REMARKS ON BURNET’S HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME.

PREFACE, p. 3. Burnet.

Indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition of many clergymen has sharpened my spirits perhaps too much against them; so I warn my reader to take all that I say on these heads with some grains of allowance.—­Swift. I will take his warning.

P. 4. Burnet. Over and over again retouched and polished by me.—­Swift. Rarely polished; I never read so ill a style.

Ibid. Burnet. That thereby I may awaken the world to just reflections on their own errors and follies.—­Swift. This I take to be nonsense.

BOOK I.

P. 6. Burnet. That king saw that those who were most in his interests were likewise jealous of his authority, and apt to encroach upon it.—­Swift. Nonsense.

P. 10. Burnet says that competent provision to those who served the cure:—­was afterwards in his son’s time raised to about fifty pounds a year.—­Swift. Scotch pounds, I suppose.

P. 11. Burnet. Colonel Titus assured me that he had from King Charles the First’s own mouth, that he was well assured he [Prince Henry] was poisoned by the Earl of Somerset’s means.—­Swift. Titus was the greatest rogue in England.

P. 18. Burnet says that Gowry’s conspiracy against King James was confirmed to him by his father.—­Swift. Melvil makes nothing of it.

P. 20. Burnet. I turn now to the affairs of Scotland, which are but little known.—­Swift. Not worth knowing.

P. 23. Burnet, Archbishop Spotswood began:—­his journey as he often did on a Sunday, which was a very odious thing in that country.—­Swift. Poor malice.

P. 24. Burnet, Mr. Steward, a private gentleman, became:—­so considerable that he was raised by several degrees to be made Earl of Traquair and Lord-Treasurer [of Scotland], and was in great favour; but suffered afterwards such a reverse of fortune, that I saw him so low that he wanted bread, ... and it was believed died of hunger.—­Swift. A strange death:  perhaps it was of want of meat.

P. 26. Burnet. My father ... carefully preserved the petition itself, and the papers relating to the trial [of Lord Balmerinoch]; of which I never saw any copy besides those which I have. ...  The whole record ... is indeed a very noble piece, full of curious matter.—­Swift. Puppy.

P. 28. Burnet. The Earl of Argyle was a more solemn sort of man, grave and sober, free of all scandalous vices.—­Swift. As a man is free of a corporation, he means.

P. 29. Burnet. The Lord Wharton and the Lord Howard of Escrick undertook to deliver some of these; which they did, and were clapt up upon it.—­Swift. Dignity of expression.