controversy with Atterbury see pp. 187 ff.
>


## p. 197 (#221) ############################################

Attacks and Replies
197
he spared no pains—he is said to have read over Paolo Sarpi's
History of the Council of Trent four or five times in order to
master the historian's method-s0 he was certainly not inten-
tionally incorrect. Notwithstanding the mistakes which he
continued to commit, even after the success of his first volume
had opened to him the Paper office, with Cotton's library and
other invaluable collections of documents, his work, which was
not published in its complete form till 1715', remains an achieve-
ment worthy of the love of research which inspired it. Nor is
the book without other merits. The story, as here given, of the
renunciation of the Roman obedience by the church of England,
and the conjunct story of Henry VIII's divorce from Catharine and
of the imposition by him of the Acts of Succession and Supremacy,
are told with force as well as with clearness, and without obvious
suppression of any element in the tale. The author does not make
any attempt to disguise his thoroughly protestant convictions ;
indeed, as against the Jesuits, he lets himself lapse into invective.
But, in general, the dispassionateness of his narrative is almost as
striking as its straightforwardness—the catastrophe of More and
Fisher, for instance, seems related without partiality.
Of the principal controversial writings to which The History of
the English Reformation gave rise, at a time when polemics
between the church of Rome and her opponents could not but
be at their height, a bibliographical list must suffice. To a French
historian's, Joachim Legrand, elaborate 'refutation of the first
two books of the work (1688), Burnet wrote a reply, which his
adversary immediately published in a French translation, with
his own counter-blast. Burnet himself was not one of those rarae
aves, in any branch of literature, who hold that criticisms are best
left to answer themselves, and few challenges found him unready.
He quickly (1688) retorted in the Oxford Theses Relating to
the English Reformation attributed to Obadiah Walker. On the
other hand, in the case of the first two volumes of the popular
Antoine Varillas's long-expected history of heresies, Burnet himself
assumed the offensive, and, in two pamphlets printed at Amster-
dam in the year of the appearance of this portion of Varillas's
work (1686) and in the following year respectively, contributed to
the overthrow of its author's reputation. Varillas had avowedly
1 Part 1 had covered the reign of Henry VIII. Part 1, dealing with the reign of
Edward VI, and said to have been written in six weeks, appeared in 1681; part III
(supplement) in 1715, when an unsatisfactory edition of the two earlier parts was also
published. The records, throughout, were kept separate from the narrative.


## p. 198 (#222) ############################################

198
Historical and Political Writers
attacked the protestant reformation from the political side ; and
Burnet was well qualified to carry the war into the enemy's camp,
and to show that the new History was 'nothing but Sanders drest
up in another Method. ' That method was the assumption of great
documentary learning, and an audacious use of the imagination
in the handling of such materials as the writer possessed. Burnet's
pamphlets are in the perennial style of a 'smashing' review, with
an infusion of the personal element hardly in excess of what con-
temporary readers expected; and they served their purpose.
Finally, he took up Bossuet's gauntlet, flung down by the
greatest catholic controversialist of his age in his famous Histoire
des Variations, where The History of the English Reformation
had been treated as the authoritative text-book of English
Protestantism”, in A Censure of M. de Meaux History (1688),
which sought to turn the tables on his august adversary.
Before the second volume of The History had been actually
issued, Burnet had produced the interesting monograph on the last
phase in the life of Rochester, who had read the first volume with
real interest. To this pamphlet, which reveals a power of sympathy
more valuable than the ordinary tact in which Burnet was signally
deficient, reference has already been made? To a slightly later
date (1682) belongs the publication of The Life and Death of
Sir Matthew Hale, sometime Lord Chief Justice of His Majesty's
Court of King's Bench, an admirable little biography. Though
Hale habitually heard Burnet preach at the Rolls, they were not
personally acquainted, and the book was chiefly founded on the
notes of a confidential clerk of the great lawyer, who was an
incorruptible but successful judge, a powerful thinker and a man
of lofty spirit and godliness of life. Burnet deprecates his History
being set down as a ‘Panegyrick,' and it merits preservation as the
record of a man who, whatever his failings, in a factious age strove
consistently to remain outside party? Soon afterwards (1683), as
if the personal history of one great lawyer had inspired him with
interest in the more or less remote speculations of another, Burnet
beguiled his leisure with a translation of Utopia, published in
1685, with a preface containing some verdicts on English con-
temporary and Elizabethan literature.
a
i Foxcroft, H. C. , u. s. , p. 247.
2 See ante, vol. vin, chap. XII, p. 209.
8 Sir Matthew Hale proposed to himself as a model T. Pomponius Atticus, of whose
Life by Cornelius Nepos he published a translation (1667), described as "very in.
accurate. ' He is taken to task for his leaning to the popular side in Roger North's
Life of Lord Guilford, pp. 79 ff. (Jessopp's edn. ).
.


