No More Learning

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


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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. x, and
contained an attack on Marlborough's conduct of the war, with
a fierce attack on the duchess. This description, however, does
not apply to the number in question ; but elsewhere* is reprinted
what is called 'St John's Letter to The Examiner,' which in-
veighs against the whigs, their clubs, their journals, and their
literary champions such as 'the Hector of Sarum' (Burnet), and
speaks of the subjection of the queen 'to an arbitrary junto, and
1 Vol. 11, p. 41. The replies of Prior (Henrico colendissimo Matthaeus) are at least
equally vivacious.
2 See the correspondence, chiefly from manuscript originals, appended to Sichel, W. ,
Bolingbroke and his Times. The Sequel, 1902. (Henrietta St John married Robert
Knight, member for Sudbury, afterwards Lord Luxborough. She is also known as the
friend and correspondent of Shenstone. ) There is no need for referring here to
Grimoard's collection, which consists of letters in French, partly originals, partly
translations.
3 See Macknight, T. , The Life of Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, pp. 158—9.
* In Somers' Tracts, vol. XIII, p. 71; also in The History of His Own Time, by
Matthew Prior (ed. Drift, A. ), 1740, pp. 306 ff. This letter was answered by A Letter
to Isaac Bickerstaffe, Esq. , by earl Cooper,' 1710.
6


## p. 218 (#242) ############################################

218
Historical and Political Writers
to the caprice of an insolent woman. ' No. XVII of this Examiner,
'
it may be added, contains a letter which attacks the duke under
the thin disguise of 'Crassus,' but makes no special attack upon
the duchess.
But the five years of office which ensued, the labours, including
a journey to France, which resulted in the conclusion of the peace
of Utrecht, and the intrigues by which Bolingbroke in vain en-
deavoured to turn the approaching crisis of the succession to the
advantage of the tories left him little time for composition ; by
the close of March 1715, he found himself an exile, and, in the
following July, in the service of the pretender. It was not till
this fatal phase of his career was at an end that he made his first
elaborate contribution to political literature. A few months,
however, before he wrote the celebrated Letter to Sir William
Wyndham—the disciple whom he had left at home behind him-
he had composed his Reflections on Exile, published before the
close of 1716, when his hopes of pardon and return had again
receded. This effort, founded on Seneca's Consolatio ad Helviam,
is stuffed with additional quotations from classical and one or
two modern sources, and reads almost like a parody of the
classicising essay of the period. Although its style has been
held to be Ciceronian rather than Senecan', the writer inveighs
against ‘Tully' for unphilosophically lamenting his exile, though,
with a characteristic sneer, it is allowed that his separation from
Terentia, whom he repudiated not long afterwards, was perhaps an
affliction to him at the time. '
A Letter to Sir William Wyndham seems to have been
directly provoked by a Jacobite pamphlet entitled A Letter from
Avignon? , which, in its turn, was a product of the rupture between
Bolingbroke and the pretender early in 1716, and was written in
the following year. Its main purpose was to demonstrate, for
the benefit of the tories and from the writer's own experience, the
suicidal folly of an alliance between them and the Jacobites.
But, though the logic of this demonstration is incontrovertible, the
historical process by which the experience on which it rests was
gained is audaciously misrepresented, and the circumstances in
which Bolingbroke offered his services to the pretender are
falsified, as are his relations to the tory party and its policy after
bis fall. It was, not improbably, his knowledge, not only of the
truth, but of what others knew of the truth, which prevented him
1 Sichel, W. , 1. 8. , p. 82.
2 See Collins, J. Churton, Bolingbroke etc. p. 132.


