and had explained things that fell in my way very copiously." -"I went through geography so often with him, that he went through all the maps very particularly. I explained to him the forms of government in every country, with the interests and trade of that country, and what was both good and bad in it. I acquainted him with all the great revolutions that had been in the world, and gave him a copious account of the Greek and Roman Histories, and of Plutarch's Lives. The last thing I explained to him was, the Gothic constitution, and the beneficiary and feudal laws. I talked of these things, at different times, nearly three hours a day."

In 1699, he published his Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England,' which is considered as one of the most learned and judicious performances on the subject. It was censured, indeed, by the Lower House of Convocation in 1701; 1. as allowing a diversity of opinions, which the Articles were framed to prevent; 2. as including many passages contrary to the true. meaning of the Articles, and to other received doctrines of our church; and 3. as maintaining some things of pernicious consequence to the church, and derogatory from the honour of the Reformation: but that House refusing to enter into particulars, unless they might at the same time offer some other matters to the Upper House which the Bishops would not admit, the affair was dropped. And it was attacked by various writers: Dr. Binckes, who was answered in a Treatise ascribed to Dr. John Hoadly, Primate of Ireland; Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Mr. Burscough, and Mr. Edmund Elys. The scheme for the augmentation of poor livings out of the First

Fruits and Tenths due to the crown was projected by him, and passed into a law in 1704. In 1706, he published a collection of Sermons and Pamphlets' in 3 vols. 4to.; in 1710, an Exposition of the Church Catechism;' and, in 1713, Sermons on several Occasions,' with an Essay toward a New Book of Homilies.'

6

At the trial of Dr. Sacheverell, in 1709, he made a long speech in the House of Peers against that divine, proving that the doctrine of non-resistance was not the doctrine of the Church of England.' And though he was less in favour at court in the reign of Queen Anne, than he had been in that of her predecessor, she treated him with sufficient respect, to encourage him to speak openly to her concerning the state of her affairs. In 1710, he told her, as he himself informs us, what reports were spread of her throughout the nation, as if she favoured the design of bringing the Pretender to succeed to the crown, upon a bargain that she should hold it during her life. He was sure, that these reports were spread about by persons in the confidence of those, who were believed to know her mind and that if she were capable of making such a bargain for herself, by which her people were to be delivered up and sacrificed after her death, as it would darken all the glory of her reign, so it must set all her people to consider of the most proper ways of securing themselves by bringing over the Protestant successors; in which he himself would concur, if she did not take effectual means to extinguish those jealousies :' subjoining many other very free remarks, all which she heard very patiently, though she made him but

66

little answer. Yet," adds he, "by what she said, she seemed desirous to make me think, she agreed to what I laid before her; but I found afterward, it had no effect upon her. Yet I had great quiet in my own mind, since I had with an honest freedom made the best use I could of the access I had to her."

When he had attained his seventy second year, he was taken ill of a violent cold, which soon changed to a pleuritic fever. He was attended in it by his friend and relation, Dr. Cheyne, who treated him with the utmost skill; but as the distemper grew to a height, which seemed to baffle all remedies, he sent for Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Mead, who quickly found his case to be desperate. When he perceived his end approaching, he employed his few remaining hours in acts of devotion, and in giving advice to his family; of whom he took leave in such a manner, as evinced the utmost tenderness accompanied with the greatest constancy of mind. Yet while he was so little sensible of the terrors of death, as to meet it with joy, he could not but express his concern for the grief which he saw it caused in others. He died March 17, 1715, and was interred in the parishchurch of St. James, Clerkenwell,* where a handsome marble monument was erected to his memory; from the Latin inscription upon which we learn that, as Preacher in the Rolls Chapel,

*On taking down the old church in September 1788, his remains were unavoidably disturbed. Upon this occasion his body was found inclosed in a leaden coffin, the outside wooden one being decayed. The lead was broken at the head, through which the skull and some hair was visible.

donec nimis acriter

(ut iis, qui rerum tum potiebantur, visum est)
Ecclesiæ Romanæ

malas artes insectatur,

ab officio submotus est

米 *

Tyrannidi et Superstitioni

semper infensum scripta eruditissima demonstrant;

necnon Libertatis patriæ
veræque Religionis strenuum

semperque indefessum propugnatorem;
quarum utriusque conservanda spem unam
jam à longo tempore in illustrissimâ domo Brunsvicensi
collocârat.

After his death, his History of his own Times with his Life annexed,' agreeably to his testamentary direction, was published by his son, Thomas Burnet, Esq.; the first volume in 1724,* and the second ten

* Of this there are two French versions; one by M. de la Pilloniere, printed at the Hague in three volumes, 12mo. 1725; the other by an anonymous translator at the same place in the same year, in two volumes 4to. Swift, in his Short Remarks' on this work (ed. 1808, v. 98) says, "This author is, in most particulars, the worst qualified for an Historian that ever I met with. His stile is rough, full of improprieties, his expressions often Scotch, and often such as are used by the meanest people. His characters are miserably wrought, in many things mistaken, and all of them detracting; except of those, who were friends to the Presbyterians." Many of those characters were struck through with his own hand, but left legible in the MS., which he ordered in his last will" his executor to print faithfully as he left it, without adding, suppressing, or altering it in any particular." In the second volume the Editor promises, that "the original MS. of both voJumes shall be deposited in the Cotton library. But this promise does not appear to have been fulfilled; at least it certainly was not in 1736, when two letters were printed addressed to Thomas Burnet, Esq., in the second of which the writer asserted, that he had in his own possession "an authentic and complete col

years afterward. His other works, beside those already mentioned, are, A Relation of the Deaths of the Pri

6

lection of castrated passages." Of these a copy may be found in the European Magazine for 1795 and 1796 (xxvii. 37, 157, 221, 374; xxviii. 88, 245, 312, 392; and xxix. 87.) with MS.. Observations on the History by Lords Aylesbury and Hardwicke, Dean Swift, Speaker Onslow, Mr. Goodwin of Baliol College, &c. The Speaker's notes, however, utter a different language from those of Swift, and their writer (as the late Lord Clarendon has been heard to mention) used to state, he had found many things in the Bishop's Narrative to be true, which had been objected to as falsities; and that he did not doubt, many more would in process of time be confirmed.' The same opinion appears, from Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' (I. 562. note) to have been entertained also by Dr. Newcome, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was accustomed to declare of this work (in opposition to the judgement of Nichols himself, by whom it is ranked with 'the Histories of Oldmixon, Kennett, and Macaulay') that "however spoken against at it's first appearance, it would gain credit by time, and in the end would be justly valued for it's authority." The Editor himself likewise, if this note were not already too long, could adduce a strong illustration of the Right Rev. Author's accuracy (II. 423.) from the valuable Collection of Lord Godolphin's Papers in the possession of his illustrious descendent the Duke of Leeds. In a copy of this History, also, with MS. Notes by Lord D. Secretary of State at the time described, occurs the following memorandum, at the end of Vol. I. "So far I read, and did not perceive any design in the writer to pervert or mislead: but this (he adds) was not the case in the succeeding volume;" which, however, is chiefly a compilation from the newspapers. By the nonjurors it was creditably denominated, Opprobrium Historia.

On the Memoirs of P. P. Clerk of this Parish,' by the Scriblerus Club, Dr. Warton observes: "It was impossible but that such a History as Burnet's, which these Memoirs are intended to ridicule, relating recent events so near the time of their transaction, should be variously represented by the violent parties that have agitated and disgraced this country; though these parties arise from the very nature of our free government.