53 2 BUR 
with great ftrength of genius and- art, and in that .beauti¬ 
ful ftyle which was peculiar to himfelf. But neither the 
hjgh rank and authority of his patron, nor the great ele¬ 
gance and learning difplayed throughout the work, cOuld 
protect the author from the clamours raifed againft him 
for allegorizing the feripture-account of the fall of Adam 
• and Eve. In confequence of this, he pubiilhed a'letter, 
in which he acknowledges fa ere ft feripture, .whether lite¬ 
rally or vnyltically underftood, to be given us from heaven, 
as the rule of our.faith, the guide of our life, and- the re¬ 
fuge of our falvation ; and profeifes to pay to it all pofti- 
ble refpect, honour, and. veneration. But all .this, came 
too late, or however proved infufficient today the (dorm 
raifed againft him ; which was rather increafed than aba¬ 
ted, by the encomium which Mr. Charles Blount, the de- 
iftical author of the Oracles of Reafon, thought proper to 
‘heftow upon his work. Blount, in a letter to his friend 
Gildon, tells him, that “ according to his promife he has 
lent him a traailation of the feventh and eight chapters, 
and alfo the appendix, of the great and learned Dr. Bur¬ 
net’s Archtrologia: Philpfophicae, & c. a piece which he 
thinks one of the mold ingenious he ever read, and full of 
the mold acute as well as learned obfervations.” Thefe 
.chapters were unfortunately the moft carped at in the whole 
work: and, being thus adopted by an infidel writer, gave 
Inch a plaufible colour to the complaints of the clergy, 
that it was judged expedient, in that-critical feafon, to 
remove him from his place of clerk of the clofet. He 
withdrew accordingly from court: and, if Mr. Oldtnixon 
can be credited, actually milled tlie-fc.e of Canterbury, 
upon the death of Tillotfon, on account of this very work, 
which occafioned him to be then reprefented by feme bi- 
ftiops as a fceptical writer. He retired to his (Indies and 
.contemplations in the Charter-houfe, without feeking, or 
perhaps defiring, any farther preferment ; for. he was a 
1 raan of many Virtues, and does not appear to have had any 
ambition in his nature. Tifere.he lived in a (ingle (date 
to a good old age ; and died Sept. 27, 1715. 
In 1727, two other learned Latip works of this author 
were pubiilhed in Svo. one, De Fide et Ofhciis Chriftiano- 
rum ; the other, De ftatu Mortuorum et Refurgentium. 
Burnet had himfelf caufed to be ftruck ofFonly a few co¬ 
pies of each, of thefe works, fertile ufe of himfelf and 
a few private friends ; but did not intend them for the 
public, there being feme points difeuffed in them not fo 
proper to be communicated openly. Yet, furreptitious 
copies front proof-fheets getting into the-world,-and the 
works being terribly mangled and full of faults, Mr.Wil- 
kirtfon, of Lincohi’s-inn, Dr. Burnet’s particular friend, 
and who was in poffeftion of all his papers, thought it 
right to oblige the learned with a true copy of them, cor¬ 
rected by the doRor himfelf; as lie did in 1727. To the 
fecond edition in 1733, of De ftatu Mortuorum et Refur¬ 
gentium, is added an appendix, De futura Judaeprunt Re- 
tfhiuratione : it appearing to the editor from Burnet’s pa¬ 
pers, that it was defigned to be placed there. He is (aid 
alfo to have been the author of three (mail pieces with¬ 
out his name,. under the title of Remarks upon an Eday 
concerning Human Underftanding; the two firft pubiilhed 
in 1697, the laft in 1699; which remarks were anfwered 
by Mrs. Catherine Trotter, afterwards Mrs. Cockburn, 
then but twenty-three years of age, in her Defence of 
Mr. Locke’s Eday, printed in May 1702. Thefe pieces, 
however, were not among the acknowledged works of 
Dr. Burnet. 
