JAMES THE SECOND.

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'Vi than to give utterance to them; and in this particular case his C yjj P 'l ; lips were sealed by a very natural delicacy. At length a ~

■ complete explanation and reconciliation were brought aboutby the agency of Gilbert Burnet.

The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice Gilbertand pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and isstill carried on with undiminished vigour, though he has nowbeen more than a century and a quarter in his grave. He is. indeed as fair a mark as factious animosity and petulant witcould desire. The faults of his understanding and temper lieon the surface, and cannot be missed. They were not thefaults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to hiscountry. Alone among the many Scotchmen who have raisedthemselves to distinction and prosperity in England, he hadthat character which satirists, novelists, and dramatists haveagreed to ascribe to Irish adventurers. His high animalspirits, his boastfulness, his undissembled vanity, his pro-pensity to blunder, his provoking indiscretion, his unabashedaudacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to theTories. Nor did his enemies omit to compliment him, some-times with more pleasantry than delicacy, on the breadth ofhis shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and his success inmatrimonial projects on amorous and opulent widows. TetBurnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and evento serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts werequick, his industry unwearied, his reading various and mostextensive. He was at once a historian, an antiquary, atheologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and anactive political leader; and in every one of these charactersmade himself conspicuous among able competitors. Themany spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are nowknown only to the curious: but his History of his own Times,his History of the Reformation, his Exposition of the Articles,his Discourse ofPastoral Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of. Wilmot, are still reprinted, nor is any good private library. without them. Against such a fact as this all the efforts of de-tractors are vain. A writer, whose voluminous works, in

■ several branches of literature, find numerous readers a

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