“HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.” 201 
give an evidence upon oath in a court of judicature. Ifa man is to 
write memoirs he must keep close to his vouchers ; but where he 
writes an history of such consequence, and that was transacted long 
before his own time, and that it is visible that many of the most 
valuable papers relating to it are lost, but that enough remains to 
give him a right view of the whole and a clue to guide him in it, 
he may certainly find many hints of things which, since he cannot 
lay them before his readers as historical facts, he may and ought to 
suggest them as probabilities ; and he who forms a true character of 
a man from his secret prayers, can frame judgments and see likeli- 
hoods that could never come in the way of one who only reads his 
work, but does not dwell so long upon it, nor turn it so much in 
his thoughts as himself has done ; and yet offering of these may be 
necessary, since they may be of use to let his reader see further 
than he would do without them. Only I wish that, when he writes 
next, he may do it in a better spirit and in a decenter style. He 
who knows so much cannot judge so ill as not to see that the at- 
tacking a man’s reputation, but especially a bishop, in so great a 
point as that of his truth and fidelity, upon success of which all his 
labour, and the credit of his whole life and ministry, does depend, 
is not a slight thing, and is not to be attempted unless one is very 
well assured that what he objects is not only just in itself, but that 
it is incumbent on him to do it. The fame of a man isa most valu- 
able thing ; and the rules of charity, and against detraction and 
slander, are delivered in such weighty strains in the New Testa- 
ment, that it is no small matter to make so bold with them.” 
The other formidable opponent to whom we have alluded was the 
fierce and implacable nonjuror, Jeremy Collier. His Ecclesiastical 
History of Great Britain has deservedly obtained for him a high 
literary reputation. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on his 
indefatigable labour in procuring the large mass of documents and 
authorities from which he made his digest. But his Romanizing, 
high-church principles, weaken the effect of his narrative, The se- 
cond volume of this performance, under the guise of history, is so 
purely controversial that, in fairness, we may say, with Burnett, 
_ that, “ it is an artful attempt, from the beginning to the end of it, 
to palliate the corruptions of popery, to blacken the character of 
those confessors and martyrs who never slackened their glorious 
efforts till they had procured its overthrow, and to vilify and insult 
the names of Edward and Elizabeth, not hesitating even to accuse 
the latter of being the author of more mischief to her church than 
her sister Mary.” Collier, indeed, had all the qualifications of a 
VOL. IX., NO. XXVI, 26 
