Part III, vol. ii, p. 290: 'The King's Forces, by the Directions of

Dr. _Chillingworth_, had provided certain Engines, after the manner of the Roman _Testudines cum Pluteis_, wherewith they intended to Assault the City between the South and West Gates; They ran upon Cart-Wheels, with a _Blind_ of Planks Musquet-proof, and holes for four Musqueteers to play out of, placed upon the Axle-tree to defend the Musqueteers and those that thrust it forwards, and carrying a Bridge before it; the Wheels were to fall into the Ditch, and the end of the Bridge to rest upon the Towns Breastworks, so making several compleat Bridges to enter the City. To prevent which, the Besieged intended to have made another Ditch out of their Works, so that the Wheels falling therein, the Bridge would have fallen too short of their Breastworks into their wet Mote, and so frustrated that Design.'

ll. 26 ff. Hopton took Arundel Castle on December 9, 1643, and was forced to surrender on January 6 (Clarendon, vol. iii, pp. 330-5). Aubrey says that Chillingworth 'dyed of the _morbus castrensis_ after the taking of Arundel castle by the parliament: wherin he was very much blamed by the king's soldiers for his advice in military affaires there, and they curst _that little priest_ and imputed the losse of the castle to his advice'. (_Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 172). The chief actor in the final persecution was Francis Cheynell (1608-65), afterwards intruded President of St. John's College and Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford; see his _Chillingworthi Novissima. Or, the Sicknesse, Heresy, Death, and Buriall of William Chillingworth (In his own phrase) Clerk of Oxford, and in the conceit of his fellow Souldiers, the Queens Arch-Engineer, and Grand-Intelligencer_, 1644.

53.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 55; _Life_, ed. 1759, pp. 24, 25.

Weakness of character disguised by ready wit, pleasant discourse, and charm of manner is Clarendon's judgement on Waller. They had been friends in their early days when Waller was little more than an opulent poet who could make a good speech in parliament; but his behaviour on the discovery of 'Waller's plot', the purpose of which was to hold the city for the king, his inefficiency in any action but what was directed to his own safety and advancement, and his subsequent relations with Cromwell, definitely estranged them. To Clarendon, Waller is the time-server whose pleasing arts are transparent. 'His company was acceptable, where his spirit was odious.' The censure was the more severe because of the part which Waller had just played at Clarendon's fall. The portrait may be overdrawn; but there is ample evidence from other sources to confirm its essential truth.

Burnet says that '_Waller_ was the delight of the House: And even at eighty he said the liveliest things of any among them: He was only concerned to say that which should make him be applauded. But he never laid the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, tho' a witty, man' (_History of His Own Time_, ed. 1724, vol. i, p. 388). He is described by Aubrey, _Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. ii, pp. 276-7.

Clarendon's character was included by Johnson in his _Life of Waller_, with a few comments. Page 179, l. 1. _a very rich wife_, Anne, only daughter of John Bankes, mercer; married 1631, died 1634. 'The fortune which Waller inherited from his father, which must have been largely increased during his long minority, has been variously estimated at from £2,000 to £3,500 a year; adding to this the amount which he received with Miss Bankes, said to have been about £8,000, and allowing for the difference in the value of the money, it appears probable that, with the exception of Rogers, the history of English literature can show no richer poet' (_Poems of Waller_, ed. Thorn Drury, vol. i, p. xx).

l. 4. _M'r Crofts_, William Crofts (1611-77), created Baron Crofts of Saxham in 1658 at Brussels. He was captain of Queen Henrietta Maria's Guards.

l. 6. _D'r Marly_. See p. 92, l. 21, note.

ll. 10-14. Waller's poems were first published in 1645, when Waller was abroad. But they had been known in manuscript. They appear to have first come to the notice of Clarendon when Waller was introduced to the brilliant society of which Falkland was the centre. If the introduction took place, as is probable, about 1635, this is the explanation of Clarendon's 'neere thirty yeeres of age'. But some of his poems must have been written much earlier. What is presumably his earliest piece, on the escape of Prince Charles from shipwreck at Santander on his return from Spain in 1623, was probably written shortly after the event it describes, though like other of his early pieces it shows, as Johnson pointed out, traces of revision.

l. 21. _nurced in Parliaments_. He entered Parliament in 1621, at the age of sixteen, as member for Amersham. See _Poems_, ed. Drury, vol. i. p. xvii.

