20 REMARKS ON BISHOP BURNETT's 



ment, the sentiments expressed towards him by many of the Whigs, 

 both in church and state, would be wholly unaccountable — it 

 will be matter of astonishment to none of my readers, that 

 some of that party should be forward in their attacks upon his 

 History. Cunningham, as well as Lord Dartmouth, in his 

 personal aversion to the author, is even disposed to rank his occa- 

 sional egotism among the cardinal offences of this performance : 

 when others, whose judgments are unwarped, will be almost in- 

 clined to regard his being so full of self-importance, as a circum- 

 stance rather pleasing than otherwise, — to consider it as the natural 

 and becoming egotism of a man who hopes to give a proof of his 

 sincerity, when he talks as familiarly about himself as about other 

 men. Self-love, perhaps, is never less unamiable and useless to so- 

 ciety, than where it shews itself with frankness and good-nature ; 

 and it is only intolerable when it is displayed under affectation of 

 concealment. The Bishop's egotism is, therefore, agreeable, as 

 being without affectation. He does not write of himself for want 

 of other materials for writing, but because some circumstance that 

 has happened to himself is the best possible illustration of the sub- 

 ject ; and he is not the man, through fastidious delicacy, to shrink 

 from giving this best possible illustration. He likes himself and his 

 subject too well. Those, however, who are " made of sterner stuff,'*^ 

 will turn, with a sort of inward disdain, from these self-references, 

 and regard them as the folly of a diseased and egotistic mind. But 

 in the severity of their censures against Burnett, for always talking- 

 of himself, they quite overlook the value of the lesson which, in so 

 doing, he imparts to his readers. They do not feel that, in making^ 

 us intimate with himself, he, also, makes us intimate with ourselves; 

 that, in this exposure of his own weaknesses, he teaches us to ob- 

 serve those by which we are ourselves enfeebled ; and thus unmasks, 

 as it were, for examination, the secret infirmity of our own bosoms. 

 Those, therefore, who follow the courses of his mind, like the 

 courses of his upright life, with sympathy and approbation, can read, 

 with a good-natured smile, his recountings of his early importance 

 in the world — can regard, as pardonable vanity, his self-commenda- 

 tions — ^his depicturings of his influence, talents, and celebrity — nay, 

 can even go the length of thinking that the following remarks upon 

 being called, when a stripling, to act a conspicuous part on the the- 