## p. 199 (#223) ############################################

Burnet in Exile
199
In the last years of Charles II's reign, Burnet, from fair-
mindedness rather than from caution, declined to throw in his lot
with the extreme protestant faction, though he was always more
or less in touch with them. On the discovery of the Rye house
plot (1683)-early in which year Burnet seems first to have set
hand to The Memoirs, or Secret History, which were ultimately
to become The History of My Own Timehe, after a passing
moment of ignoble fear, courageously devoted himself to the
interests of Lord Russell, and addressed to him two discourses
not published till 1713, besides composing for Lady Russell a
journal of the last five years of her husband's life, which has
justly attained imperishable renown. The connection of Burnet
with the Russell family inevitably brought him into worse odour
with the court, although the belief which the king seems to have
entertained that Burnet wrote Lord Russell's dying speech was
not founded on fact; and, after he had been deprived of both
his lectureship and his preachership, he, in 1685, thought it safest
to leave the country. Of the travels with which he occupied nine
months, an account, as a matter of course both intelligent and
lively, remains in Some Letters (to Robert Boyle), printed at
Amsterdam in the following year. The accession of James II
had made the prolongation of his exile more necessary than
ever. In 1686, he settled down at the Hague, where, after a
time, he became the confidential adviser of the princess of
Orange, and, in a more restricted measure, of her wary consort.
Burnet’s activity as a political writer was now at its height,
and, of the Eighteen Papers relating to the Affairs of Church
and State, during the reign of King James the Second, all but
one were written during his residence in Holland. It must suffice
to note among these A Letter, written some little time before,
Containing some Remarks on the two Papers writ by King
Charles II, concerning Religion (1686), which contributed to the
stir created by their publication and the comments from opposite
points of view of Stillingfleet and Drydenº; Vindication from
the two Letters containing some Reflections on His Majesty's
Proclamation for Liberty of Conscience, dated, respectively,
12 February and 4 April 1687; Reflections on the pamphle
entitled Parliamentum Pacificum, and charges contained in it
(1688); the important and anonymous Enquiry into the measures
1 Foxcroft, H. C. , u. 8. , p. 187.
? Printed in Lord (John) Russell's Life of William Lord Russell (1919).
3 This, with the Reflections on the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, had been
previously printed among the Six Papers published in 1687.


## p. 200 (#224) ############################################

200
Historical and Political Writers
of submission to the supreme authority (1688), which, by allowing
restrictions upon the duty of non-resistance, practically rendered
it futile. William's army of invasion was supplied with copies
of this pamphlet (for gratuitous circulation), which completes
the orbit of its author's political tenets.
A Review of the Reflections on the Prince's Declaration (1688),
printed in the course of the march upon London, cut Burnet loose
for ever from the cause of James II and the prince whom he
persisted in treating as supposititious? . Other pamphlets accom-
panied the successive steps in the consummation of the revolution
which established William and Mary on the throne and Burnet
as bishop of Salisbury; but, with a few exceptions, of which we
proceed to mention only the more important, and, above all,
with the exception of his Memoirs, the pulpit now absorbed the
indefatigable activity of his pen.
Besides part ii of The History of the Reformation and a
work which may be regarded as supplementary to it, the celebrated
Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1699), in which the
historical element is at least of as great value as the theological,
Burnet produced, in the concluding period of his career, An
Essay on the Memory of the late Queen (Mary II) (1695), which
should find a place among the éloges of which the age was
peculiarly prolific, rather than among critical disquisitions. There
cannot be any doubt either that it was the result of profound
grief, or that this feeling was warranted alike by the pure and
noble character of Mary, and by Burnet's personal loss in the
death of a princess whose trust in him was among the most
cherished experiences of his life. With her sister, he was not on
similar terms of intimacy; nor was it at all to Anne's liking that
(in 1698) he was appointed preceptor to her son the duke of
Gloucester, afterwards heir-apparent. He was, however, on good
terms with the duke and duchess of Marlborough, his relations with
queen Anne herself improved, and it was only in her last years
that he found himself in steady opposition to her government.
What he had most at heart, as a politician, was the succession
of the house of Hanover, for which he had laboured hard in the
critical season of the Act of Settlement (1701). For some time
previously, he had been in correspondence with the electress
Sophia and with her trusted counsellor Leibniz, between whom
and Burnet there was much sympathy on religious, as well as
1 Printed in A second Collection of Several Tracts and Discourses, written in the
years 1686—9, by Gilbert Burnet (consecrated Bishop of Sarum, Easter Day, 1689), 1689.


## p. 201 (#225) ############################################

A Memorial for the Electress Sophia 201
on political, subjects, though, as in the case of the problem
of a reunion of the protestant churches, these aspects could
not be kept asunder. But the most interesting of Burnet's
communications with Hanover is A Memorial offered to the
electress by him in 1703, containing a Delineation of the Con-
stitution and Policy of England: with Anecdotes concerning
remarkable Persons of that Time, first published, from the
original in the Hanover archives, in 1815. The electress, who
was not a friend of long or tedious discourses, could not have
objected to Burnet's treatise on either ground; though she may
not have altogether relished the free criticism of the system
of government pursued by her uncle Charles I and her cousin
Charles II, and the assumption as to the 'pretended' birth of her
young living kinsman, whom the Jacobites called James III. To
us, the interest of this characteristic manual lies not so much in
the historical exposition of the reasons of the weakness of crown
and nobility and the suggestion of remedies' designed to strengthen
the stability of the throne, as in the plea for a generous treat-
ment by the church of England, with a view to future reunion, of
presbyterians and even of other nonconformists. For the rest,
though the treatise has not any particular value as a sketch of parties
or persons, its anecdotes and general style make it very readable ;
and it was probably unnecessary for the artful prelate to forward
for perusal, with his own manuscript, copies of Hudibras and The
Snake in the Grass. Burnet's fear of being dull was, of all the
fears which, from time to time, interfered with his self-confidence,
the least wellgrounded. The protest against the reprinting of the
political works of Harrington and Milton is, however, unworthy of him.
Finally, we come to the work which, during the greater part
of his life of ceaseless effort, Burnet must have regarded as that
upon which his reputation as a writer would, in the end, mainly
rest. It is true that he declared A Discourse of the Pastoral
Carel to be of all his writings the one which pleased himself best?
a preference well according with the fine ironical tribute paid
by Halifax to his ‘ill-natured' fondness for 'degrading himself
into the lowest and most painful duties of his calling? ' But,
though the spiritual element in Burnet's activity was never
quenched, ‘his times' and the world absorbed his most continuous
i Cf. ante, vol. vini, p. 300.
2 See his 'Autobiography'in A Supplement to Burnet's History of My Own Time, by
Foxcroft, H. C. (Oxford, 1902), p. 506.
3 Cf. Lady Russell's Letters (edition 1772), p. 201 note.


