188 OBSERVATIONS ON BISHOP BURNETT'S 
had to contend against were owing to the circumstances of his being 
a foreigner, the invidious name by which a Scotsman was then de- 
signated, or to that independence of mind which, scorning to seek 
preferment by any mean practices of sycophancy or servility, dared 
to walk in a path of its own, regardless whether it led to honour or 
neglect ; from one or other of these causes, there was a very power- 
ful effort put forth to stifle his undertaking at the outset. In these 
liberal and enlightened times (for here these terms may be applied 
with the strictest propriety), when the precious memorials of past 
ages, deposited in large and costly libraries, are so easily accessible 
to our perusal that they may be almost called the general property 
of the learned, the following epistle cannot be read without sur- 
prise, mixed with the strongest indignation, by all those who gene- 
rously sympathize in the common cause of letters. 
For the worthy, honoured Sir John Cotton, Bart., these. 
Honoured Sir, 
Perceiving by Mr. Burnett (whom I lately met with), that he 
expects you at your house in Westminster soon after Christmasse, 
and intends to come to you for search of what you have, in order to 
his purposed Historie of the Reformation, I thought fit to let you 
know that some of our most eminent bishops and orthodox clergy, 
hearing thereof, do not think him a competent person for such a 
worke, being a Scotsman, as though none of our English divines 
were sufficient for such an undertaking. Besides, we playnly see, 
by his Historie of the Duke Hamilton, how he is byast ; for he lays 
the foundation of the late execrable rebellion totally upon the bi- 
shops. I am, therefore, advised to intreat you that when he makes 
his address to you concerning this business, you will tell him that 
you are, and shall be, willing to promote any good worke, but this 
being of weighty consideration, and he no Englishman,* you think 
it expedient to advise with some of our chiefest bishops therein, 
* That cold, heavy, though erudite Hearne, who would have anathema- 
tized Burrnett and his writings if his power had been commensurate with his 
malice, has endeavoured to excite a similar prejudice against his History, on 
the same grounds. He calls him, in his Leland. Collect. “a foreign writer of 
our Reformation,” vol. iv, p. 56, and in the preface, vol. i, p. xxvi, he styles 
him a man “in alia gente natus,” and “in rebus Anglicanis percyrinus fere 
atque hospes.” 