Page 180, l. 5. The great instance of his wit is his reply to Charles II, when asked why his Congratulation 'To the King, upon his Majesty's happy Return' was inferior to his Panegyric 'Upon the Death of the Lord Protector'--'Poets, Sir, succeed better in fiction than in truth' (quoted from _Menagiana_ in Fenton's 'Observations on Waller's Poems', and given by Johnson). See _Lives of the Poets_, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. i, p. 271.

54.

Brief View and Survey of the Dangerous and pernicious Errors to Church and State, In Mr. Hobbes's Book, Entitled Leviathan. By Edward Earl of Clarendon. Oxford, 1676. (pp. 2-3.)

It is a misfortune that Clarendon did not write a character of Hobbes, and, more than this, that there is no character of Hobbes by any one which corresponds in kind to the other characters in this collection. But in answering the _Leviathan_, Clarendon thought it well to state by way of introduction that he was on friendly terms with the author, and the passage here quoted from his account of their relations is in effect a character. He condemned Hobbes's political theories; 'Yet I do hope', he says, 'nothing hath fallen from my Pen, which implies the least undervaluing of Mr. _Hobbes_ his Person, or his Parts.'

Page 181, l. 21. _ha's_, a common spelling at this time and earlier, on the false assumption that _has_ was a contraction of _haves_.

55.

Bodleian Library, MS. Aubrey 9, foll. 34-7, 41, 42, 46-7.

The text of these notes on Hobbes is taken direct from Aubrey's manuscript, now in the Bodleian Library. The complete life is printed in _Brief Lives by John Aubrey_, edited by Andrew Clark, 1898, vol. i, pp. 321-403.

Aubrey collected most of his biographical notes, to which he gave the title '[Greek: Schediasmata.] Brief Lives', in order to help Anthony à Wood in the compilation of his _Athenæ Oxonienses_. 'I have, according to your desire', he wrote to Wood in 1680, 'putt in writing these minutes of lives tumultuarily, as they occur'd to my thoughts or as occasionally I had information of them.... 'Tis a taske that I never thought to have undertaken till you imposed it upon me.' Independently of Wood, Aubrey had collected material for a life of Hobbes, in accordance with a promise he had made to Hobbes himself. All his manuscript notes were submitted to Wood, who made good use of them. On their return Aubrey deposited them in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the library of which is now merged in the Bodleian.

The notes were written 'tumultuarily', jotted down hastily, and as hastily added to, altered, and transposed. They are a first draft for the fair copy which was never made. The difficulty of giving a true representation of them in print is increased by Aubrey's habit of inserting above the line alternatives to words or phrases without deleting the original words or even indicating his preference. In the present text the later form has, as a rule, been adopted, the other being given in a footnote.

'The Life of Mr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesburie' is by far the longest of Aubrey's 'Brief Lives', but it does not differ from the others in manner. The passages selected may be regarded as notes for a character.

Page 183, ll. 1 ff. Aubrey is a little more precise in his notes on Bacon. 'Mr. Thomas Hobbes told me ... that he was employed in translating part of the Essayes, viz. three of them, one whereof was that of the Greatnesse of Cities, the other two I have now forgott' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 83). On the evidence of style, Aldis Wright thought that the other two essays translated by Hobbes were 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation' and 'Of Innovation': see the preface to his edition of _Bacon's Essays_, 1862, pp. xix, xx. The translation appeared in 1638 under the title _Sermones fideles, sive interiora rerum_.

l. 4. Gorhambury was Bacon's residence in Hertfordshire, near St. Alban's, inherited from his father. Aubrey described it in a long digression 'for the sake of the lovers of antiquity', ed. Clark, vol. i, pp. 79-84, and p. 19.

l. 5. Thomas Bushell (1594-1674), afterwards distinguished as a mining engineer and metallurgist: see his life in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

Page 185, l. 2. (_i._) or _i._, a common form at this time for _i.e._

l. 20. Henry Lawes (1596-1662), who wrote the music for _Comus_, and to whom Milton addressed one of his sonnets:

_Harry_ whose tuneful and well measur'd Song First taught our English Musick how to span Words with just note and accent,... To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth aire couldst humor best our tongue.