## p. 202 (#226) ############################################

202
Historical and Political Writers
literary effort; and something must here be said, in the first
instance, concerning the genesis and evolution of one of the best-
abused books in historical literature.
The two folio volumes of which the original edition of Burnet's
History of My Oron Time consists appeared in 1724 and 1734
respectively-in both cases, therefore, posthumously, as Burnet
died in 1715. The first volume, however, which ends with the
close of the reign of James II and the ensuing interregnum, and
so much of the second volume as covers the reign of William III
and the first two years, or thereabouts, of the reign of Anne, had,
in their original form, been intended to constitute part of a work,
designed on a somewhat different and looser plan, as ‘Memoirs' or
a 'Secret History' of the period which they covered. It will,
therefore, be most convenient to trace this earlier production to
its beginnings, before passing on to the published work in which it
was ultimately merged.
Burnet's biographer, Miss Foxcroft”, assigns to the spring
of 1683 the inception of the aforesaid "Memoirs' or 'Secret
History. At this date, Burnet was residing in London, having,
since his estrangement from Lauderdale, practically ceased to take
any active part in Scottish affairs, and already held a conspicuous
position in the English political world ; although, in consonance
with the course of affairs, as well as with the logical evolution
of his opinions, he had not yet definitively thrown in his lot with
the whigs. It was, therefore, before the discovery of the Rye
house plot, of which event the consequences reacted upon his
career, that he may be concluded to have written the earliest
section of his memoirs, which came to form, in substance, book i
of The History of My Own Time, and comprises a summary of
affairs, in England and Scotland, before the restoration. This
section is written with a clearness and vivacity sufficient to arrest
attention in what often proves the dullest portion of a memoir, its
opening; but, already here, when partisanship was, of course, in
abeyance, there are evident inaccuracies of statement about
foreign and English affairs—for instance, as to James I's supposed
intention of a reconciliation with Somerset Early in the narra-
.
tive, the writer turns to the affairs of Scotland, which, he says, are
but little known. ' 'Nor worth knowing' was the annotation added
by Swift, who, by way of a sneer at the entire work, interlined
1 A Life of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. 1. Scotland, 1643–1674. By
Clarke, T. E. S. II. England, 1674-1715. By Foxcroft, H. C. , with an introduction
by Firth, C. H. (Cambridge, 1907), p. 187.


## p. 203 (#227) ############################################

Burnet's
Original Memoirs
203
2
its title as The History of (Scotland in) His Own Times? . It
must be allowed that the method of Burnet's narrative, which
frequently passes from England to Scotland, and back again, like
a play with a main and a bye plot, though more or less unavoid-
able, is trying. Moreover, in the earlier part of the work, there
is a marked contrast between the grasp which the writer possesses
over Scottish affairs, and the less strenuous texture of the English
sections of the narrative. In book I, the struggle between re-
solutioners and protesters is related with a thorough command
of the subject, while the ensuing chapter on Cromwell, though
highly entertaining, manifestly rests on evidence of a very
doubtful character.
After, in July 1683, sentence had been passed on Lord Russell,
Burnet, unmanned, for the moment, by the terrible catastrophe,
wrote a letter to his friend John Brisbane, secretary of the
admiralty, who was cognisant of at least the plan of the memoirs,
containing an abject attempt to conciliate the king by promising
favourable treatment of him in the narrative which the writer
was preparing? On the other hand, the character of Charles II,
which is the first of a series of characters with which the next
division of the memoirs opened, conveyed a hint that a more
complete treatment of the subject would follow when it would
be more safe. When that time arrived, Burnet was a refugee in
Holland ; but he had taken his memoirs with him, and was busily
engaged upon them while abroad. This appears from the threat
which, in May 1687, he contrived to convey to James II through
the secretary of state, when informing him of his nationalisation
in Holland, that, if he were condemned, in his absence, on a
charge of intercourse with traitors in Scotland, he would have to
publish what might be disagreeable to the king—to wit, his
memoirs. Before he set sail with the expedition of William of
Orange, in 1688, Burnet had brought them up to date, and he
carried them on through the busy next period of his life; the last
extant fragment of them deals with the dismissal, in 1696, of bis
kinsman, James Johnston, from the Scottish secretaryship.
Nothing remains of Burnet's original memoirs which treats of
events or transactions dating from the period between February
1 The History of My Own Time, ed. Airy, 0. , vol. 1, p. 29 and note.
2 See Life, by Foxcroft, H. C. , p. 192. Charles II is said to have, more philo-
sophically, told Buckingham, who had advised conciliating Burnet, that the latter
would not dare to malign him while he was alive, and that, after his death, it would
not hurt him.
3 Ib. p. 196.


