Page 217, ll. 11 ff.  Compare Welwood’s Memoirs, p. 149.

63.

Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time.  Vol. i.  From the Restoration of King Charles II. to the Settlement of King William and Queen Mary at the Revolution.  London:  1724. (pp. 93-4.)

Burnet began his History of His Own Time in 1683, after the publication of his History of the Reformation.  In its original form it partook largely of the nature of Memoirs.  But on the appearance of Clarendon’s History in 1702 he was prompted to recast his entire narrative on a method that confined the strictly autobiographical matter to a section by itself and as a whole assured greater dignity.  The part dealing with the reign of Charles II was rewritten by August 1703.  The work was brought down to 1713 and completed in that year.  Two years later Burnet died, leaving instructions that it was not to be printed till six years after his death.

The History was published in two folio volumes, dated 1724 and 1734.  The first, which contains the reigns of Charles II and James II, came out at the end of 1723 and was edited by Burnet’s second son, Gilbert Burnet, then rector of East Barnet.  The second volume was edited by his third son, Thomas Burnet, afterwards a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.  The complete autograph of the History, and the transcript which was prepared for the press under the author’s directions, are now both in the Bodleian Library.

The original form of the work survives in two transcripts (one of them with Burnet’s autograph corrections) in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, and in a fragment of Burnet’s original manuscript in the Bodleian.  The portions of this original version that differ materially from the final printed version were published in 1902 by Miss H.C.  Foxcroft under the title A Supplement to Burnet’s History.

Much of the interest of the earlier version lies in the characters, which are generally longer than they became on revision, and sometimes contain details that were suppressed.  But in a volume of representative selections, where the art of a writer is as much our concern as his matter, the preference must be given to what Burnet himself intended to be final.  The extracts are reprinted from the two volumes edited by his sons.  There was not the same reason to go direct to his manuscript as to Clarendon’s:  see notes p. 231, l. 26; p. 252, l. 10; and p. 255, l. 6.

64.

Burnet’s History of His Own Time.  Vol. i. (pp. 611-3.)

Burnet’s two characters of Charles II are in striking agreement with the more elaborate study by Halifax.

Page 221, ll. 1 ff.  Compare Halifax, p. 216, ll. 10 ff.

l. 14. his Chancellor, Clarendon.