196 OBSERVATIONS ON BISHOP BURNET'I’S 
nis work would considerably suffer in the estimation of the judici- 
ous from the opportunity which those mistakes gave to his adver- 
saries of raising a hue and cry against him, as a falsifier of facts and 
opinions. Nothing operated as so powerful an antidote to such at- 
tacks as the candour of his own declaration. A contemporary author 
has alluded to this feature of his character in the following words: 
“T cannot but exceedingly commend his ingenuity in acknowledg- 
ing, and gladly amending, some errors in his former part ; in domg 
which he has very satisfactorily cleared his reputation as an histo- 
rian, it being the assured argument of sincere innocence to own 
himself once guilty, and the best sign that the will retains no ineli- 
nation to a fault which it voluntarily discovers and makes such full 
satisfaction for.” 
Nevertheless that diligent student of history and antiquities, Henry 
Wharton, who, under the fictitious name of Antony Harmer, hurled 
his javelin of criticism against our author, is not disposed to pro- 
nounce so merciful a judgment. With him there is no tolerance 
for the slightest mistakes of this literary ornament of the age. But 
the learning of Wharton, who fell an early victim to his studious- 
ness, was ill-digested, and his conclusions were often rash. The 
impulse of a disputatious mind, or another motive far less excusa- 
ble,* produced this volume of sneer and sarcasm, before he had duly 
has been said that such was Burnett’s rapidity of composition that, after hav- 
ing collected and arranged the materials of his second volume, he was ready 
for the press in the short space of six weeks. A fact furnishing, no doubt, a 
striking proof of what the natural powers of the mind will accomplish, when 
seconded by persevering industry ; but not, perhaps, quite satisfactory to 
those critical readers who, while they are willing to applaud him for the vast 
body of information brought to light by his single-handed strength, yet, in 
order that the voluminous pile might be well put together in all its parts, 
would require something more of the searching spirit of modern investiga- 
tion—something more of a notarial strictness in the large masses of manu- 
scripts and books he had to look over and examine. 
* Weare told by Burnett that he was at one time earnestly importuned 
by Wharton to use his influence with Archbishop Tillotson for a prebendal 
stall at Canterbury. But the request, though enforced with all possible zeal 
and sincerity on the part of Burnett, not proving successful, the angry and 
disappointed candidate revenged himself upon the History of the Reformation, 
under the plea that its author had not merely been lukewarm in his cause, 
but had gone the unjustifiable length of secretly prejudicing Tillotson against 
him and his pretensions.—See Hist. of the Reform. introd. p. xxvi-vii. It 
has been made a topic of reproach against our historian, by Swift and Sewell, 
that he should have put forth this declaration after his adversary’s death. 
Wharton, however, has deliberately recorded the motives which urged him 