This sonnet was prefixed to Lawes's _Choice Psalmes_ in 1648; his _Ayres and Dialogues for One, Two, and Three Voices_ appeared in three books from 1653 to 1658.

56.

The Life of That Reverend Divine, and Learned Historian, Dr. Thomas Fuller. London, 1661. (pp. 66-77.)

This work was twice reissued with new title-pages at Oxford in 1662, and was for the first time reprinted in 1845 by way of introduction to J.S. Brewer's edition of Fuller's _Church History_. It is the basis of all subsequent lives of Fuller. But the author is unknown.

The passage here quoted from the concluding section of this _Life_ is the only contemporary sketch of Fuller's person and character that is now known. Aubrey's description is a mere note, and is considerably later: 'He was of a middle stature; strong sett; curled haire; a very working head, in so much that, walking and meditating before dinner, he would eate-up a penny loafe, not knowing that he did it. His naturall memorie was very great, to which he had added the _art of memorie_: he would repeate to you forwards and backwards all the signes from Ludgate to Charing-crosse' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 257).

Page 187, l. 20. _a perfect walking Library_, Compare p. 171, l. 19, note.

Page 191, ll. 3 ff. Compare Aubrey. But Fuller disclaimed the use of an art of memory. 'Artificiall memory', he said, 'is rather a trick then an art.' He condemned the 'artificiall rules which at this day are delivered by Memory-mountebanks'. His great rule was 'Marshall thy notions into a handsome method'. See his section 'Of Memory' in his _Holy State_, 1642, Bk. III, ch. 10; and compare J.E. Bailey, _Life of Thomas Fuller_, 1874, pp. 413-15.

57.

Bodleian Library, MS. Aubrey 8 foll. 63, 63 v, 68.

The text is taken direct from Aubrey's manuscript, such contractions as 'X'ts coll:' and 'da:' for daughter being expanded. For the complete life, see _Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. ii, pp. 62-72.

There is no character of Milton. We have again to be content with notes for a character.

Page 192, l. 7. Christ's College, Cambridge, which Milton entered in February 1625, aged sixteen.

ll. 15-18. Milton had three daughters, by his first wife--Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Mary died unmarried. Deborah's husband, Abraham Clarke, left Dublin for London during the troubles in Ireland under James II: see Masson's _Life of Milton_, vol. vi, p. 751. He is described by Johnson as a 'weaver in Spitalfields': see _Lives of the Poets_, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. i, pp. 158-60.

Page 193, ll. 2-4. _Litera Canina_. See Persius, _Sat_. i. 109 'Sonat hic de nare canina littera'; and compare Ben Jonson, _English Grammar_, '_R_ Is the _Dogs_ Letter, and hurreth in the sound.'

ll. 11, 12. But the Comte de Cominges, French Ambassador to England, 1662-5, in his report to Louis XIV on the state of literature in England, spoke of 'un nommé Miltonius qui s'est rendu plus infâme par ses dangereux écrits que les bourreaux et les assassins de leur roi'. This was written in 1663, and Cominges knew only Milton's Latin works. See J.J. Jusserand, _A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles the Second_, 1892, p. 58, and _Shakespeare en France_, 1898, p. 107.

l. 19. _In toto nusquam_. Ovid, _Amores_, i. 5. 18.

Page 194, l. 4. Milton died November 8: see Masson, _Life of Milton_, vol. vi, p. 731.

58.

Letters of State, Written by Mr. John Milton, To most of the Sovereign Princes and Republicks of Europe. From the Year 1649 Till the Year 1659. To which is added, An Account of his Life.... London: Printed in the Year, 1694. (p. xxxvi.)

