14

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

VII.

1687 .

hundred and thirty years after his death, may have had greatfaults, but must also have had great merits: and Burnet hadgreat merits, a fertile and vigorous mind, and a style, farindeed removed from faultless purity, but always clear, oftenlively, and sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence.In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were deliveredwithout any note, was heightened by a noble figure and,bypathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep humof his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass,which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, heheld it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously en-couraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more. *In his moral character, as in his intellect, great blemisheswere more than compensated by great excellence. Thoughoften misled by prejudice and passion, he was emphaticallyan honest man. Though he was not secure from the seduc-tions of vanity, his spirit was raised high above the influenceeither of cupidity or of fear. His nature was kind, generous,grateful, forgiving.** His religious zeal, though steady andardent, was in general restrained by humanity, and by arespect for the rights of conscience. Strongly attached towhat he regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked withindifference on rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity,and was by no means disposed to be severe even on infidels

* Speaker Onslow’s note on Burnet, i. 5%.; Johnson’s Life of Sprat.

** No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with moreasperity than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmoulh wrote, “I do not think hedesignedly published anything he believed to be false.” At a later pe-riod Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the secondvolume of the Bishop’s history, retracted this praise: but to such a re-tractation little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justiceto say, “After all, he was a man of generosity and good-nature.” —Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s History.

It is usual to censnre Burnet as a singularly inaccurate historian;but I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. lie appears to be sin-gularly inaccurate only because his narrative has been subjected to ascrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly. If any Whig thought it worthwhile to subject Beresby’s Memoirs, North’s Examen, Mulgrave's Ac-count of the Revolution, or the Life of James the Second, edited byClarke, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that Burnet was farindeed from being the most inexact writer of his time.