P. 189. Burnet. Patrick was a great preacher.  He wrote ... well, and chiefly on the Scriptures.  He was a laborious man in his function, of great strictness of life, but a little too severe against those who differed from him.  But that was, when he thought their doctrines struck at the fundamentals of religion.  He became afterwards more moderate.—­Swift. Yes, for he turned a rank Whig.

P. 190. Burnet. [Archbishop Tenison] was a very learned man.—­Swift. The dullest, good-for-nothing man I ever knew.

P. 191. Burnet, condemning the bad style of preaching before Tillotson, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet, says their discourses were:—­long and heavy, when all was pie-bald, full of many sayings of different languages.—­Swift. A noble epithet. Burnet. The King ... had got a right notion of style.—­Swift. How came Burnet not to learn this style?

P. 193. Burnet, speaking of the first formation of the Royal Society:—­Many physicians, and other ingenious men went into the society for natural philosophy.  But he who laboured most ... was Robert Boyle, the Earl of Cork’s youngest son.  He was looked on by all who knew him as a very perfect pattern. ...  He neglected his person, despised the world, and lived abstracted from all pleasures, designs, and interests.—­Swift. Boyle was a very silly writer.

P. 195. Burnet. Peter Walsh, ... who was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among [the Popish clergy, often told me] ... there was nothing which the whole Popish party feared more than an union of those of the Church of England with the Presbyterians. ...  The Papists had two maxims, from which they never departed:  The one was to divide us:  And the other was to keep themselves united.—­Swift. Rogue.

P. 202. Burnet. The queen-mother had brought over from France one Mrs. Steward, reckoned a very great beauty.—­Swift. A pretty phrase.

P. 203. Burnet. One of the first things that was done in this session of Parliament [1663] was the execution of my unfortunate uncle, Wariston.—­Swift. Was he hanged or beheaded?  A fit uncle for such a bishop.

P. 211. Burnet. Many were undone by it [religious persecution], and went over to the Scots in Ulster, where they were well received, and had all manner of liberty as to their way of religion.—­Swift. The more the pity.

P. 214. Burnet. The blame of all this was cast upon Sharp.....  And the
Lord Lauderdale, to complete his disgrace with the King, got many of his
letters ... and laid these before the King; So that the King looked on
him as one of the worst of men.—­Swift. Surely there was some secret
cause for this perpetual malice against Sharp.

P. 220. Burnet. Pensionary De Witt had the notions of a commonwealth from the Greeks and Romans.  And from them he came to fancy, that an army commanded by officers of their own country was both more in their own power, and would serve them with the more zeal, since they themselves had such an interest in their success.—­Swift. He ought to have judged the contrary.