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HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap. an d -was earnestly pressed by the Peers to give them some in-— formation. He long excused himself. At last he so faryielded to their urgency as to say, “I can only guess at HisHighness’s mind. If you wish to know what I guess, I guessthat he would not like to be his wife’s gentleman usher: but Iknow nothing.” “I know something now, however,” saidDanby. “I know enough, and too much.” He then departed;and the assembly broke up.*

On the thirty-first of January the debate which had ter-minated thus in private was publicly renewed in the House ofPeers. That day had been fixed for the national thanksgiving.An office had been drawn up for the occasion by severalBishops, among whom were Ken and Sprat. It is perfectlyfree both from the adulation and from the malignity by whichsuch compositions were in that age too often deformed, andsustains, better perhaps than any occasional service whichhas been framed during two centuries, a comparison with thatgreat model of chaste, lofty, and pathetic eloquence, theBook of Common Prayer. The Lords went in the morningto Westminster Abbey. The Commons had desired Burnetto preach before them at Saint Margaret’s. He was not likelyto fall into the same error which had been committed in thesame place on the preceding day. His vigorous and animateddiscourse doubtless called forth the loud hums of his auditors.It was not only printed by command of the House, but wastranslated into French for the edification of foreign Pro-testants.** The day closed with the festivities usual on suchoccasions. The whole town shone brightly with fireworksand bonfires: the roar of guns and the pealing of bells lastedtill the night was far spent: but, before the lights were extinct

* Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 303. Dartmouth says that it wasfrom Fagel that the Lords extracted the hint. This was a slip of the penvery pardonable in a hasty marginal note; but Dalrymple and othersought not to have copied so palpable a blunder. Fagel died in Holland,on the 5th of December 1B88, when William was at Salisbury and Jamesat Whitehall. The real person was, I suppose, Dykvelt, Benlinck, orZulestein, most probably Dykvelt.

*■ Both the service and Burnet’s sermon are still to be found in ourgreat libraries, and will repay the trouble of perusal.