Thomas Burnet

“ For of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were the most offensive to him: and Burnet was allowed even by friends and admirers to be the most officious and indiscreet of mankind. But the sagacious Prince perceived that this pushing, talkative divine, who was always blabbing secrets, asking impertinent questions, obtruding unasked advice, was nevertheless an upright, courageous and able man, well acquainted with the temper and the views of British sects and factions. The fame of Burnet's eloquence and erudition was also widely spread. William was not himself a reading man. ”

“ Burnet says that this speech was the finest that he ever heard in Parliament; and Burnet was undoubtedly a good judge of speaking, and was neither partial to Mulgrave nor zealous for the privileges of the aristocracy. The orator, however, though he charmed his hearers, did not succeed in convincing them. Most of them shrank from a conflict in which they would have had against them the Commons united as one man, and the King, who, in case of necessity, would undoubtedly have created fifty peers rather than have suffered the land tax bill to be lost. ”

“ As soon as Burnet was on shore he hastened to the Prince. An amusing dialogue took place between them. Burnet poured forth his congratulations with genuine delight, and then eagerly asked what were His Highness's plans. Military men are seldom disposed to take counsel with gownsmen on military matters; and William regarded the interference of unprofessional advisers, in questions relating to war, with even more than the disgust ordinarily felt by soldiers on such occasions. ”

“ A better choice could not have been made; for Burnet was a man of such generosity and good nature, that his heart always warmed towards the unhappy; and at the same time his known hatred of Popery was a sufficient guarantee to the most zealous Protestants that the interests of their religion would be safe in his hands. He listened kindly to the complaints of the Roman Catholics, procured passports for those who wished to go beyond sea, and went himself to Newgate to visit the prelates who were imprisoned there. ”

“ A more just and complete estimate of his natural and acquired powers,—of the merits of his style and of its blemishes,—may be formed from the Hind and 372Panther, than from any of his other writings. As a didactic poem, it is far superior to the Religio Laici. The satirical parts, particularly the character of Burnet, are scarcely inferior to the best passages in Absalom and Achitophel. There are, moreover, occasional touches of a tenderness which effects us more, because it is decent, rational, and manly, and reminds us of the best scenes in his tragedies. ”

“ Almost all those who were admitted to his confidence were men taciturn and impenetrable as himself. Burnet was the only exception. He was notoriously garrulous and indiscreet. Yet circumstances had made it necessary to trust him; and he would doubtless, under the dexterous management of Halifax, have poured out secrets as fast as words. William knew this well, and, when he was informed that Halifax was asking for the Doctor, could not refrain from exclaiming, "If they get together there will be fine tattling." Burnet was forbidden to see the Commissioners in private ”

“ Burnet, Thomas (1635?-1715) .—Theologian and writer on cosmogony, was b. at Croft near Darlington, and ed. at Camb., and became Master of Charterhouse and Clerk of the Closet to William III. His literary fame rests on his Telluris Theoria Sacra, or Sacred Theory of the Earth, pub. about 1692, first in Latin and afterwards in English, a work which, in absence of all scientific knowledge of the earth's structure, was necessarily a mere speculative cosmogony. ”

“ A few years later a more illustrious sufferer, Lord Russell, had been accompanied by Burnet from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The court had neglected no means of gaining so active and able a divine. Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though infected in early youth by those servile doctrines which were commonly held by the clergy of that age, had become on conviction a Whig ”

“ Of Temple’s character little more remains to be said. Burnet accuses him of holding irreligious opinions, and corrupting everybody who came near him. But the vague assertion of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, about a man with whom, as far as we know, he never exchanged a word, is of little weight. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that Temple may have been a freethinker. ”

“ Lords' Journals. ↑ Burnet, ii. 4. ↑ These memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They are in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's History of His Own Times. The dates at which the different portions of this most curious and interesting book were composed are marked. Almost the whole was written before the death of Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of William's reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his opinions both of men and of things, had undergone great changes. ”

“ Burnet's narrative is confirmed by the Journals, from which it appears that several elections were under discussion on the 19th. ↑ Burnet, i. 560.; Funeral Sermon of the Duke of Devonshire, preached by Kennet, 1708; Travels of Cosmo III. in England. ↑ Bramston's Memoirs. Burnet is incorrect both as to the time when the remark was made and as to the person who made it. In Halifax's Letter to a Dissenter will be found a remarkable allusion to this discussion. ↑ Wood, Ath. Ox.; Gooch's Funeral Sermon on Bishop Compton. ↑ Teonge's Diary. ↑ Barillon has given the best account of this debate. ”

“ Burnet, i. 807. ↑ Clarendon's Diary, Feb, 5. 168/9; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution. ↑ Burnet, i. 820. Burnet says that he has not related the events of this stirring time in chronological order. I have therefore been forced to arrange them by guess: but I think that I can scarcely be wrong in supposing that the letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby arrived, and that the Prince's explanation of his views was given, between Thursday the 31st of January, and Wednesday the 6th of February. ”

“ When he returned to England in 1664 he established intimate relations with Sir Robert Moray and with John Maitland, earl and afterwards first duke of Lauderdale, both of whom at that time advocated a tolerant policy towards the Scottish covenanters. Burnet became a member of the Royal Society, of which Moray was the first president. On his father’s death he had been offered a living by a relative, Sir Alexander Burnet, and in 1663 the living of Saltoun, East Lothian, had been kept open for him by one of his father’s friends. ”