## p. 219 (#243) ############################################

6
A Letter to Sir William Wyndham 219
from publishing this famous Letter in his lifetime. For few, if any,
.
among his writings equal it in force and effectiveness. Its tone is
one of a candour half cynical, half truly English in its straight-
forwardness. He goes back to the days, in 1710, when the tories
returned to power, and when he was himself fain to let Harl
have his way, and not to take advantage of his own ascendancy
in the Commons—who 'grow, like hounds, fond of the man who
shows them game. The whole account of his rival, though
inspired by bitter personal hatred, has the ring of truth. Then
follows the skilful analysis of the baffled tory party after queen
Anne's death, and the defiant defence of his own conduct-could he
resolve 'to be obliged to the whimsicals, or to suffer with Oxford ? '
So he threw in his lot with the Jacobites, and became a member
of a court and government which he describes with inimitable
contemptuousness, Fanny Oglethorpe whom you must have seen in
England, kept her corner in it, and Olive Trant was the great
wheel of our machine. His account of the failure of the contribu-
tions made by the pretender's government, and by the pretender
himself, to the failure of the 1715 is convincing ; less so is that of
his own consistency face to face with an inconsistent tory party;
while his explanation of the pretender's attitude towards the
religious question is transparently ungenerous, however effectively
it may clinch his demonstration of the cleavage between tories
and Jacobites. But the attention of the reader is held throughout
the tract, which excels in both direct invective and insidious
sarcasm, and, apart from a few apparent gallicisms near the outset,
may be regarded as a masterpiece of lighter English controversial
prose.
A decade had nearly passed before Bolingbroke’s pen was once
more at work as a weapon of political warfare. In 1725, he had
returned two-thirds restored'-safe, that is, in person and estate,
but with his attainder still hanging over him and debarring him
from participation as a peer in the counsels of the nation. He
had found the whig ministry under Walpole and Townshend in
the plenitude of power, and the tory party reduced to what
seemed hopeless impotence. It was not long before, in alliance
with Pulteney, the leader of the discontented whigs, Bolingbroke
engaged in a long-sustained and, ultimately, to some extent,
successful endeavour to put an end to this condition of things.
The assault may be said to have opened, on 5 December 1726, with
the appearance of the first number of The Craftsman; although,
as a matter of fact, already, on 15 July of that year, Bolingbroke,


## p. 220 (#244) ############################################

220
Historical and Political Writers
2
under the pseudonym ‘Will Johnson,' had contributed to a sheet
called The Country Gentleman a homely apologue in derision of
Walpole. The minister here appears as coachman to the worthy
Caleb D'Anvers at his little country place near the town (in The
Craftsman, of which D'Anvers was the figurehead, he is usually
designated as of Gray's inn); he proves untrustworthy, and ends by
breaking his neck when his horses have been scared by an angry
rustic populace
The Craftsman had a much longer, as well as a merrier, life
than was reached by most of the political periodicals proper of
the early Hanoverian period—The Englishman, The Examiner
and the rest (it is unnecessary to go back upon earlier sheets of a
more mixed kind); for, in one way or another, it lasted for nine or
ten years, and, according to Goldsmith? , sold much more rapidly
than of old had The Spectator itself. It was edited by Nicholas
Amhurst, a light-hearted Oxonian, who, a few years earlier, had
been invited to leave his university for his university's good, and
was published by him in conjunction with an enterprising London
printer, Richard Francklin. The signatures of the contributors
were intentionally chosen and interchanged so as to mystify the
ill- and defy the well-informed (including Walpole, who employed
more than one doughty pen on the preparation of retorts). Among
these contributors were, in addition to Amhurst (who started the
paper under the name Caleb D'Anvers), Bolingbroke, Pulteney
and Pulteney's cousin David; also, the chief of the opposition wits
(in truth, there were not many wits on the other side), Arbuthnot
and Swift, and, probably, Gay and Pope. Amhurst was, in 1741,
succeeded in the editorship by Thomas Cooke (commonly called
*Hesiod Cooke' from his translation of Hesiod, 1728); and among
the later writers in the journal were Lyttelton and Akenside.
Eustace Budgell, formerly a follower of Addison and a writer in
The Spectator, as well as a whig official, had, after (according to
his own account) losing a fortune in the South Sea, turned against
Walpole and became a contributor to The Craftsman.
Of Bolingbroke's contributions, with which we are here chiefly
concerned, the bulk is held to belong to the years 1727—31. The
1 Printed in vol. 1 of the 1731 edition of The Craftsman. See, also, Sichel, W. , . s. ,
pp. 246 ff. , where will be found the most recent account of The Craftsman and its con-
tributory forces.
2 See Life in Works, vol. 1, pp. lix-x. The circulation of The Craftsman is said,
at one time, to have exceeded 10,000 copies a week (it was only for a time a bi-weekly
publication); but it is not easy to verify such statements. So early as 1737, it was
reprinted in an edition which reached 14 volumes.
>


