Ibid. Burnet.  Mr. Sidney,[7] brother to the Earl of Leicester and to Algernon Sidney.  He was a graceful man, and had lived long in the court, where he had some adventures that became very public.  He was a man of a sweet and caressing temper, had no malice in his heart, but too great a love of pleasure.—­Swift.  An idle, drunken, ignorant rake, without sense, truth, or honour.

[Footnote 7:  Henry Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney. [T.S.]]

P. 764. Burnet.  But, because he [Mr. Sidney] was lazy, and the business required an active man, who could both run about, and write over long and full accounts of all matters, I recommended a kinsman of my own, Johnstoune, whom I had formed, and knew to be both faithful and diligent.—­Swift.  An arrant Scotch rogue.

P. 764. Burnet.  The Earl of Nottingham ... had great credit with the whole Church party; For he was a man possessed with their notions.—­Swift.  That is, Church notions.

P. 765. Burnet.  Lord Churchill [afterwards Duke of Marlborough] ... was a man of a noble and graceful appearance, bred up in the court with no literature:  But he had a solid and clear understanding, with a constant presence of mind.  He knew the arts of living in a court better than any man in it.  He caressed all people with a soft and obliging deportment, and was always ready to do good offices....  It must be acknowledged, that he is one of the greatest men the age has produced.—­Swift.  A composition of perfidiousness and avarice.

Ibid. Burnet, still speaking of Lord Churchill:—­He was also very doubtful as to the pretended birth.  So he resolved, when the Prince should come over, to go in to him; but to betray no post, nor do anything more than the withdrawing himself, with such officers as he could trust with such a secret.—­Swift.  What could he do more to a mortal enemy.

P. 769. Burnet. [Skelton’s] rash folly might have procured the order from the court of France, to own this alliance [with England]; He thought it would terrify the States; And so he pressed this officiously, which they easily granted.—­Swift.  And who can blame him, if in such a necessity he made that alliance?

P. 772. Burnet.  The King of France thought himself tied by no peace; but that, when he suspected his neighbours were intending to make war upon him, he might upon such a suspicion begin a war on his part.—­Swift.  The common maxim of princes.

P. 776. Burnet, speaking of the Declaration prepared for Scotland, says that the:—­Presbyterians, had drawn it so, that, by many passages in it, the Prince by an implication declared in favour of Presbytery.  He did not see what the consequences of those were, till I explained them.  So he ordered them to be altered.  And by the Declaration that matter was still entire.—­Swift.  The more shame for King William, who changed it.