## p. 204 (#228) ############################################

204
Historical and Political Writers
1696 and April 1708; and, some years before the latter date, he
had resolved upon recasting his memoirs in a different form-that
in which they were ultimately given to the world. It is supposed
that the appearance, in 1702—4, of the first edition of Clarendon's
History of the Rebellion inspired Burnet with the thought of
emulating his great predecessor in his own field"; while a more
direct model was, together with a title, supplied to him in the
Historiae sui Temporis of de Thou, for whom Burnet had a great
admiration and whose general method of treatment he sought to
follow, avoiding, like him, any attempt to deal at length with
military operations or even to enter into a full discussion of
foreign affairs, but falling far short of him by omitting to furnish
either a general survey of the progress of European politics or
any adequate notice of great literary personalities? . It was, as
,
he states, likewise the example of de Thou, which induced Burnet
to compose, in November 1710, a short autobiography, which,
however, he never revised and which was not published till our
own days. This 'rough draught' deserved to become a permanent
possession of English biographical literature, and could bardly fail
to achieve popularity were it more widely known. For, apart from
its lucid and perfectly trustworthy statement of the data of an
enlightened and single-minded man's remarkable career, it reveals
the quintessence of his most characteristic personal qualities and,
being absolutely sincere, forms a most delightful, as well as a
most instructive, piece of writing. When, in 1734, Burnet's
family brought out the second volume of his History, they
opined to substitute for these plain and candid confessions a
more regular and elaborate life by the editor, Burnet's youngest
son Thomas, on the promise of whose education the father had
dilated towards the end of his suppressed sketch.
The changes made by Burnet in transforming what, if it had
not been his life's work, had occupied a very considerable share
of his attention during the years of his maturity, were, in sum,
1 It is curious to find the second' earl of Shaftesbury in his Letter concerning
Enthusiasm (written 1707) declare that we have few modern writers, who, like
Xenophon or Cicero [Caesar ? ] can write their own Commentaries, and the raw Memoir
Writings, and uninformed Pieces of modern Statesmen full of their own interested and
private Views, will, in another Age, be of little Service to support their Memory or
Name, since already the World begins to sicken with them. ' Cited by Oldmixon,
A Critical History of England, 3rd ed. 1727, vol. I, p. 19.
See the observations of Firth, in his introduction to Miss Foxcroft's Life,
pp. xxx, xxxi. Parts 1-10 of de Thou's great work first appeared in 1607—8, but
his Memoirs were not published till 1620.
8 In Miss Foxcroft's Supplement (1902), pp. 4514-524.


## p. 205 (#229) ############################################

6
6
The History of My Own Time 205
important. These changes, to a large extent, are open to the
inspection of posterity.
Besides a long fragment of the original
manuscript of the memoirs reaching from 1660 to 1664, we possess
smaller fragments concerned with the period from 1679 to 1683,
and, again, with that from 1684 to 1696 (from just before the
death of Charles II to just before the peace of Ryswyk). Con-
cerning the subsequent period, we have only so much of the
memoirs as deals with the years 1708 to 1713; but this section was
written with the conception of a more perfect history before the
eyes of the author? Nor should it be overlooked that, in 1708,
according to the statement of his son, he thought himself near
the end of the history,' for which the peace at one time thought
likely to follow upon the great victory of Oudenarde (or, rather,
upon the full use expected to be made of it) seemed a suitable
terminus. He, therefore, with a pardonable, and by no means
unparalleled, desire not to lose any time in 'improving' the most
signal occasion of his literary life, wrote a conclusion of his
history, for which, when he reached the year 1713, and the real
end chartaeque viaeque, he substituted the short and impressive
paragraph with which it actually closes. The conclusion of 1708,
however, is rightly printed in the editions of his book, to which it
would have formed an appropriate epilogue or moral, at what-
ever point in the narrative of queen Anne's later years it was
inserted. For it is really an admonition to those responsible
for the guidance of church and state in England to apply the
lessons taught by The History, and—in the halcyon days, now
seemingly near at hand, of peace and, perhaps, of a lasting
political settlement—to do what was possible towards securing a
prosperous and a virtuous national future by a series of com-
prehensive and far-reaching reforms. If this elaborate-but
well thought-out and admirably written— conclusion,' as a whole,
suggests the charge of a bishop taking leave of his diocese
(archidiaconal charges Burnet wished to see abolished), it has
the true ring of clear purpose and genuinely liberal feeling, and
speaks the mind of a man whose political principles could raise
him far above all considerations of party, while his religious
aspirations sought the advancement of something wider and higher
than the beliefs or interests of any particular sect or church.
Even before the materials for a comparison had been fully
1 For an exhaustive statement of the changes introduced by Burnet into his original
MS, see Foxcroft, H. C. , Supplement etc. , introduction and synopsis. For Miss Fox.
croft's criticism of the effect of these changes, see her Life, pp. 404 ff.


## p. 206 (#230) ############################################

206
Historical and Political Writers
surveyed, it was seriously questioned whether Burnet's work did
not lose more than it gained by the very drastic revision-
amounting, in some passages, to rewriting—to which he subjected
his original text; and, in a wellknown excursus to his History of
England", the great historian Ranke argued forcibly, though without
having completely surveyed the material, in favour of the superior
value, as a historical authority, of the unadulterated memoirs.
Without accepting, as more than partially correct, the view that
Burnet's motive for revision was not to correct inaccuracies, but
to alter what failed to suit views and purposes entertained by him
at a later date, we may allow that this revision not only, in many
instances (some of which were of considerable significance), de-
prived his work of the weight of a contemporary authority, but, in
many others, altered it for the worse from a literary point of view?
As is pointed out by Burnet's biographer, while the leisure
which, at different periods of his life, he was able, or willing, to
allow himself left him time for the composition of memoirs, he
lacked the opportunity, which de Thou created for himself and
which circumstances forced upon Clarendon, for the writing of
a great history. Of the actual changes introduced by Burnet,
not a few were due to a widening of experience, and others to
a
a desire natural to a rightminded and wellmeaning man, such as,
at bottom, he was, for softening the asperities of temporary
resentment and the vehemence of younger years. At the same
time, however, he had, as he advanced in age, become more of
a partisan in the affairs of both church and state. Yet, in some
instances—so in his later, as compared with his earlier, treatment
of Marlborough-self-interest may have combined with a sense of
justice to recast a onesided treatment ; in others, as in the
removal of unfavourable comments on Portland, towards whom
he had never entertained friendly sentiments, he was moved by
a generous resentment of the unjust outcry against a most
loyal servant of their common master3.
When we pass on to consider the design and execution of The
History as a whole, we may agree that the preface which Burnet
wrote in 1702, when setting about the recasting of the work
undertaken by him twenty years before, is highstrung, and that
the tone of solemn responsibility in which it is indited is not
See appendix i, ii, 'Burnet's History of his Own Times' in vol. vi of Englische
Geschichte etc. (vol. vi of English translation).
9 So, at the very outset, in the instance dwelt on by Ranke, the characters' of
Charles II and his ministers with which book ii of the History opens.
3 Life, pp. 386—7.