Meanwhile, feme farther notice mud be taken of The 
facred Theory^of the Earth, which is the principal of all 
his productions, and indeed is a moft beautiful work. It 
would be endiefs to tranferibe the fine tilings that have 
been Laid of this theory. Mr. Addifen, in 1699, wrote, a 
Latin-ode in its praife, which lias been prefixed to many 
editions of it. An able writer has not fern pled, from this 
•fm-de work, to rank Dr. Burnet with the very few-, in 
■whom the three great faculties of the underftanding, < viz. 
judgment, imagination, and memory, have been found 
N E T. 
united. According to him, there have exited but few 
tranlcendent geniufes, who have .been Angularly bieffed 
with this rare alfemblage of different talents. All that he 
could recoiled, “ who have at once enjoyed in full vigour 
a fublime and fplendid imagination, a folid and profound 
under handing, .an ex aft and tenacious memory, are He¬ 
rodotus, Plato, Tull.y, Livy, Tacitus, Galileo, BaCony 
Des Cartes, Malebranche, Mil tori, Burnet of the Charter- 
houfe, Berkeley, .and Montefquieu.” The fame writer 
afterwards delivers himfelf in thefe terms'of high com¬ 
pliment to Dr. Burnet: “ It has been the lot'of many- 
great names, not to have been able to exprefs themfelves 
with beauty and propriety in the fetters of verfe, in their 
refpeHive languages'; who have yet manifefted the force, 
fertility, and creative power, of a inoft poetic genius, in 
profe. This was the cafe o‘f. Plato, of Lucian, of Fene- 
lon,.of Sir Philip Sidney, and of Dr. Thomas Burnet, 
who, in liis Theory of the.Earth, has difplayed an imagi- 
nation very near equal to that of Milton: 
— ■ . . Mcenia mviidi 
Difccdunt: totum video per inane'ger.i res.'' 
But, notwithftanding thefe encomiums on Burnet, it is 
not pretended that his Theory is built upon principles of 
mathematics and found philofophy : on the contrary, the 
men of fcience were dilpleafed at him for prefuming to 
ereCF a theory, which he would have received as true, 
without proceeding on that foundation. Flamftead is re¬ 
ported to have, told him fomewhat peevifhly, that “there 
went more to the making of a world, than a fine-turned 
period ;” and that “ he was able to overthrow the Theory 
in one (beet of paper.” Others attacked it.in form: Mr. 
Erahnus Warren, reCtor of Worlington in Suffolk, pub¬ 
iilhed two pieces againft it, foon after its appearance ia 
Englifli, and Dr. Burnet anfwered them: which pieces, 
witli tjieir anfwers, have been printed at the end of the 
later editions of the Theory. Mr. John Keill, afterward 
doftor, Savilian profeffor of geometry in Oxford, publidted 
alfo an Examination of it in 1698, to which Dr. Burnet 
replied ; and then Mr. Keill defended himfelf. Burnet's 
reply to Keill is fubjoined to the later editions of his 
Theory ; and Keill’s Examination and Defence, together 
with his Remarks and Defence upon Whifton’s Theory, 
were reprinted together in 1734, 8vo. It is univerfally 
allowed, that Keill has folidly confuted the Theory; and 
it is to be lamented that he did it in the rough way of 
controverfy: yet there are many paffages in his confuta¬ 
tion,which (hew, th.at he at the fame time entertained the 
higheft opinion of the author. “ I acknowledge him (fays 
he) to be an ingenious writer; and if he had takena right 
method, and had made a confiderable progrefs in thofe 
fciences that, are introductory to the ftudy of nature, I 
doubt not but he would have made a very acute philoso¬ 
pher. It was his unhappinefs to begin at firft: with the 
Cartefian philofophy.; and, not having a fufticient (lock of 
geometrical and mechanical principles to examine it right¬ 
ly, he too eafily believed it, and thought that there was 
but little (Hill required in thofe fciences to become a phi- 
lofopher ; and therefore, in imitation of Monf. des Cartes, 
he would undertake to (hew how the world was made ; a 
taftc too great, even for a mathematician.” 
Many perhaps may wonder, that a book fundamentally 
wrong fliould run through fo many editions, and be fo 
much read ; but the reafon is plain. No man reads Ho¬ 
mer’s Iliad for hiftory, any more than lie reads Milton’s 
Paradife Loft for divinity; though it is poflible there may 
be true hiftory in the one, as it is certain thefe is feme 
true divinity.in the other. Such works are read, purely 
to entertain and amufe the fancy ; and it is not the ftory 
that is fought after, but'.the greatnefs of imagery, and no- 
bleoefs of fentiments,, with which they abound. Why may 
not, Burnet’s Theory of the Earth be read with the fame 
view ? It is not true in philofophy ; but it Is full of vaft 
and fublime conceptions, prefents to the imagination new 
and aftonilhing lcenes, ancl will therefore always furnifih. 
c a 
