be collected from his notes, the absurd doctrine of non-resistance to government in all supposable cases; but was, what some have called, a moderate tory; and like most of the leading tories in the reign of the queen, was attached to the Hanover succession. The wiser members of this party held, that the right of the people to govern depends on the different laws and constitutions of different countries; but that their right to be well governed is indefesible. The following character of his lordship has been transmitted to us by Swift, whilst eulogizing the chiefs of queen Anne's last ministry, in the twenty-sixth number of the Examiner. "My lord Dartmouth," he says, "is a man of letters, full of good "sense, good nature, and honour, of strict "virtue and regularity in his life; but labours "under one great defect, that he treats his "clerks with more civility and good man66 ners, than others in his station have done "the queen." See also Macky's Characters, p. 89. His lordship's notes on this work of Burnet abound in curious and well told anecdotes.

The observations of speaker Onslow and the earl of Hardwicke have likewise been hitherto unpublished, except twenty of the former, printed in the twenty-seventh volume of

the European Magazine. But more than half of Swift's short and cursory remarks have been already given to the public in that and the two following volumes of the same work, by the person who communicated the others, yet often altered in the expression. They are shrewd, caustic, and apposite, but not written with the requisite decorum; indeed, three of them are worded in so light a way, that even modesty forbad their admission. The speaker's notes, addressed more particularly to his son, contain many incidental discussions on political subjects, and are sensible and instructive. Those of the earl of Hardwicke are so candid and judicious, that one cannot but wish them to have been more numerous. Lord Spencer, we are eager to acknowledge, condescendingly and most obligingly endeavoured to procure the copy of Burnet's history for our use, in the margin of which the notes were originally written by lord Hardwicke, it being desirable that some doubtful passages of the transcript in the Onslow copy should have been compared with it; but unfortunately the book could not be found.

The earl of Dartmouth and dean Swift, although both of them much younger than bishop Burnet, may be considered as his contemporaries; and were, as has been already ob

served of lord Dartmouth, opposed to him in politics: but Arthur Onslow, speaker in four successive parliaments in the reign of George II. enjoyed the confidence of the whigs, and with it a high reputation for integrity and moderation. The remaining annotator, lord Hardwicke, son of the lord chancellor Hardwicke, and one of the authors of those elegant compositions the Athenian Letters, always adhered to the same party. Lord Dartmouth uses strong, and Swift much ill language, on Burnet's supposed want of veracity; and the excellent Latin verses of dean Moss on the same subject are now, we understand, in print. Yet the bishop's friends need not be apprehensive of a verdict of wilful falsehood against him in consequence of the corrections of his narrative in the subsequent annotations. Lord Dartmouth indeed, a man of honour, asserts, that this author has published many things which he knew to be untrue. See his note at the beginning of vol. iv. His lordship, it must be allowed, had better opportunities than we have for determining what Burnet knew; but, as he has adduced little or nothing in support of this charge, we may be permitted to think, that strong prejudice, not wilful falsehood, occasioned the bishop's erroneous statements. It

ought to be recollected in his favour, that he never professed a belief, either in the discoveries of Oates, or in the alleged murder of the earl of Essex, although articles of his party's creed. And notwithstanding the idle stories told by him, on the authority of others, concerning the birth of the prince of Wales, he no where, that we remember, explicitly avows an opinion of his illegitimacy. Nor, although an active and zealous opposer of king James's measures, does he appear to have been concerned in those two other infamous falsehoods imposed at the same time on the credulity of the nation; the letter of the Jesuits at Liege, which he mentions in vol. iii. p. 169, and the intended massacre of the protestants in this country. There is a story indeed, which used to be told on the authority of the dowager countess of Nottingham, that Burnet, in a conversation with her lord, accused him of having professed different sentiments in the house of peers on some subject from what he then did; and on lord Nottingham's denying that he had so expressed himself, the bishop, as it was stated, rejoined, if his lordship had not, he ought to have done so: and that, notwithstanding this in Burnet's History of his Own Time lord Nottingham is represented to have said

that, which he denied he had said. All this may be true, and yet the bishop might not believe himself to have been mistaken. It must however be confessed, that where either party-zeal or personal resentment was concerned, this author too frequently appears to have been no patient investigator of the truth, but to have written under the influence of both those feelings, even whilst he was delineating the characters of some of the most virtuous persons of the age in which he lived. Amongst these are the archbishops Sheldon and Sancroft, of whom he frequently speaks with unpardonable severity. He has also directed much indiscriminate censure against public bodies of men. Indeed it appears by the preface to his work, that he himself suspected he had treated the clergy in particular with excessive harshness, irritated, he says, perhaps too "much against them, in consequence of the peevishness, ill-nature, and ambition of "many of them." Nay, from some particulars, which will hereafter be mentioned, it may be collected, that the author actually omitted many passages of his history still more highly reflecting on his brethren.

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That he was by no means acceptable to those prelates, who governed the church of