## p. 221 (#245) ############################################

The Craftsman
221
first of these, as it seems, appeared in no. 16 of The Craftsman
(27 January 1727), with the title The First Vision of Camelicki.
Under the thin disguise of an eastern allegory, this piece is a
virulent attack on the arbitrary rule of Walpole, who is denounced,
with extreme malignity, as a vizier of 'blunt, ruffianly malignity. . .
his face bronzed over with a glare of confidence. ' He tramples on
the backs of the parliament men on his way to the throne; nor is it
till his collapse that the radiant volume of the constitution re-
appears, while heaven and earth resound with the cry of liberty,
and 'the Heart of the King is glad within him. ' Among other
acknowledged papers by Bolingbroke in the earlier numbers of
The Craftsman are two out of three bearing the signature 'John
Trot' (afterwards qualified as 'yeoman'), of which the earlier con-
troverts, not very frankly, the arguments of The London Journal,
then supposed to be under the direction of Benjamin Hoadly
(bishop of Salisbury, and, afterwards, of Winchester%), on the subject
of the unwillingness of Walpole's government to declare war
against Spain. A later paper, which forms one of a supplementary
a
set printed by Francklin“, as The Craftsman Extraordinary,
discusses the alleged failure of the ministry to obtain anything
from that power in the preliminaries of the congress of Cambray,
and ends with an adjuration to the bishop to feed 'the Flock
committed to his Charge,' in obedience to the Apostolical Con-
stitutions, lib. II. C. 6, cited for his benefit in both Latin and
English.
But the most elaborate of Bolingbroke's invective, though
coupled, in this instance, with some historical comments not
devoid of interest, is to be found in Remarks upon the History of
England, which appeared between 5 September 17305 and 22 May
1731%, with the signature 'Humphry Oldcastle. ' The argument
of these letters is carried on in the conversational framework
familiar to both Clarendon and Burnet, the main part in the
discussion being taken by 'an old gentleman,' whose views, of
course, are Bolingbroke's and who, equally of course, is moved by
the true old English spirit,' the direct reverse of 'the blind and
furious spirit of party. Assuming the existence of a great danger
'
6
6
1 Reprinted in Works, vol. 11.
? In no. 129, 4 January 1729.
3 The family of the Publicolas are very numerous. . . . I do not presume to say,
for instance, that such a piece was written by Ben, or such a one by Robin. '
- Various pamphlets published about this time by Francklin, in which Bolingbroke
may have had a band, cannot be noticed here.
5 No. 218.
6 No. 255. Both are in vol. VII of the 14 volume edition.
8


## p. 222 (#246) ############################################

222
Historical and Political Writers
to liberty, and insisting on the need of keeping up that ‘spirit of
liberty' by losing which the Romans lost their freedom itself, the
demonstration in the fourth letter reaches English ground. But,
though the printer of The Craftsman-one can hardly see why
is said to have been arrested on account of the remarks on the
later Plantagenets, it was only when dealing with the Lancastrian
kings that the writer discovers his purpose by openly attacking
those who advocate the dependence of parliament upon government.
He has now found his footing. In Letter VIII, where he solemnly
recalls the revival of the spirit of liberty as exemplified in the
parliamentary call of Edward II to the throne, he also insinuates
a comparison between queen Caroline and queen Elizabeth
Woodville! His account of Henry VII (Letter 1x) may not un-
charitably be surmised to have been intended to reflect on George I;
and Wolsey, who could not sustain his power save by force and
corruption (Letter x), is, quite manifestly, put forward as the
prototype of Walpole. Thus, Humphry Oldcastle's public is
gradually brought nearer to its own times, and, after being treated
to an outburst of wrath against the wicked minister, is instructed
how, under Elizabeth, the check on absolutism was the will of
the people itself; how her encouragement of commerce and her
prudent policy in the earlier part of her reign, together with her
abstinence, throughout its course, from the conclusion of un-
necessary treaties or unsafe alliances, brought the nation safe
through a great crisis of its history (Letters XII—XVI). In all
this there is some point-and a great deal of sting.
Then, however, there set in the lamentable change. Govern-
ment itself may be turned into faction, James I, who has been
wrongly blamed for not entangling himself more than he did, 'and
as is done now,' in European (German) affairs, yet, being 'afraid
where no fear was,' allowed the British flag, which had waved
proudly in the days of queen Elizabeth (queen Anne), to be
insulted with impunity. In the reign of Charles I, who came as a
party man to the throne, the faction of the court tainted the nation.
The claim of James I (like the pretender's) to hereditary right was
untenable ; the corruption by means of which he tried to govern
was unEnglish ; and his patronage of popery did nobody good but
the puritans (Letters XVII—XXII). Under James I, and, still
more, under his son and the universally hated minister Buckingham,
>
1 Except that the reign of Richard II had long before proved itself a dangerous
subject for modern treatment.