'The Life of Mr. John Milton' (pp. i-xliv) serves as introduction to this little volume of State Papers. It is the first life of Milton. Edward Phillips (1630-96) was the son of Milton's sister, and was educated by him. Unfortunately he failed to take proper advantage of his great opportunity. The Life is valuable for some of its details, but as a whole it is disappointing; and it makes no attempt at characterization. The note on Milton in his _Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets_, 1675, is also disappointing.

59.

Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost. By J. Richardson, Father and Son. With the Life of the Author, and a Discourse on the Poem. By J.R. Sen. London: M.DCC.XXXIV. (pp. iii-v; xciv; c; cxiv.)

Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745) was one of the chief portrait-painters of his time. There are portraits by him of Pope, Steele, and Prior--all now in the National Portrait Gallery; and his writings on painting were standard works till the time of Reynolds. His book on Milton was an excursion late in life, with the assistance of his son, into another field of criticism. His introductory life of Milton (pp. i-cxliii) is a substantial piece of work, and is valuable as containing several anecdotes that might otherwise have been lost. Those that bear on Milton's character are here reproduced. The typographical eccentricities have been preserved.

Page 194, ll. 28 ff. Edward Millington's place of business was 'at the Pelican in Duck Lane' in 1670; from Michaelmas, 1671, it was 'at the Bible in Little Britain' (see Arber's _Term Catalogues_, vol. i, pp. 31, 93). It was about 1680 that he turned auctioneer of books, though he did not wholly abandon publishing. 'There was usually as much Comedy in his "Once, Twice, Thrice", as can be met with in a modern Play.' See the _Life and Errors of John Dunton_, ed. 1818, pp. 235-6. He died at Cambridge in 1703.

Page 196, l. 4. Dr. Tancred Robinson (d. 1748), physician to George I, and knighted by him.

l. 10. Henry Bendish (d. 1740), son of Bridget Ireton or Bendish, Cromwell's granddaughter: see _Letters of John Hughes_, ed. John Duncombe, vol. ii (1773), pp. x, xlii.

l. 14. John Thurloe (1616-68), Secretary of State under Cromwell. Compare No. 38 note.

l. 25. 'Easy my unpremeditated verse', _Paradise Lost_, ix. 24.

60.

The Works of M'r Abraham Cowley. Consisting of Those which were formerly Printed: and Those which he Design'd for the Press, Now Published out of the Authors Original Copies. London, 1668.--'Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose,' No. II. (pp. 143-6.)

Cowley's Essays were written towards the close of his life. They were 'left scarce finish'd', and many others were to have been added to them. They were first published posthumously in the collected edition of 1668, under the superintendence of Thomas Sprat (see No. 61). This edition, which alone is authoritative, has been followed in the present reprint of the eleventh and last Essay, probably written at the beginning of 1667.

Page 198, l. 1. _at School_, Westminster.

ll. 19 ff. The concluding stanzas of 'A Vote', printed in Cowley's _Sylva_, 1636. Cowley was then aged eighteen. The first stanza contains three new readings, 'The unknown' for 'Th' ignote', 'I would have' for 'I would hug', and 'Not on' for 'Not from'.

Page 199, l. 15. _out of Horace_, _Odes_, iii. 29. 41-5.

Page 200, l. 4. _immediately_. The reading in the text of 1668 is 'irremediably', but 'immediately' is given as the correct reading in the 'Errata' (printed on a slip that is pasted in at the conclusion of Cowley's first preface). The edition of 1669 substitutes 'immediately' in the text. The alteration must be accepted on Sprat's authority, but it is questionable if it gives a better sense.

ll. 6-10. Cowley was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Westminster scholar on June 14, 1637. He was admitted Minor Fellow in 1640, and graduated M.A. in 1643. He was ejected in the following year as a result of the Earl of Manchester's commission to enforce the solemn League and Covenant in Cambridge. See _Cowley's Pure Works_, ed. J.R. Lumby, pp. ix-xiii, and Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. i, p. 5.

ll. 9, 10. _Cedars ... Hyssop_. I Kings, iv. 33.

l. 12. _one of the best Persons_, Henry Jermyn, created Baron Jermyn, 1643, and Earl of St. Albans, 1660, chief officer of Henrietta Maria's household in Paris: see Clarendon, vol. iv, p. 312. As secretary to Jermyn, Cowley 'cyphcr'd and decypher'd with his own hand, the greatest part of all the Letters that passed between their Majesties, and managed a vast Intelligence in many other parts: which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week' (Sprat). He told Sprat that he intended to dedicate all his Essays to St. Albans 'as a testimony of his entire respects to him'.

