Page images
PDF
EPUB

extracts of arguments and debates in council or parliament. Nothing recommends his book but the recency of the facts he mentions, most of them being still in memory, especially the story of the revolution; which, however, is not so well told as might be expected from one who affects to have had so considerable a share in it. After all, he was a man of generosity and good nature, and very communicative; but, in his ten last years, was absolutely party-mad, and fancied he saw popery under every bush. He has told me many passages not mentioned in his history, and many that are, but with several circumstances suppressed or altered. He never gives a good character without one essential point, that the person was tender to dissenters, and thought many things in the church ought to be amended.

Setting up for a maxim; laying down for a maxim ; clapt up; and some other words and phrases, he hundred times.

uses many

Cut out for a court; a pardoning planet; clapt up; left in the lurch; the mob; outed; a great beauty; went roundly to work: All these phrases, used by the vulgar, show him to have kept mean or illiterate company in his youth.

EXTRACTS

FROM

SWIFT'S REMARKS

QN

"BURNET'S HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIMES;"

FOLIO EDITION, 1724.

From the Original, in the Library of the late
MARQUIS OF LANSDOWN.

PREFACE, p. 3. Burnet. "Indeed the peevishness, the ill-nature, and the ambition of many clergymen, has sharpened my spirits, perhaps, too much against them---so I warn my readers to take all that I say on those heads with some grains of allowance."---Swift. "I will take his warning."

P. 11. Burnet. "Colonel Titus assured me that he had it from king Charles the First's own mouth, that he was well assured his brother, prince Henry, was poisoned by the earl of Somerset's means."--Swift. "Titus was the greatest rogue in Eng

land."

P. 18. Burnet. “Gowry's conspiracy against

king James was confirmed to me by my father."--Swift. "And yet Melville makes nothing of it."* P. 20. Burnet. "Charles I. had such an ungracious way of bestowing favours, that the manner of bestowing was almost as mortifying as the favour was obliging."---Swift. "Not worth knowing."

P. 23. Burnet. "This person [Mr_Stewart,] who was only a private gentleman, became so considerable, that he was raised by several degrees to be made earl of Traquair, and lord-treasurer of Scotland, and was in great favour; but suffered afterwards such a reverse of fortune, that I saw him so low that he wanted bread; and it was generally believed that he died of hunger."---Swift. "A strange death! Perhaps it was want of meat!"

P. 26. Burnet. "How careful lord Balmerinoch's father was to preserve the petition and the papers relating to that trial, of which, says he, I never saw any copy beside, and which I have now by me, and which indeed is a very noble piece, full of curious matter."---Swift. "Puppy!

P. 28. Burnet. "The earl of Argyle was a more solemn sort of man, grave and sober, and free of all scandalous vices."---Swift. "As a man is free of a corporation, he means."

P. 29. Burnet. "The lord Wharton and the lord Howard of Escrick undertook to deliver some of these; which they did, and were clapt up upon it."---Swift. "What dignity of expression!"

P. 30. Burnet. "King Charles I. was now in great straits---his treasure was exhausted---his sub

* If Sir James Melville be meant, his Memoirs do not reach the period. Swift perhaps had in his memory the intrigues of Gowry the father, which are repeatedly mentioned by Melville.

jects highly irritated---his ministry frightened, being exposed to the anger and justice of parlia ment. He loved high and rough methods; but had neither the skill to conduct them, nor the height of genius to manage them."---Swift." Not one good quality named."

P. 31. Burnet. "The queen of Charles I. was a woman of great vivacity in conversation, and loved all her life long to be in intrigues of all sorts."Swift. "Not of love, I hope."

P. 34. Burnet. "Dickison, Blair, Rutherford, Baily, Cant, and other popular preachers in Scotland, affected great sublimities in devotion. They poured themselves out in their prayers with a loud voice, and often with many tears. They had but an ordinary proportion of learning among them; somewhat of Hebrew, and very little Greek. Books of controversy with the papists, but above all with the Arminians, was the height of their study."-Swift. "Great nonsense! Rutherford

was half fool, half mad."

P. 40. Burnet, speaking of the bad effects of the marquis of Montrose's expedition and defeat, says, "It alienated the Scots much from the king; it exalted all that were enemies to peace; and there seemed to be some colour for all those aspersions that they had cast on the king, as if he had been in a correspondence with the Irish rebels, when the worst tribe had been thus employed by him."-Swift. "Lord Clarendon differs from all this."

P. 41. Burnet. "The earl of Essex told me, that he had taken all the pains he could to enquire into the origin of the Irish massacre; but could never see any reason to believe that the king had any accession to it."-Swift. "And whe but a beast ever believed it?"

P. 42. Burnet. Arguing with the Scots concerning the propriety of the king's death, he observes, that Drummond said, "That Cromwell had plainly the better of them at their own weapons."-Swift. "And Burnet thought as Crom

well did."

P. 46. Burnet. "Fairfax was much distracted in his mind, and changed purposes often every day."-Swift. "Fairfax had hardly common

sense.

[ocr errors]

P. 49. Burnet. "I will not enter further into the military part; for I remember an advice of marshal Schomberg, never to meddle in the relation of military matters. His observation was,

Some affected to relate those affairs in all the terms of war, in which they committed great errors, that exposed them to the scorn of all commanders, who must despise relations that pretend to exactness, when there were blunders in every part of them."-Swift. "Very foolish advice-for soldiers cannot write."

P. 50. Burnet. "Laud's defence of himself, when in the Tower, is a very mean performance. In most particulars, he excuses himself by this-That he was but one of many, who either in council, star-chamber, or high commission, voted illegal things. Now, though this was true, yet a chief minister, and one in high favour, determines the rest so much, that they are little better than machines acted by him.-On other occasions, he says, the thing was proved but by one witness.' Now, how strong soever this defence may be in law, it is of no force in appeal to the world; for, if a thing is true, it is no matter how full or defective the proof is."-Swift. "All this is full of malice and ill judgment."

P. 50. Burnet, speaking of the Basilicon," sup

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »