HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME. 19 



fore it passed into a settled conviction in the minds of many, that 

 he was hostile to that hierarchy and parochial clergy, which it was 

 his single object to render the blessing and glory of the land. But 

 if they had been called upon to state the grounds of their suspicion 

 and mistrust, strong as they were, they must have been content to 

 rest them upon his occasional advocacy of the cause of the dissenters, 

 though he never upheld it in such a manner as to impeach the recti- 

 tude of his doings, as an ecclesiastical ruler ; for I am not prepared 

 to allow this invidious remark of Noble, '^ that he was in profession 

 a prelate, in sentiment a dissenter." Now why he should have ren- 

 dered himself obnoxious to those with whom, upon all questions of 

 great public importance he generally sided, may certainly be 

 thought a strange and almost incredible anomaly in politics. The 

 explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in certain peculiari- 

 ties in the character of Burnett. 



Holding the same language with the Whigs respecting the Bri- 

 tish constitution, and by no means averse to the name and functions 

 of a party-man, his mind was of too firm, uncompromising, and 

 conscientious a cast, to make that sacrifice of private judgment,,, 

 which the principle of party requires. Upon points where the 

 object evidently sought was not so much the general good, as the 

 gratification of private views, passions, and resentments, he was 

 bold to shake off this thraldom, — to call things and persons by 

 their right names — and to show himself as honest in the practice 

 as in the theory of his politics, by speaking as vehemently and 

 bluntly to his friends, as to his antagonists. Fearing the face of 

 no man, he scorned to bend to their prejudices, or to lean to their 

 particular interests or considerations. There was a magnanimity of 

 principle which made knaves feel as knaves — and fools as fools.— 

 Here, then, shone forth, in Burnett, the primitive simplicity of the 

 christian minister. And this it was which caused so many of his 

 political associates to be backward in their commendation of his 

 high moral and intellectual endowments. In this way only, can 

 the two foregoing questions admit of an easy and ready solution.-— 

 This will afford the clue to the labyrinth in which he fell short of 

 popularity with that party, with whom it was reasonable to con- 

 clude, that he would have been most popular. 



All this being thus explained, — for without the foregoing com- 



c2 