Page 201, l. 10. _Well then_. The opening lines of 'The Wish', included in _The Mistress_, 1647 (ed. 1668, pp. 22-3).

ll. 14 ff. At the instance of Jermyn, Cowley had been promised by both Charles I and Charles II the mastership of the Savoy Hospital, but the post was given in 1660 to Sheldon, and in 1663, on Sheldon's promotion to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, to Henry Killigrew: see W.J. Loftie, _Memorials of the Savoy_, 1878, pp. 145 ff., and Wood, _Fasti Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, part I, col. 494. In the _Calendar of State Papers_, Domestic Series, 1661-2, p. 210, there is the statement of the case of Abraham Cowley, 'showing that the place may be held by a person not a divine, and that Cowley ... having seen all preferments given away, and his old University companions advanced before him, is put to great shame by missing this place'. He is called 'Savoy missing Cowley' in the Restoration _Session of the Poets_, printed in _Poems on State Affairs_.

l. 21. _Thou, neither_. In the ode entitled 'Destinie', _Pindarique Odes_, 1656 (ed. 1668, p. 31, 'That neglected').

l. 28. _A Corps perdu_, misprinted _A Corps perdi_, edd. 1668, 1669, _A Corpus perdi_, 1672, 1674, &c.; _Perdue_, Errata, 1668.

Page 202, l. 1. St. Luke, xii. 16-21.

ll. 3-5. 'Out of hast to be gone away from the Tumult and Noyse of the City, he had not prepar'd so healthful a situation in the Country, as he might have done, if he had made a more leasurable choice. Of this he soon began to find the inconvenience at _Barn Elms_, where he was afflicted with a dangerous and lingring _Fever_.... Shortly after his removal to _Chertsea_ [April 1665], he fell into another consuming Disease. Having languish'd under this for some months, he seem'd to be pretty well cur'd of its ill Symptomes. But in the heat of the last Summer [1667], by staying too long amongst his Laborers in the Medows, he was taken with a violent Defluxion, and Stoppage in his Breast, and Throat. This he at first neglected as an ordinary Cold, and refus'd to send for his usual Physicians, till it was past all remedies; and so in the end after a fortnight sickness, it prov'd mortal to him' (Sprat). In the Latin life prefixed to Cowley's _Poemata Latina_, 1668, Sprat is more specific: 'Initio superioris Anni, inciderat in _Morbum_, quem Medici _Diabeten_ appellant.'

l. 6. _Non ego_. Horace, _Odes_, ii. 17. 9, 10.

ll. 11 ff. _Nec vos_. These late Latin verses may be Cowley's own, but they are not in his collected Latin poems. Compare Virgil, _Georgics_, ii. 485-6. 'Syluæq;' = 'Sylvæque': 'q;' was a regular contraction for _que_: cf. p. 44, l. 6.

61.

The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, 1668.--'An Account of the Life and Writings of M'r Abraham Cowley'. (pp. [18]-[20].)

Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), author of _The History of the Royal-Society_, 1667, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, 1684, was entrusted by Cowley's will with 'the revising of all his Works that were formerly printed, and the collecting of those Papers which he had design'd for the Press'; and as literary executor he brought out in 1668 a folio edition of the English works, and an octavo edition of the Latin works. To both he prefixed a life, one in English and the other in Latin. The more elaborate English life was written partly in the hope that 'a Character of Mr. _Cowley_ may be of good advantage to our Nation'. Unfortunately the ethical bias has injured the biography. In Johnson's words, 'his zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life of Cowley; for he writes with so little detail that scarcely any thing is distinctly known, but all is shewn confused and enlarged through the mist of panegyrick.' Similarly Coleridge asks 'What literary man has not regretted the prudery of Sprat in refusing to let his friend Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing-gown?' (_Biographia Literaria_, ch. iii). His method is the more to be regretted as no one knew Cowley better in his later years. His greatest error of judgement was to suppress his large collection of Cowley's letters. But with all its faults Sprat's Life of Cowley occupies an important place at the beginning of English biography of men of letters. It is the earliest substantial life of a poet whose reputation rested on his poetry. Fulke Greville's life of Sir Philip Sidney was the life of a soldier and a statesman of promise; and to Izaak Walton, Donne was not so much a poet as a great Churchman.