## p. 207 (#231) ############################################

Characteristics of the History
207
-
maintained by the spirit of some of the passages of the work which
follows. But the plan of narrating the history of half a century of
the national life (his actual work somewhat exceeds this limit) could
not but present itself to Burnet's mind, when once more, as it were,
contemplating it from the threshold, as a task of high purpose, and
he might well entertain a hope that his narrative would 'awaken
the world to just reflections on their own errors and follies. ' It
was (as Ranke suggests) as a kind of protest against the reaction
confronting him in state and church that he undertook to
produce his recast History—a protest on behalf of the principle
of resistance, which he had himself only gradually adopted, but
which had now lost ground, and on behalf of the principle of
comprehension, for which even his friends the whigs and their
nonconformist protégés had become content to substitute that
of an extended toleration. He asked the public to accept his
book as designed for this end; but, on its appearance, the public
was slow to receive it in the spirit with which, when he wrote his
preface, there is no difficulty in believing him to have been filled.
Its sincerity—that is to say, its veracity of intention as well
as of detail-was, from the first, disputed by irreconcilable
It was pronounced to be not only ‘full of legend and
false secret tradition,' but, also, to be full of omissions which the
author would not have found any difficulty in avoiding. Boling-
broke did not wish it to be left unread, but declared that it must
be read as a party pamphlet. Yet there can be little doubt that,
though inaccurate by nature, and a victim to the credulity natural
to those in whom the desire for information about facts and
persons is the least controllable part of their minds, Burnet was
neither intentionally unveracious nor essentially untruthful, nor
even, by disposition, ungenerous and unfair. What really dis-
credited him, as it has very few other historians of high and
honourable intentions and of gifts such as his, was the flaw in
bis intellect, no doubt deepened by his habits of life-for he was
always enquiring, and always writing—which may be described
as the weakness of its critical faculty. He had habituated himself
to take things for true without enquiring into the evidence for
their truth, and thus, when hearsay coincided with his wishes, his
foot was sure to find its way into the trap? .
censors.
? Of course, his narrative is least trustworthy where, as in the case of the reign of
James II, he was at a distance from the scene of action; and his manifest, though
nowhere in The History explicitly avowed, acceptance of the legend of the supposititious
prince of Wales is only an extreme instance of his tendency to believe what he
wished.


## p. 208 (#232) ############################################

208
Historical and Political Writers
By the side of this defect, his partisanship, even had it not
been exaggerated by some of his commentators and critics, who
were unable to recognise the honesty of purpose which underlay
most of his judgments, as well as most of the changes which he
introduced into them, is, in itself, of quite secondary importance.
And it should be remembered that, though Burnet was not any
more successful than was Clarendon in emancipating himself from
the influences by which he was surrounded and in accordance
with which he shaped his own ecclesiastical and political actions, he
did not, as Ranke has well shown, during the reign of Charles II,
stand in the actual centre of affairs, or possess the key to the
religious and foreign policy of which he observed the unsatisfactory
results. His relations with William and Mary became, after a
time, intimate at the Hague, and continued so with her after
her accession to the throne; but, even in this reign, and much
more in that of queen Anne, the part which he played in the
history of his times, important though it was, remained only a
secondary part; and his life was not, like Clarendon's, merged
in the management of the monarchy. At the same time, he knew
all the chief men of his age, both English and Scottish, and, as
a collector of materials, used his opportunities with unwearying
assiduity.
Burnet's style and manner as a historical writer have been
criticised with not less asperity than has the substance of his
History; yet few modern readers will be ungrateful, and, there-
fore, unjust, enough-for who has not taken delight in at least
much of his narrative ? -to subscribe to Swift's 'I never read so
ill a style. ' It must not be forgotten that, though Clarendon's
Life was actually written before Burnet's Memoirs were first
taken in hand, and Clarendon's History appeared many years
before that of Burnet, he at least began his Memoirs without
any English model? . The comparison with Clarendon is not the
less unavoidable, and has been made by a most competent
hand—not wholly to the disadvantage of the divine as against
the statesman? Although Clarendon's rolling periods are un-
approached by Burnet's ‘jumping' sentences, the realism of the
latter gives him the advantage over the somewhat conventional
dignity of the former—as Ranke observes, in a different con-
nection, he pleases his readers, though he may fail to convince
them of the higher motives of his work. He is an excellent
>
1 Life, by Foxcroft, H. C. , p. 399.
? See Firth, C. H. , in introduction, u. 8. , pp. xxxix ff.
)


