8 REMARKS UPON BISHOP BURNETT's 



mendable attempt, in disregard of the lapse of time, to exhibit his 

 Tiews in nearer and more admirable perspective, and to form them 

 into groups at once pleasing and important. But the judgment 

 can often recommend a perfection, to which the hand can seldom at- 

 tain. And Burnett, in seeking to combine causes and consequences 

 in one regular order of succession, has not always so accomplished 

 his task, as to detach them entirely from the rubbish of littleness 

 and insignificance. His fulness and circumstantiality are sometimes 

 painfully tiresome, from his making subordinate particulars the 

 constituent parts of his history. The severe critic would, perhaps, 

 Yeduce to a single book, what is dilated into two by the excursive^ 

 ness of the Bishop's pencil. 



But if we are to listen to his calumniators, his literary sins, how- 

 ever great, must not be named in the same page with his moral 

 delinquencies. We are told by the bitterest of them all, Higgons, 

 that nothing can equal his insincerity, but his malice, — that in his 

 description of persons, " he has so outraged virtue and innocence, 

 gs to forfeit that respect which is due to his character, and even to 

 extinguish that tenderness which, in good-nature and charity, w^e 

 owe to others ;" in short, if we are to confide in his representations, 

 we are to regard Burnett as possessing a heart vitiated, corrupted, 

 gangrened to the very core. The portraits drawn by party preju- 

 dice, no doubt, are often like objects seen at a great distance, or at 

 twilight; being neither in shape, size, nor colour, such as they 

 really exist. Of all this, no man was more thoroughly aware than 

 the Historian of his own TJme. Yet it cannot be denied that, in 

 delineating the character of some of those who have passed before 

 him on the stage of public life, he has painted as much under the 

 iniluence of this feeling as from actual observation. I would ad- 

 duce the names of Archbishop Bancroft, Sir William Temple, Sir 

 Cloudeslej Shovel, and Sir 0eorge Rook. There is a dash of the 

 abusive, in particular against the two last, that, if I might say so, 

 appears blended with almost personal spite against them : while he 

 has endowed, at the same time, a few characters with every species 

 of moral and intellectual excellence, as if he had been writing epi- 

 taphs instead of history. 



It must likewise be confessed, that he has sometimes, " bared the 