In the edition of 1668 the life of Cowley runs to twenty-four folio pages. The passage here selected deals directly with his character.

Page 203, ll. 25-7. It is evidently the impression of a stranger at first sight that Aubrey gives in his short note: 'A.C. discoursed very ill and with hesitation' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 190).

62.

A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections. By George Savile, Marquis of Halifax. London: MDCCL.

Halifax's elaborate and searching account of Charles II was first published in 1750 'from his original Manuscripts, in the Possession of his Grand-daughter Dorothy Countess of Burlington'. It consists of seven parts: I. Of his Religion; II. His Dissimulation; III. His Amours, Mistresses, &c.; IV. His Conduct to his Ministers; V. Of his Wit and Conversation; VI. His Talents, Temper, Habits, &c.; VII. Conclusion. Only the second, fifth, and sixth are given here. The complete text is reprinted in Sir Walter Raleigh's _Works of Halifax_, 1912, pp. 187-208.

For other characters of Charles, in addition to the two by Burnet which follow, see Evelyn's _Diary_, February 4, 1685; Dryden's dedication of _King Arthur_, 1691; 'A Short Character of King Charles the II' by John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Duke of Buckingham, 'Printed from the Original Copy' in _Miscellaneous Works Written by George, late Duke of Buckingham_, ed. Tho. Brown, vol. ii, 1705, pp. 153-60, and with Pope's emendations in _Works_, 1723, vol. ii, pp. 57-65; and James Welwood's _Memoirs Of the Most Material Transactions in England, for the Last Hundred Years, Preceding the Revolution_, 1700, pp. 148-53.

For Halifax himself, see No. 72.

Page 208, l. 12. An allusion to the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, which assumed prominence in England with the publication in 1690 of Sir William Temple's _Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning_. Compare Burnet, p. 223, l. 11 and note.

PAGE 209, l. 29. _Ruelle_. Under Louis XIV it was the custom for ladies of fashion to receive morning visitors in their bedrooms; hence _ruelle_, the passage by the side of a bed, came to mean a ladies' chamber. Compare _The Spectator_, Nos. 45 and 530.

Page 211, l. 2. _Tiendro cuydado_, evidently an imperfect recollection of the phrase _se tendrá cuydado_, 'care will be taken', 'the matter will have attention': compare _Cortes de Madrid_, 1573, Peticion 96,... 'se tendrá cuidado de proueher en ello lo que conuiniere'.

Page 212, ll. 7, 8. Compare Pepys's _Diary_, May 4, 1663: 'meeting the King, we followed him into the Park, where Mr. Coventry and he talking of building a new yacht out of his private purse, he having some contrivance of his own'. Also, Evelyn's _Diary_, February 4, 1685: 'a lover of the sea, and skilful in shipping; not affecting other studies, yet he had a laboratory and knew of many empirical medicines, and the easier mechanical mathematics.' Also, Buckingham, ed. 1705, p. 155: 'the great and almost only pleasure of Mind he seem'd addicted to, was _Shipping_ and _Sea-Affairs_; which seem'd to be so much his Talent for _Knowledge_, as well as _Inclination_, that a War of that Kind, was rather an _Entertainment_, than any _Disturbance_ to his Thoughts.' Also Welwood, _Memoirs_, p. 151. Also, Burnet, _infra_, p. 219.

Page 213, l. 10. According to Pepys (_Diary_, December 8, 1666), the distinction between Charles Stuart and the King was drawn by Tom Killigrew in his remonstrance to Charles on the very ill state that matters were coming to: 'There is a good, honest, able man, that I could name, that if your Majesty would employ, and command to see all things well executed, all things would soon be mended; and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the Court, and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it.'