## p. 209 (#233) ############################################

Defects and Merits of the History 209
teller of stories-not the least so because he is master of the
illustrative method, and never dwells at length on what he in-
troduces incidentally. When, in accordance with the fashion of his
age, he makes a supreme effort of style in the drawing of character,
he is relatively lacking in finish ; but he frequently achieves the
effect of a likeness taken from life which Clarendon misses in
his more artistically elaborated portraits. Yet the want of order
and method which often shows itself in Burnet's arrangement of
events likewise interferes with the general effect of some of his
characters. The Leibnitian principle non multa sed multum was
not one of the maxims which guided him in composition, any more
than it did in his literary activity at large.
Yet no conclusion could be less correct than the impression
that, either in his History, or in any other part of his extra-
ordinarily ample literary output, Burnet's glance was ever more
thap temporarily diverted from the distinct aims and lofty ideals
which he cherished. Any unprejudiced review of his most popular
historical work, or of his historical writings in a body, or of the
whole of his extant literary productions, including his pulpit
deliverances, will lead to a corroboration of the fact, brought
out in his 'dying speech,' as he humourously calls the intended
'conclusion of The History of My Own Time, that the pervading
purpose of them all was a vindication of freedom under the law
as the guiding principle of ecclesiastical and political life. With
this ideal, the teaching of the Cambridge Platonists had fasci-
nated his early manhood; it bad guided the efforts of the
latitudinarian divines of whom, in more ways than one, he had
become the most active representative in public life ; and it
had inspired the view of national political progress which the
innumerable and, in part, superfluous, or even objectionable,
details of his last historical work had been unable to obscure.
And, to this work itself, it had imparted a vitality beyond that of
the most entertaining or even the most scandalous-memoirs 1.
6
Among ecclesiastical historians in this period, Burnet has
precedence, by right of seniority, over John Strype, whose first
appearance as the author of any substantial work, however, dated
i For a list of the more important controversial writings directed against Barnet's
History of My Own Time, see bibliography. As to the notes of the earl of Dartmouth,
Speaker Onslow, the earl of Hardwicke and Swift, inserted in the Oxford edition of
1823, see Routh's preface to that edition. In varying degrees, the retention of them in
later editions, in common justice to Burnet, called for curtailment; and Airy, in his
edition of books 1-111, admitted only such as seemed to possess real value. '
F. L. IX.
CH. VII.
14


## p. 210 (#234) ############################################

210
Historical and Political Writers
6
from after his fiftieth year. His Memorials of Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury (1694) was succeeded (1698) by The
Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith, which evenly treats of
his services to the welfare of the state and of those to the pronun-
ciation of Greek. Then followed the lives of bishop Aylmer (1701);
'the learned Sir John Cheke’ (1705); archbishop Grindal (1710);
archbishop Parker (1711)which closes with a fuller attempt at
the drawing of character than is usual with the author, perhaps
because he was exceptionally impressed by a learning which
though it were universal, yet ran chiefly upon Antiquity'-and
archbishop Whitgift (1718). Strype had now, in his own words,
lived to finish the Lives and Acts (as far as my Collections will
serve me) of the Four First Holy Archbishops' in the title-page
' Protestant Archbishops ') of Canterbury, those Wise and Painful,
Just and Good Governors of this Reformed Church of England. '
But, meanwhile, he had also been at work upon his magnum opus,
Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion
(1700—31). The orthodoxy of this work is guaranteed by a
sort of imprimatur from the archbishop and bishops of the
church of England, prefixed to vol. II, and commending it, in
rather feminine style, as carrying on ‘so useful and desirable a
Piece of Church History, so much wanted. As both this work
and the biographies, for the most part, deal with a period later in
date than that covered by Burnet’s History of the Reformation,
they contain few references to it. The last of Strype's more
important publications is his Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating
chiefly to Religion and the Reformation of it, treating of the
history of the church of England under Henry VIII, Edward VI,
and Mary (3 vols. 1721); the 'originals' in the appendixes to
which are particularly full of varied interest. As a historical
writer, he shows the plodding habits, but not always the sure
sagacity, befitting his Dutch descent; and his works, though the
fruit of long and patient research, may, as a whole, be regarded
as compilations rather than compositions ; and their reader has to
be prepared to wrestle with appendixes of extraordinary length,
averaging not much less than one-third of the text to which they
are attached. But his long and valuable labours mark the steady
progress of historical research, as well as the growth of a love of
learning which was to be among the surest supports of the stability
of the church of England.
A more stirring life and literary activity was that of Jeremy
Collier, to whose combative spirit it is due that he should already,


## p. 211 (#235) ############################################

Jeremy Collier
2II
in a very different connection from that of historical writing, have
appeared on the scene of this work? . Born in 1650, he had
fulfilled clerical duties of divers kinds before, in 1685, he was
appointed lecturer at Gray's inn; but, with the revolution of
1688, the public exercise of his functions became impracticable. '
In other words, he was henceforth a non-juror. He at once
entered into controversy with Burnet, and, in 1692, was for a short
time in prison on an accusation of secret correspondence with the
Pretender, having scrupulously surrendered in discharge of his
bail. When he next came before the public, it was on the
occasion of his absolving two Jacobite gentlemen on the scaffold.
In his subsequent retreat, he was left unmolested; and in 1697 he
quietly put forth his Essays, which were published in several
editions, and which, divided into four parts, fill three volumes.
Many of these Essays are in the form, still popular, of dialogues,
between Philotimus and Philalethes, and other pairs of speakers.
The subjects discussed are partly ethical, partly social and partly
a mixture of both, such as Duelling, and the wellknown Office of
a Chaplain, which contends that a chaplain in a family is not a
servant, and that servility on his part and arrogant treatment on
that of the patron are alike to be deprecated. There is some
acceptable plain speaking in this as well as in other of the Essays
notably in that Of Lying; but there is also an occasional lack of
urbanity in the way of conveying the truth, or what seems such to
the writer. In many instances, the maxims propounded are rein-
forced by passages translated from the Fathers.
Collier's principal occupation during his years of retirement
seems, however, to have been the preparation of his Historical
Dictionary, based on Le Grand Dictionnaire historique of Louis
Moréri, which after its first appearance in 1674, went through a
large number of editions, and to which Bayle's famous work had
originally been intended as a supplement. Of Collier's Dictionary
the first two volumes appeared in 1701, and the third and fourth,
under the respective titles of a Supplement and an Appendix, in
а
1705. This was followed by his chief work, The Ecclesiastical
History of Great Britain, of which the first volume, reaching to the
close of the reign of Henry VII, appeared in 1708, and the second,
which deals very fully with the reformation and might almost be
said to form a running comment, generally the reverse of friendly,
· See vol. vm, chap. VI, as to his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
the English Stage (1698).
? For his chief pamphlets in connection with this and other matters see bibliography.
14-2