## p. 223 (#247) ############################################

Bolingbroke v. Walpole
223
the policy of the crown was confronted by the spirit of liberty and
broken by an unremitting struggle of almost twoscore years. If
we look around us now, we see the whole posse of ministerial
scribblers assembled in augmented numbers-perhaps with aug.
mented pensions—and the insects, albeit they have been dispersed
by every flap of The Craftsman's pen, gathered again, after their
kind, and renewing their din. But the objects of their attack-the
gentleman who conscientiously left his friends and party (Pulteney),
and another gentleman, who has been accused of ingratitude and
of treachery (Bolingbroke)-need not fear the charges heaped upon
their heads; and, with a spirited apologia for the political conduct
of this 'other gentleman,' this unique breviarium of English
history comes to a close (Letters XXIII—XXIV).
In the autumn of 1732, Bolingbroke’s Remarks upon the
History of England were followed by three papers of similar
purport, discussing the policy of the Athenians with a view to
the lessons to be drawn thence by a student of English history and
politics. In the previous year (1731), in A Final Answer to the
Remarks on The Craftsman's Vindication? –a pamphlet which
may be regarded as the climax of the weekly efforts of the scribes
in Walpole’s pay, though neither it nor Bolingbroke's retort put
an end to the inky war of which they formed part-he renewed
his self-defence, on the lines followed in the last of his letters in
the Remarks. So far as his own conduct is concerned, everything
really turns on his far from ingenuous assertion, advanced already
in the Letter to Sir William Wyndham, that neither before nor
after his service with the pretender was he a Jacobite. But, as
an exercise in the art of invective, delivered as from a high
pinnacle of virtue, this diatribe against the ‘noble pair of brothers'
(Robert and Horace Walpole), professing to come from one whose
'ambition, whatever may have been said or thought about it, hath
been long since dead,' must be allowed to have few superiors.
Before adverting to what Goldsmith describes as Bolingbroke's
'parting blow' against the object of his concentrated political and
personal hatred, it may be convenient to notice the important
additions made by Bolingbroke to the political writing by him
actually contributed to The Craftsman, in the form of certain
papers put forth, from January 1727 onwards, under the title
The Occasional Writer. Of these, which seem to be four in
I See vol. vini of 14 vol. odn. , nos. 324—6 (16—30 September). Reprinted in
A Collection of Political Tracts, printed anonymously in 1748.
* Reprinted in Works, vol. VI.


## p. 224 (#248) ############################################

224
Historical and Political Writers
number, the first, written in a style of mock humility, is inscribed
'to the PERSON, to whom alone it can belong,' and in whose service,
inasmuch as great statesmen set no value upon high literary ability,
its composition is professed to have been undertaken. In reality,
it is an indictment of Walpole's conduct of foreign affairs, and,
more especially, of his alleged subservience to France? Against
his wont, Walpole gratified his adversary by inspiring an angrily
contemptuous reply, spurning “the Occasional Writer's' 'proffered
services’; and this ministerial answer, already noted in a brief
postscript to his second paper, is, in the third, disputed 'with strict
impartiality. In a postscript to a fourth paper, which may or
'
may not be by Bolingbroke, and which is addressed to ‘his Imperial
Majesty' (to whom the writer tenders counsel in a very superior
way), the author of the first paper pretends to disclaim the author-
ship of the third.
The last and most important of the series belonging to this
group of Bolingbroke's writings is the celebrated Dissertation
upon Parties, which appeared in The Craftsman in the autumn
of 1733? In April of this year, Walpole's virtual abandonment
of the Excise bill had severely shaken his authority and encouraged
the opposition to fresh efforts. A general election was at hand
in 1734; but the prospect of accomplishing the overthrow of the
minister was impeded by divisions among his adversaries.