Page 217, ll. 11 ff. Compare Welwood's _Memoirs_, p. 149.

63.

Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. From the Restoration of King Charles II. to the Settlement of King William and Queen Mary at the Revolution. London: 1724. (pp. 93-4.)

Burnet began his _History of His Own Time_ in 1683, after the publication of his _History of the Reformation_. In its original form it partook largely of the nature of Memoirs. But on the appearance of Clarendon's History in 1702 he was prompted to recast his entire narrative on a method that confined the strictly autobiographical matter to a section by itself and as a whole assured greater dignity. The part dealing with the reign of Charles II was rewritten by August 1703. The work was brought down to 1713 and completed in that year. Two years later Burnet died, leaving instructions that it was not to be printed till six years after his death.

The _History_ was published in two folio volumes, dated 1724 and 1734. The first, which contains the reigns of Charles II and James II, came out at the end of 1723 and was edited by Burnet's second son, Gilbert Burnet, then rector of East Barnet. The second volume was edited by his third son, Thomas Burnet, afterwards a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. The complete autograph of the History, and the transcript which was prepared for the press under the author's directions, are now both in the Bodleian Library.

The original form of the work survives in two transcripts (one of them with Burnet's autograph corrections) in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, and in a fragment of Burnet's original manuscript in the Bodleian. The portions of this original version that differ materially from the final printed version were published in 1902 by Miss H.C. Foxcroft under the title _A Supplement to Burnet's History_.

Much of the interest of the earlier version lies in the characters, which are generally longer than they became on revision, and sometimes contain details that were suppressed. But in a volume of representative selections, where the art of a writer is as much our concern as his matter, the preference must be given to what Burnet himself intended to be final. The extracts are reprinted from the two volumes edited by his sons. There was not the same reason to go direct to his manuscript as to Clarendon's: see notes p. 231, l. 26; p. 252, l. 10; and p. 255, l. 6.

64.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 611-3.)

Burnet's two characters of Charles II are in striking agreement with the more elaborate study by Halifax.

Page 221, ll. 1 ff. Compare Halifax, p. 216, ll. 10 ff.

l. 14. _his Chancellor_, Clarendon.

Page 222, l. 16. _he became cruel_. This statement was attacked by Roger North, _Lives of the Norths_, ed. 1890, vol. i, p. 330: 'whereas some of our barbarous writers call this awaking of the king's genius to a sedulity in his affairs, a growing cruel, because some suffered for notorious treasons, I must interpret their meaning; which is a distaste, because his majesty was not pleased to be undone as his father was; and accordingly, since they failed to wound his person and authority, they fell to wounding his honour.' Buckingham says, 'He was an Illustrious Exception to all the Common Rules of _Phisiognomy_; for with a most _Saturnine_ harsh sort of Countenance, he was both of a _Merry_ and a _Merciful_ Disposition' (ed. 1705, p. 159); with which compare Welwood, ed. 1700, p. 149. The judicial verdict had already been pronounced by Halifax: see p. 216, ll. 23 ff.

ll. 21-3. See Burnet, ed. Osmund Airy, vol. i, p. 539, for the particular reference. The scandal was widespread, but groundless.

Page 223, l. 9. _the war of Paris_, the Fronde. See Clarendon, vol. v, pp. 243-5.

ll. 11 ff. Compare Buckingham, ed. 1705, p. 157: 'Witty in all sorts of Conversation; and telling a Story so well, that, not out of Flattery, but the Pleasure of hearing it, we seem'd Ignorant of what he had repeated to us Ten Times before; as a good _Comedy_ will bear the being often seen.' Also Halifax, p. 208, ll. 7-14.

l. 17. John Wilmot (1647-80), second Earl of Rochester, son of Henry Wilmot, first Earl (No. 32). Burnet knew him well and wrote his life, _Some Passages of the Life and Death Of the Right Honourable John Earl of Rochester_, 1680; 'which', says Johnson, 'the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety' (_Lives of the Poets_, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. i, p. 222).

ll. 25 ff. The resemblance to Tiberius was first pointed out in print in Welwood's _Memoirs_, p. 152, which appeared twenty-four years before Burnet's _History_. But Welwood was indebted to Burnet. He writes as if they had talked about it; or he might have seen Burnet's early manuscript.