## p. 212 (#236) ############################################

212
Historical and Political Writers
on Burnet's narrative, in 1714. While even Collier's Historical
Dictionary is held to be of value to closer students of ecclesiastical
history, his work which is confined to that subject long maintained
its position as a leading authority, though as a matter of course it
involved its author, with whom to hold principles was to proclaim
them, in a series of controversies with the champions of adverse
views. On these it is unnecessary to dwell here ; still less can we
enter into the subsequent esoteric dissensions between Collier
and other non-jurors? . His Ecclesiastical History itself, massive
in conception, and covering a large body of more or less un-
assimilated materials, does not disdain occasional resort to modern
issues, and, while it remains on the whole a trustworthy book
of reference, is by no means devoid of interesting and even
stimulating passages.
Collier lived till 1726, being after the
death of Hickes regarded as the leader of the non-jurors.
Of Daniel Neal's History of the Puritans, from 1517 to 1548,
the first volume appeared in 1732. His reputation, founded on
his pastoral work in London, had been enhanced by his History of
New England (1720), which was very well received in America.
The first volume of the work by which he is best known and which
is in part founded on the earlier compilations of John Evans,
owed much in its account of the Elizabethan period to Strype; it
contains a courageous and convincing defence of the policy of
Cromwell. Isaac Madox's attack upon it was followed by Zachary
Grey's heavier fire against its successors, to which latter Neal left
his posthumous editor to reply. His own straightforward attitude
and brave spirit well represent the manly nonconformity of his
age.
The chief collections of state papers and letters belonging
by their date of composition to the period treated in Burnet's
History of My Own Time were not published till the latter half
of the eighteenth century had far advanced, or till an even later
date; and will therefore be more conveniently mentioned in a
subsequent volume. The above description cannot be applied to
the Letters addressed from London to Sir Joseph Williamson,
while Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Cologne in the years
1673 and 1674; but, as somewhat nondescript in kind, and as
actually dating from an earlier age, they may be mentioned here
rather than in a later chapter? While the official despatches of
1 For Collier's chief pamphlets against Burnet and Kennett, and as to the non-
jurors' controversy on the usages, see bibliography.
They were edited by Christie, W. D. , for the Camden Society, 2 vols. 1874.


## p. 213 (#237) ############################################

213
;
Williamson. Memoirs of James II
Sir Leoline Jenkins and of Williamson, the representatives of
England at the congress under the nominal headship of Sunderland
(who remained at Paris), are to be read elsewhere, the gossiping
letters written to the junior plenipotentiary by his friends and
dependants in the secretary of state's office (of whose names
the majority appeared in Marvell’s Black List of Government
Pensioners, printed in Holland in 1677) form a valuable and very
amusing addition to the familiar letters of the age. There is not
a place in the world so fruitfull in liing storyes as London,' thus
writes one of the correspondents of Williamson ; and they all did
their best to suit the varied tastes of the great man, who besides
being a prominent statesman and making a great marriage,
became president of the Royal Society and was a collector of
heraldic manuscripts. He lived till 1701, having been a trusted
diplomatic agent of William III after serving Charles II as
secretary of state.
A composite character, midway between history and memoirs,
belongs to the Memoirs of James II writ of his own hand, in so
far as they admit of separation from the editorial matter in which
they are embedded. Of the original material the substantial
portion, saved by king James at the time of his catastrophe, is
said, after undergoing a long series of strange adventures, to have
been ultimately committed to the flames at St Omer, in the days
of the great French revolution. A biographical work based on
them was however put together in the days and with the sanction
of the Old Pretender, and elaborated for publication by order of
the Prince Regent (afterwards king George IV)? To this Life
of James II the great historian Ranke's masterhand applied the
process of analysis ; but the particular conclusions reached by
him cannot be summarised here? Suffice it to say that while a
French translation of part 1 (to 1660), approved by the royal author,
had been incorporated into Ramsay's Vie de Turenne (2 vols.
Paris, 1735), parts II, to 1685, and III, to 1688, (the latter in a sense
supplementary to Burnet, who was out of England during the reign
of James), were compiled from the king's original memoranda,
though only revised by him so far as 1678. Part IV contains
passages from his memoranda, more especially with regard to
the war in Ireland. James II was a prince whose own notions
1 The Life of James the Second, King of England, etc. , by Clarke, J. 8. , 2 vols.
1816.
? See the excursus. On the Autobiographical Memoranda of James II'in vol. vi of
Ranke's English History.


## p. 214 (#238) ############################################

214
Historical and Political Writers
concerning his life and actions deserve study. Except in part 1, his
devotion to the church of his adoption may be said to colour the
whole narrative and to absorb all political principles and moral
convictions he brings into play; an example of this may be found
in his judgment of Clarendon, to whose religious policy he attri-
butes a large share in his later troubles. The Memoirs, with the
same restriction, can hardly at any time have amounted to a
connected narrative, or have risen to the level of a history intended
to serve the cause of objective truth.
A place of his own among the political writers of the close of
the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century must
be assigned to Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. Though his public
life was entirely associated with Scotland and its affairs, his
political speculations took a wider range, and exhibit that cos-
mopolitanism which has for centuries been a distinctive mark of
his nationality. Of his training, in his early years, at the hand of
Burnet, mention has already been made; after this he travelled
and acquired a knowledge of French, as well as of Italian so far
as to compose and publish a treatise in that tongue. In 1678, he
was sent as one of the members for his native Haddingtonshire to
the convention of estates summoned for the purpose of supplying
money for the maintenance of the soldiery employed for the
suppression of presbyterian conventicles; but he joined the
opposition to this and other ecclesiastical measures of the govern-
ment, incurring thereby the implacable enmity of James duke of
York. In the end he made his way to Holland, and, though he
accompanied Monmouth to England in 1685, did not return to
Scotland till the time of the revolution. The second chapter in
his political career culminated in the Darien expedition, of which
he was a primary promoter; and it was about this time (1698)
that he first appeared as a political writer. A Discourse of
Government with relation to Militias, published at Edinburgh in
1698", is thoroughly characteristic of the writer, who, plunging
into the midst of the war of pamphlets on the question of standing
armies which raged after the peace of Ryswyk, was ready with a
complete plan for rendering unnecessary the dangerous expedient
of a standing mercenary force. The people must be trained to
the use of arms on a carefully planned system but for the purpose
of defence only; for the sea is the only empire naturally belonging
to Britain. In the same year-clearly in the autumn-Fletcher
1 Reprinted in 1755, as well as in the several editions of The Political Works of
Andrew Fletcher, 1732 eto.