“ Burnet wisely refused to accept a benefice in the disturbed state of church affairs, but he wrote an audacious letter to Archbishop Sharp asking him to take measures to restore peace. Sharp sent for Burnet, and dismissed his advice without apparent resentment. He had already made valuable acquaintances in Edinburgh, and he now visited London, Oxford and Cambridge, and, after a short visit to Edinburgh in 1663, when he sought to secure a reprieve for his uncle Warristoun, he proceeded to travel in France and Holland. ”

“ In 1671 he was again sent on an embassy to Sweden, and on his return was appointed secretary of state. In this office he continued till 1680, when his health, which was shattered by frequent attacks of gout, compelled him to retire from public life. According to Burnet ‘he was a man of wit and heat, of spirit and candour. He never gave bad advices; but when the king followed the ill advices which others gave, he thought himself bound to excuse if not to justify them. ”

“ I shall break that little idol of estimation my friends have for me, and which I have been so long sick of.’ Burnet never saw his temper ruffled but once during twenty-two years of close intimacy, and could not recollect having ever heard him say an idle word. When reminded of his former zeal for the national covenant, he replied, ‘When I was a child I spoke as a child,’ and when charged with apostatising from his father's principles, he meekly answered that a man was not bound to be of his father's opinions. ”

“ Upon this he fearlessly embarked, and, guiding it by means of his curling-brush, he soon reached the iceberg to which Susan Hamilton was clinging. Having prevailed upon her to leap down into his arms, he placed her carefully on board his icy raft, and then steered back towards the shore, where by this time [Pg 172] a few of the villagers, including the child’s father, were collected. He was so fortunate as to return in safety, and had the satisfaction—which Bishop Burnet considered to be the greatest on earth—of rendering a man truly happy. ”

“ The character of Burnet, written by the Marquis of Halifax, and given by that nobleman himself to the Bishop, portrays with much delicacy of touch, and probably in not too severe a light, both the brilliant parts and the strong shadows of Burnet’s mind: it brings to view the singleness of heart, the impetuosity of temper, the quickness 198to be offended, the readiness to forgive, the disinterestedness, the christian heroism, which were offensive to lesser men, from the high example which they presented, and which could not, without inconvenience to more selfish minds, be imitated. ”

“ I had no fear of her faithfulness, for I knew of old her steadfast heart and brave spirit, but I feared my cousin as I feared no other on earth. He cared not a fig for the scruples of ordinary men, and he was possessed of a most devilish cunning, before which I felt powerless as a babe. Yet I doubtless wronged him by suspicion, for, after all, he was a Burnet, and fought openly as a man of honour should. But he had a gang of marauding ruffians at his heels, and God alone knew what might happen.
At all events, I must wait till what time my servant Nicol should arrive from Leith. ”

“ In an instant he came to us, and, bowing to Marjory, bade us welcome. "We are glad to see you here, Master Burnet," said he. "I am rejoiced to see the gentlemen of the land coming forth on the side of the Covenant. It is you and such as you that we need, and we are blithe to give you shelter here as long as you care to bide with us. It is a queer thing that two men of the same house should be engaged in this business on different sides." ”

“ Lauderdale’s ascendancy in Scotland and the failure of the attempts at compromise in Scottish church affairs eventually led Burnet to settle in England. He was favourably received by Charles II. in 1673, when he went up to London to arrange for the publication of the Hamilton Memoirs, and he was treated with confidence by the duke of York. On his return to Scotland Lauderdale refused to receive him, and denounced him to Charles II. as one of the chief centres of Scottish discontent. Burnet found it wiser to retire to England on the plea of fulfilling his duties as royal chaplain. ”

“ OPINIONS RESPECTING BURNET
A small catena patrum has been given respecting Burnet, as a historian, in No. 3. pp. 40, 41., to which two more scriptorum judicia have been appended in No. 8. p. 120., by "I.H.M.". As a sadly disparaging opinion had been quoted, at p. 40., from Lord Dartmouth, I hope you will allow the following remarks on the testimony of that nobleman to appear in your columns:—
"No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently, or with more asperity, than Dartmouth. ”

“ Meanwhile he had clandestinely married in 1671 a cousin of Lauderdale, Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of John Kennedy, 6th earl of Cassilis, a lady who had already taken an active part in affairs in Scotland, and was eighteen years older than Burnet. The marriage was kept secret for three years, and Burnet renounced all claim to his wife’s fortune. ”

“ Major Burnet has seen, what few men in modern times have beheld, the living representatives of seven generations of his kindred: his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, himself, his chilerward he served under General Wooster in the skirmish at Ridgefield. (v) When La Fayette
* Washington, in a letter to General Greene, dated "Newburgh, 6th February, 1782," refers to Mr. Burnet as follows: "I intended to write you a long letter on sundry matters ”

“ He was a zealous protestant, but ‘had kind thoughts of the nonconformists, and consequently did not strictly enforce the penal laws against either them or the Roman catholics.’ ‘Few men,’ says Burnet, ‘lived on better terms with the papists than he did.’ In 1678 ‘he was entering upon a great design of taking up all beggars and putting them to work,’ but gave at the same time 100l. ”

“ Burnet describes him as very rich and very covetous (Own Time, ed. Airy, ii. 87) , and his reputation is severely handled in a pamphlet termed 'A List of the principal Labourers in the great Design of Popery and Arbitrary Government,' 1677, 4to, p. 3. ”

“ I sent him to your office."
"That was the barber's boy."
Burnet bowed: he never wasted words; never left his desk to see a row or a military company, and would not have done so if an earthquake had torn up the pavement of State Street, so long as the banking-house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & Co. was undisturbed.
"Who else?" asked the banker.
"A man, sir."
"Who?"
"I don't know; he entered by your private door; the boy and the man went out together."
"Send for the safe people."
Burnet bowed, and retired. In half an hour two men from the safe manufactory appeared. ”