[Footnote 13:  Book ix, ad init.; ed.  Macray, vol. iv, p. 3.]

[Footnote 14:  See note, p. 129, ll. 22 ff.]

[Footnote 15:  Evelyn’s Diary, December 20, 1668.  See the account of ‘The Clarendon Gallery’ in Lady Theresa Lewis’s Lives of the friends of Clarendon, 1852, vol. i, pp. 15* ff., and vol. iii, pp. 241 ff.]

IV.  Other Character Writers.

When Clarendon’s History was at last made public, no part of it was more frequently discussed, or more highly praised, than its characters—­’so just’, said Evelyn, ’and tempered without the least ingredient of passion or tincture of revenge, yet with such natural and lively touches as show his lordship well knew not only the persons’ outsides, but their very interiors.’[1] About the same time, and probably as a consequence of the publication of Clarendon’s work, Bishop Burnet proceeded to put into its final form the History on which he had been engaged since 1683.  He gave special attention to his characters, some of which he entirely rewrote.  They at once invited comparison with Clarendon’s, and first impressions, then as now, were not in their favour.  ‘His characters are miserably wrought,’ said Swift.[2]

Burnet was in close touch with the political movements of his time.  ‘For above thirty years,’ he wrote, ’I have lived in such intimacy with all who have had the chief conduct of affairs, and have been so much trusted, and on so many important occasions employed by them, that I have been able to penetrate far into the true secrets of counsels and designs.’[3] He had a retentive memory, and a full share of worldly wisdom.  But he was not an artist like Clarendon.  His style has none of the sustained dignity, the leisurely evolution, which in Clarendon is so strangely at variance with the speed of composition.  All is stated, nothing suggested.  There is a succession of short sentences, each perfectly clear in itself, often unlinked to what precedes or follows, and always without any of the finer shades of meaning.  It is rough work, and on the face of it hasty, and so it would have remained, no matter how often it had been revised.  Again, Burnet does not always have perfect control of the impression he wishes to convey.  It is as if he did not have the whole character in his mind before he began to write, but collected his thoughts from the stores of his memory in the process of composition.  We are often uncertain how to understand a character before we have read it all.  In some cases he seems to be content to present us with the material from which, once we have pieced it together ourselves, we can form our own judgement.  But what he tells us has been vividly felt by him, and is vividly presented.  The great merit of his characters lies in their realism.  Of the Earl of Lauderdale he says that ’He made a very ill appearance:  He was very big:  His hair red, hanging oddly about him:  His tongue