## p. 215 (#239) ############################################

Fletcher of Saltoun
215
wrote Two Discourses on the afairs of Scotland, shortly after
(2nd of July) the Darien expedition had failed. On the fostering
of the new colony, the writer declares, depended the whole future
of Scotland, cruelly impoverished partly through her own fault,
and partly because of the removal of the seat of her government
to London. After provision has been made for the colony, thought
must be taken of the stricken country at home; and it is in the
second of these Discourses that Fletcher prescribes the drastic
remedy of domestic slavery–especially for the population of the
Highlands, for which, it must be observed, he entertained great
contempt. A little earlier in the same year was written his Italian
discourse on Spanish affairs, apparently suggested by the first
Partition Treaty? The Speech upon the State of the Nation
(1701)which was probably never delivered—deals with the
second of these treatises, as completing the establishment of
Bourbon ascendancy-it 'is like an alarum bell rung over all
Europe. Pray God it may not prove to you a passing-bell. ' In
the heated debates of the Scottish parliament of 1703 Fletcher
took a leading part, preparing a bill of Security which would have
very narrowly limited the royal authority in Scotland, and, when
this was dropped, joining in the refusal of supplies. At least one
speech and one pamphlet of this period attributed to him are
spurious ; but he completed, at the end of 1703, a short piece
called An Account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regu-
lation of Government for the Common Good of Mankind, which
reports, with much vivacity and aptness, 'from London' to the
marquis of Montrose and other Scots lords a dialogue on the
relations between England and Scotland, held in the earl of Cro-
martie's lodgings at Whitehall. Scene, personalities and subject
are treated very attractively; the conclusion is that, not an in-
corporating union, but a federal union is the desideratum for
keeping the three kingdoms together. The style of this letter is
admirable, and approaches the best English prose style of the
age at a time when there was little of performance or even of
pretension in Scottish prose? Here is to be found the famous
saying,' attributed to 'a very wise man,' that, 'if a man were per-
mitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make
the laws of a nation. '
1 Discorso delle cose di Spagna, scritto nel mese de Luglio 1698, Naples, 1698.
9 As to the Scottish prose literature of the age, see chap. xin post and its
bibliography.


## p. 216 (#240) ############################################

CHAPTER VIII
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL WRITERS
II
BOLINGBROKE
The historical and political writings of Henry St John, from
1712 Viscount Bolingbroke, to which we must mainly confine
ourselves in the present chapter, were, nearly all of them, com-
posed in the latter, and slightly longer, half of his life which
followed on the great collapse of his party at the close of the reign
of queen Anne. As to his contributions to philosophical literature,
something will be said in the next volume of the present work; in
the chief collections of his letters, the public and pragmatic
element, for the most part, is so copiously mixed up with the
private and personal, that they can hardly be subjected to a
literary judgment. This is especially the case with Parke's
edition of his Letters and Correspondence, which extends over
the last four years of the reign of queen Anne and ends with a
despondent reference to her death. These letters, on Boling-
broke's sudden flight to France, were secured by the exertions
of his under-secretary Thomas Hare, and thus escaped being
brought before the House of Commons at his trial in 1715, like
some extracts from his correspondence. They are addressed to
a large variety of correspondents, of whom lords Strafford (Raby),
Orrery, Dartmouth and Shrewsbury, and Matthew Prior, are among
the most frequent recipients of letters written in English, and the
marquis de Torcy of the much smaller number written in French.
They are, of course, invaluable to a student of the peace negotiations
and of Bolingbroke's direct share in them; and in those which adopt
a more intimate tone, like the 'long scrawl which is only from


## p. 217 (#241) ############################################

Bolingbroke's Earlier Life. The Examiner 217
Harry to Matt. , not from the Secretary to the Minister",' there is
often a fair amount of malicious wit. Of Bolingbroke's private
letters, however, the most pleasing are to be found in the series
addressed to his half-sister Henrietta, which are generally written
in a natural vein, without a superfluity of the epigrammatic infusion
in which the letters of this age abound. Even these, however, on
?
occasion, exhibit Bolingbroke's fatal propensity, when telling the
truth, to conceal part of it.
St John's earliest withdrawal from public life to the consolations
of philosophy and literature belongs to the early part of 1708,
when he followed Harley out of office. His retirement was carried
out with so much pompousness, and so little interfered with his
habits of self-indulgence, that it exposed him to much ridicule on
the part of his friends, including brutal sarcasm from Swift ; and it
is not known to have been productive of any compositions in prose
or in verse. After his return to public life in 1710, not many
weeks before he received the seals as secretary of state (September
1710), he had, not for the last time in his career, inspired the
foundation by the tories of a journal to support them in a vigorous
campaign against the whig government. Among the early con-
tributors were Swift, Prior and Robert Freind.
This was The Examiner (to be distinguished from other
periodicals of that name), of which between thirty and forty
numbers appear to have been published up to the spring of 1712.
According to the general account? , Bolingbroke's first and most
important contribution to this journal appeared in no.