HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME. 11 



terity, it must, at the same time, be admitted that he was by no 

 means exempt from an imperfection common to those who write the 

 history of their own times — I mean that he was too much occupied 

 with the designs of the statesmen and courtiers, to whom he was 

 politically attached, to attend sufficiently to the immediate influence 

 of those designs upon the national mind, and the tendency to ad- 

 vance or retard it. Nevertheless, from the habit he had acquired 

 of analyzing, with the most piercing sagacity, the characters of 

 those remarkable persons with whom he had come in contact in the 

 course of his ]ong career, and of studying their strongest and pro- 

 foundest passions, under the conviction that a knowledge of these 

 would develope that which is so difficult to comprehend, — the ma- 

 chinery of a court ; and from being influenced by no squeamish 

 feelings, in boldly and unsparingly testifying against the faults and 

 corruptions of public men ; certain it is, that, from these combined 

 circumstances, he was often enabled to ])lace an obscure and com- 

 plicated subject in a correct and distinct point of view. 



He acknowledges, however, with the greatest frankness, his nar- 

 rative of English aflfairs to be imperfect and out of order ; but, at 

 the same time, trusting to the lights he had to guide him, chal- 

 lenges for his statements the fullest belief, though given on the 

 mere strength of bare assertion. For a wise man, the Bishop was, 

 unquestionably, too much governed by his passions; and these some- 

 times led him, in his reflections upon great questions of domestic 

 policy, and upon the changes and revolutions of the ministry at 

 home, to speak of those who were opposed to him, with a deep 

 irony, and bitter malevolence, which trespass equally against can- 

 dour, and the rules of fair and honourable controversy. But with 

 respect to his account of the affairs of Scotland, certainly among 

 the most interesting and curious portions of the work, though his 

 ill-judging critics have, with singularly bad taste, characterized it 

 among the dullest and most wearisome, the gallery of portraits 

 there exhibited, is finished with scrupulous accuracy. In his de- 

 lineation, also, of the leading Presbyterians and Episcopalians we 

 meet with an impartiality which the prejudices of education and 

 profession can scarcely be perceived to warp : thus reflecting the 

 highest credit upon his independence as a politician, and his tolerant 



