Having but recently become acquainted with your useful and learned work
(for _scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, magna pars eruditionis est_), I
have been much interested in looking over the earlier volumes. Allow me to
add a couple of links to your _catena_ on Bishop Burnet. The first is the
opinion of Hampton, the translator of Polybius; the other is especially
valuable, it being nothing less than the portrait of Burnet drawn by
himself, but certainly not with any idea of its being suspended beside the
worthies of his "Own Time," for the edification of posterity.
Hampton's testimony is as follows:
"His personal resentments put him upon writing history. He relates the
actions of a persecutor and benefactor; and it is easy to believe that
a man in such circumstances must violate the laws of truth. The
remembrance of his injuries is always present, and gives venom to his
pen. Let us add to this, that intemperate and malicious curiosity which
penetrates into the most private recesses of vice. The greatest of his
triumphs is to draw the veil of secret infamy, and expose to view
transactions that were before concealed from the world; though they
serve not in the least either to embellish the style or connect the
series of his history, and will never obtain more credit than, perhaps,
to suspend the judgment of the reader, since they are supported only by
one single, _suspected_ testimony."--_Reflections on Ancient and Modern
History_, 4to.: Oxford, 1746.
Let me now refer you to a document, written with his own hand, which sets
the question of {60} Burnet's truthfulness and impartiality in his
delineations of character completely at rest.
From the Napier charter-chest, "by a species of retributive justice," there
has recently risen up in judgment against him _a letter of his own, proving
his own character_. It is, I regret, too long for insertion in your pages
_in extenso_, but no abstract can give an adequate idea of its contents. It
is, in fact, so mean and abject as almost to overpass belief. I must refer
your readers to Mr. Mark Napier's _Montrose and the Covenanters_, vol. i.
pp. 13-21. All the reflections of the Whig historian Dalrymple, all the
severe remarks of Swift and Lord Dartmouth, as to Burnet's dishonesty and
malice, would now seem well bestowed upon a writer so despicable and
faithless, and the credit of whose statements, when resting _on his own
sole authority_, must be totally destroyed. This curious epistle was
written, in an agony of fear, on a Sunday morning, during the memorable
crisis of the Rye-House plot, and while Lord Russell was on the eve of his
execution. Addressed to Lord Halifax, it was intended to meet the eye of
the King. It evidently proves the writer's want of veracity in divers
subsequent statements in his history. The future bishop also protests that
he never will accept of any preferment, promises never more to oppose the
Court, and intimates an intention to paint the King in the fairest
light--"if I ever live to finish what I am about;" _i.e._ the _History of
his Own Time_, in which the villanous portrait of Charles afterwards
appeared.
"Here, then," says Mr. Napier, "is Burnet _Redivivus_; and now the
bishop may call Montrose a coward or what he likes, and persuade the
world of his own super-eminent moral courage, if he can. For our own
part, after reading the above letter, we do not believe one malicious
word of what Burnet has uttered in the _History of his Own Time_
against Charles I. and Montrose; and he has therein said nothing about
them that is not malicious. We do not believe that the apology for
Hamilton, which he has given to the world in the memoirs of that House,
is by any means so truthful an exposition of the character of that
mysterious marquis as the letters and papers entrusted to the bishop
enabled him to give. We feel thoroughly persuaded that Bishop Burnet,
in that work, as well as in the _History of his Own Time_, reversed the
golden maxim of Cicero, '_Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non
audeat_.' The marvellous of himself, and the malicious of others, we
henceforth altogether disbelieve, when resting on the sole authority of
the bishop's historical record, and will never listen to when retailed
traditionally and at second-hand from him. Finally, we do believe the
truth of the anecdote, that the bishop, 'after a debate in the House of
Lords, usually went home and altered everybody's character as they had
pleased or displeased him that day;' and that he kept weaving in secret
this chronicle of his times, not to enlighten posterity or for the
cause of truth, but as a means of indulging in safety his own
interested or malicious feelings towards the individuals that pleased
or offended him. So much for Bishop Burnet, whose authority must
henceforth always be received _cum nota_."