HISTOllY OF HIS OWN TIME. 25 



eternal possessions that great minds generate and perfect in retire- 

 ment, will be utterly forgotten, or if remembered, will — from "its 

 tame, monotonous^ and colourless style — its wilful perversions and 

 malevolent misrepresentations — its accumulated mass of personal 

 abuse and intolerant zeal, — its insolent dogmatism and absurd pre- 

 tensions to the dignified form of history, — be only cited as a per- 

 formance deserving the most just contempt from friends* as well 

 as enemies ; while, on the other hand, the History of his own 

 Time, from its masculine and energetic style, — the perspicuity and 

 acumen of its observations — the breathing vitality of its portraits — 

 the honesty of its opinions — the bold spirit of its criticism upon the 

 public men of the day — and the profound knowledge of the tran- 

 sactions recorded — will transmit the name of Burnett to future 

 generations, as one of the most instructive and most amusing of 

 memoir writers. 



H. C. 

 Great Malvern, September 10, 1835. 



• If the Dean had not been so peremptorily opinionative, so desperately 

 pertinacious in this matter, he would, it is to be presumed, have listened to 

 the advice of Pope and Bolingbroke, whose penetration, taste, larger views in 

 history, and great talents for composition, alike led them to oppose the pub- 

 lication of this wretchedly stupid work. Never was a truer criticism pro- 

 nounced upon it than in the following remarks of Horace Walpole. " There 

 is just published Swift's history of the four last years of Queen Anne. Pope 

 and Lord Bolingbroke always told him it would disgrace him, and persuaded 

 him to burn it. Disgrace him, indeed, it does ; being a weak libel, ill-writ- 

 ten for style, uninformed, and adopting the most errand mob stories. He 

 makes the Duke of Marlborough a coward, Prince Eugene an assassin, my 

 father remarkable for nothing but impudence, and would make my Lord 

 Somers anything but the most amiable character in the world, if, unfortu- 

 nately, he did not praise him while he tries to 3ih\ise."— Letters to Sir Horace 

 Mann, vol. iii, p. 317 — 318. 



[Our thanks are due to the learned writer for this admirable article, as 

 also for six highly interesting papers in former numbers of " The Analyst ,•'* 

 more especially that on Charles II, which was executed in so masterly a 

 style as to obtain the unqualified approbation of one of the most accurate 

 thinkers upon all curious matters of History. The subject here alluded to 

 was so full of perplexities that it quite baffled the sound and vigorous under- 

 standing of the Edinburgh lie viewer. The importance, indeed, of a paper 

 which clears up difficulties embarrassing to many a statesman of the present 

 day, cannot be too highly appreciated by the student of English History. — , 

 Ed.] 



