This is the opening couplet of the English poem preceding Dryden’s, and signed ‘M.N.’ i.e.  Marchamont Needham (p. 81).

70.

Burnet’s History of His Own Time.  Vol. i. (p. 100.)

’The portrait of this Duke has been drawn by four masterly hands:  Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chissel; Count Hamilton touched it with that slight delicacy, that finishes while it seems but to sketch; Dryden catched the living likeness; Pope compleated the historical resemblance.’—­Horace Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors, ed. 1759, vol. ii, p. 78.

There is also Butler’s prose character of ‘A Duke of Bucks’, first printed in Thyer’s edition of the Genuine Remains of Butler, 1759, vol. ii, pp. 72-5, but written apparently about 1667-9.  And there is a verse character in Duke’s Review.

Page 235, l. 11. a great liveliness of wit.  In the first sketch Burnet wrote ‘he has a flame in his wit that is inimitable’.  It lives in The Rehearsal.  His ‘Miscellaneous Works’ were collected in two volumes by Tom Brown, 1704-5.

Page 236, l. 12.  Compare Butler:  ’one that has studied the whole Body of Vice.’

l. 14.  Sir Henry Percy, created Baron Percy of Alnwick in 1643.  He was then general of the ordinance of the king’s army.  He joined the Queen’s party in France in 1645.

l. 15. Hobbs.  For Burnet’s view of Hobbes, see p. 246, ll. 21 ff.

71.

Absalom and Achitophel.  Second Edition. 1681. (ll. 543-68.)

Dryden is his own best critic:  ’The Character of Zimri in my Absalom, is, in my Opinion, worth the whole Poem:  ’Tis not bloody, but ’tis ridiculous enough.  And he for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.  If I had rail’d, I might have suffer’d for it justly:  But I manag’d my own Work more happily, perhaps more dextrously.  I avoided the mention of great Crimes and apply’d my self to the representing of Blind-sides, and little Extravagancies:  To which, the wittier a Man is, he is generally the more obnoxious.  It succeeded as I wish’d.’ (’Discourse concerning Satire’ prefixed to Dryden’s Juvenal, 1693, p. xlii.)

Burnet’s prose character again furnishes the best commentary.

Page 236, ll. 28 ff.  Compare Butler:  ’He is as inconstant as the Moon, which he lives under ...  His Mind entertains all Things very freely, that come and go; but, like Guests and Strangers they are not welcome, if they stay long ...  His Ears are perpetually drilled with a Fiddlestick.  He endures Pleasures with less Patience, than other Men do their Pains.’

72.

Burnet’s History of His Own Time.  Vol. i. (pp. 267-8.)

This is not one of Burnet’s best characters.  He did not see the political wisdom that lay behind the ready wit.  Halifax was too subtle for Burnet’s heavy-handed grasp.  To recognize the inadequacy of this short-sighted estimate, it is sufficient to have read the ’Character of King Charles II’ (No. 62).