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).
Burnet suffered from Halifax's wit: 'In the House of Lords,' says the
first Earl of Dartmouth, 'he affected to conclude all his discourses
with a jest, though the subject were never so serious, and if it did
not meet with the applause he expected, would be extremely out of
countenance and silent, till an opportunity offered to retrieve the
approbation he thought he had lost; but was never better pleased than
when he was turning Bishop Burnet and his politics into ridicule'
(Burnet, ed. Airy, vol. i, p. 485).
Dryden understood Halifax, the Jotham of his _Absalom and Achitophel_:
_Jotham_ of piercing Wit and pregnant Thought:
Endew'd by Nature, and by Learning taught
To move Assemblies, who but onely tri'd
The worse awhile, then chose the better side;
Nor chose alone, but turn'd the Balance too;
So much the weight of one brave man can do.
See also Dryden's dedication to Halifax of his _King Arthur_.
73.
The Life of the Right Honourable Francis North, Baron of Guilford,
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, under King Charles II. and King James
II.... By the Honourable Roger North, Esq; London, MDCCXLII. (pp.
223-6.)
Roger North's lives of his three brothers, Lord Keeper Guilford,
Sir Dudley North, and Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge, were begun about 1710 but were not published till 1742-4,
eight years after his death. The edition of the 'Lives of the Norths'
by Augustus Jessopp, 3 vols., 1890, contains also his autobiography.
The Life of Lord Keeper Guilford is invaluable as a picture of the
bench and bar under Charles II and James II.
Page 240, l. 6. Sir Francis Pemberton (1625-97), Lord Chief Justice,
1681, removed from the King's Bench, 1683, 'near the time that the
great cause of the _quo warranto_ against the city of London was to be
brought to judgment in that court.' North had just described him as a
judge.
Page 241, l. 1. Compare Scott's _Monastery_, ch. xiv: '"By my troggs,"
replied Christie, "I would have thrust my lance down his throat."'
'Troggs' is an altered form of 'Troth'. It appears to be Scottish
in origin; no Southern instance is quoted in Wright's _Dialect
Dictionary_. Saunders may have learned it from a London Scot.
l. 22. Sir John Maynard (1602-90), 'the king's eldest serjeant, but
advanced no farther'. Described by North, ed. 1890, p. 149; also p.
26: 'Serjeant Maynard, the best old book-lawyer of his time, used to
say that the law was _ars bablativa_'.
l. 30. Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76), Lord Chief Justice of the King's
Bench, described by North, pp. 79 ff. Burnet wrote _The Life and Death
of Sir Matthew Hale_, 1682.
Page 243, l. 5. The action taken by the Crown in 1682 contesting the
charter of the city of London. Judgement was given for the Crown. See
_State Trials_, ed. 1810, vol. viii, 1039 ff., and Burnet, ed. Airy,
vol. ii, pp. 343 ff., and compare Hallam, _Constitutional History_,
ch. xii, ed. 1863, pp. 453-4.
74.
Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 186-91).
This passage brings together ten of the great divines of the century.
It would be easy, as critics have shown, to name as many others, such
as Jeremy Taylor, Sanderson, Sheldon, Cosin, Pearson, and South. But
Burnet is mainly concerned with the men who in his opinion had the
greatest influence during the time of which he is writing, and who
were known to him personally. By way of introduction he speaks of
the Cambridge Platonists under whom his great contemporaries had been
formed. Incidentally he expresses his views on Hobbes's _Leviathan_,
and he concludes with a valuable account of the reform in preaching.
The passage as a whole is an excellent specimen of Burnet's method and
style.
Page 246, ll. 6, 7. John Owen (1616-83), made Dean of Christ Church by
Cromwell in 1651, Vice-Chancellor of the University, 1652-8, deprived
of the Deanery, 1659. Thomas Goodwin (1600-80), President of Magdalen
College, 1650-60, likewise one of the Commission of Visitors to the
University appointed by the Parliament. Both were Independents. See
H.L. Thompson, _Christ Church_ (College Histories), 1900, pp. 69, 70;
and H.A. Wilson, _Magdalen College_, 1899, pp. 172-4.
Page 248, l. 5. Simon Episcopius, or Bischop (1583-1643), Dutch
theologian and follower of Arminius: see p. 101, l. 3, note.
Page 249, l. 12. _Irenicum_. _A Weapon-Salve for the Churches Wounds_,
published 1661.
Page 252, l. 10. The following sentence is in the original manuscript
(folio 98) before 'But I owed': 'and if I have arrived at any faculty
of writing clear and correctly, I owe that entirely to them: for as
they joined with Wilkins in that Noble tho despised attempt at an
Universall Character, and a Philosophicall Language, they took great
pains to observe all the common errours of language in generall, and
of ours in particular: and in the drawing the tables for that work,
which was Lloyds province, he had looked further into a naturall
purity and simplicity of stile, than any man I ever knew: into
all which he led me, and so helpt me to any measure of exactnes
of writing, which may be thought to belong to me.' The sentence is
deleted in the transcript that was sent to the printer; but whether it
was deleted by Burnet himself, or by the editor, is uncertain. There
are other minor alterations in the same page of the transcript (p.
140).
The book referred to in the omitted passage is Wilkins's _Essay
Towards a Real Character And a Philosophical Language_, presented
to the Royal Society and published in 1668. Lloyd's 'continual
assistance' is acknowledged in the 'Epistle to the Reader'.
75.