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“ HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 195 
suitable one. Out of the number of these attacks, we will select 
those, in which the writers make the greatest parade of their own 
learning, and reproach Burnett for his ignorance with all the arro- 
gance of self—assured superiority ; and afterwards we will address 
ourselves to the task of pointing out in what instances we conceive he 
has afforded specimens of oversight and negligence: where his fa- 
vourable affections are improperly turned ; where he has not called 
together all the contemporaneous evidence in explaining interesting 
facts ; and where his claims to a commendable impartiality may be 
fairly questioned, though we shall assume the critical office with very 
opposite feelings to those who were ever ready to deny the long and 
laborious course of eminent usefulness which marks the days of this 
truly pious and erudite prelate. 
There can be little doubt that, had not our historian avowed, with 
the greatest frankness, the mistakes he had occasionally fallen into,* 
* “T did, in my second volume, publish a commission to Cromwell, think- 
ing it was that which constituted him the king’s vicegerent, which I, in read- 
ing the beginning of it, took to be so; but this was one of the effects of the 
haste in which I wrote that work.”—See Hist. of the Reform. vol. i, p. 286.— 
Specimens, however, of this haste, are not merely confined to the body of the 
work itself, but are likewise to be traced in the supplement. There isa 
striking instance of it in speaking of the convocation of the year 1543. “We 
have,” he says, alluding to this assembly, “only this short word, that on the 
29th of April the archbishop treated of the Sacraments, and on the next day 
on the article of free will. This is all I could gather from the copy of the 
minutes of the convocation.” Now Wilkins has printed these minutes in 
his Concilia Magne Britannia, vol. iii, p. 868; and whoever will consult 
them may discover that Burnett can only have glanced his eyes over these 
interesting documents, a fact which will appear as clear from the following 
statement. On the 20th of April the exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in 
English was discussed ; on the 21st, that of the five first of the command- 
ments; on the 24th and 25th, that of the remaining five, with another of the 
sacraments, and not on the 29th, according to the assertion of the bishop; on 
the 27th, that of the word faith, of the twelve articles of faith, of justifica- 
tion, works and prayer for the dead; and on the 30th that of the article of 
free will, upon which latter day the primate thus alludes to the strenuous 
labours of the commissioners to promote the best interests of their country. 
** Quo die lectus et publice expositos in vulgari Articulos liberi Arbitrii tra- 
didit Reverendissimus Prolocutori: eo animo, ut ipse eundem tractatum co- 
ram Praelatis inferioris Domfis perlegeret. Quem lectum restituerunt su- 
periori Domui cum hz approbatione quod pro catholicis et religiosis eos 
aecceptarnnt ; necnon gratias ingentes patribus egerunt quod tantos labores, 
sudores, et vigilias religionis et reipublicee causa, et unitatis gratia, subie- 
runt.” Other instances of inaccuracy have been noticed by Archbishop 
Laurence, in the notes to his Bampton Lectures, p. 190, and by Mr. Todd, 
p. 6, note to his Declaration of our Reformers. In apology for these errors, it 
