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“HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 179 
human eye ever beheld—were plausibly ascribable to no other cause 
than the monstrous corruptions and delusions of popery. 
Setting aside the protestant prejudices of our historian, it was na- 
tural for him to think of the evils which he saw around him, and 
which were to be traced to the same cause. He knew, too, that the 
reigning monarch was secretly hostile to the established religion ; the 
heir presumptive anti-christ himself ; and both the brothers, to their 
eternal disgrace, disposed to have recourse to the Roman catholic 
powers for supplies of men and arms in the prosecution of designs 
which, if successful, might again render England tributary to the 
holy see. Under such circumstances, when we review the facts and 
the persons by whom he was surrounded, and these persons, also, en- 
vironed by a rampart of sovereigns leagued against the pure faith of 
England, it is not in the least wonderful that Burnett, fully aware of 
the real aim and object of the Roman court, ever to grasp at the as- 
cendant, should manifest the most deep-rooted abhorrence of it, and 
fill so many of his pages with dismal forebodings of the wide-spread- 
ing increase of popery. In those days, indeed, few would have deemed 
the opinion an aberration from the mark of truth, that the com- 
plexion of the events and transactions then passing before them 
argued more for the extinction than for the durability of protestant- 
ism, and the confirmation of British liberty. Swift, however, who 
never misses an ironical stroke at Burnett (for he so hated this pre- 
late as always to treat him, says Dr. Johnson, like one whom he is 
glad of an opportunity to insult), ridicules his pious fears of the 
Roman see again establishing its pretensions to spiritual sway in these 
kingdoms, by representing him as a person “ who can smell popery at 
five hundred miles distance better than fanaticism just under his 
nose.” * 
* See a Preface to the Bishop of Sarum’s introduction, vol. iv, p. 340, 
Swift's Works, edited by Walter Scott. Ifthe “ witty dean,” instead of giv- 
ing vent to his sarcastic humour at our historian’s frequent and hasty repeti- 
tions of his prefaces and introductions, had fairly attacked those parts in 
them which were open to just censure—for example, had he pointed out 
when the bishop had formed a wrong or precipitate judgment of the labours 
of his predecessors—his remarks would then have been well worth our seri- 
ous attention. John Fox, “ famous to posterity,” says Strype, “for his im- 
mense labours in his Acts and Monuments,” four editions of which, huge folios, 
were published in the reign of Elizabeth, and which embody a mass of origi- 
nal matter amply illustrative of our civil and ecclesiastical history ; a work 
which is a complete picture of the era it represents, and that may be almost 
said to confirm the history of the Retormation, is alluded to by Burnett in 