65.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 94-5.)

The author of most of the characters in this volume himself deserves a fuller character. The main portions of Burnet's original sketch (1683) are therefore given here, partly by way of supplement, and partly to illustrate the nature of Burnet's revision (1703):

'The great man with the king was chancellor Hyde, afterwards made Earl of Clarendon. He had been in the beginning of the long parliament very high against the judges upon the account of the ship-money and became then a considerable man; he spake well, his style had no flaw in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes shewed more wit than discretion. He went over to the court party when the war was like to break out, and was much in the late king's councils and confidence during the war, though he was always of the party that pressed the king to treat, and so was not in good terms with the queen. The late king recommended him to this king as the person on whose advices he wished him to rely most, and he was about the king all the while that he was beyond sea, except a little that he was ambassador in Spain; he managed all the king's correspondences in England, both in the little designs that the cavaliers were sometimes engaged in, and chiefly in procuring money for the king's subsistence, in which Dr. Sheldon was very active; he had nothing so much before his eyes as the king's service and doated on him beyond expression: he had been a sort of governor to him and had given him many lectures on the politics and was thought to assume and dictate too much ... But to pursue Clarendon's character: he was a man that knew England well, and was lawyer good enough to be an able chancellor, and was certainly a very incorrupt man. In all the king's foreign negotiations he meddled too much, for I have been told that he had not a right notion of foreign matters, but he could not be gained to serve the interests of other princes. Mr. Fouquet sent him over a present of 10,000 pounds after the king's restoration and assured him he would renew that every year, but though both the king and the duke advised him to take it he very worthily refused it. He took too much upon him and meddled in everything, which was his greatest error. He fell under the hatred of most of the cavaliers upon two accounts. The one was the act of indemnity which cut off all their hopes of repairing themselves of the estates of those that had been in the rebellion, but he said it was the offer of the indemnity that brought in the king and it was the observing of it that must keep him in, so he would never let that be touched, and many that had been deeply engaged in the late times having expiated it by their zeal of bringing home the king were promoted by his means, such as Manchester, Anglesey, Orrery, Ashley, Holles, and several others. The other thing was that, there being an infinite number of pretenders to employments and rewards for their services and sufferings, so that the king could only satisfy some few of them, he upon that, to stand between the king and the displeasure which those disappointments had given, spoke slightly of many of them and took it upon him that their petitions were not granted; and some of them having procured several warrants from the secretaries for the same thing (the secretaries considering nothing but their fees), he who knew on whom the king intended that the grant should fall, took all upon him, so that those who were disappointed laid the blame chiefly if not wholly upon him. He was apt to talk very imperiously and unmercifully, so that his manner of dealing with people was as provoking as the hard things themselves were; but upon the whole matter he was a true Englishman and a sincere protestant, and what has passed at court since his disgrace has sufficiently vindicated him from all ill designs' (_Supplement_, ed. Foxcroft, pp. 53-6).

There is a short character of Clarendon in Warwick's _Mémoires_, pp. 196-8; compare also Pepys's _Diary_, October 13, 1666, and Evelyn's _Diary_, August 27, 1667, and September 18, 1683.

66.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 638-9; _Continuation of the Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, ed. 1759, pp. 51-2.

Page 226, l. 8. He was released from Windsor Castle in March 1660. Compare Burnet's character, p. 228, ll. 2-4.

l. 19. _the Chancellour_, i.e. Clarendon himself.

Page 227, ll. 5 ff. John Middleton (1619-74), created Earl of Middleton, 1656. He was taken prisoner at Worcester, but escaped to France. As Lord High Commissioner for Scotland and Commander-in-chief, he was mainly responsible for the unfortunate methods of forcing episcopacy on Scotland.

William Cunningham (1610-64), ninth Earl of Glencairn, Lord Chancellor of Scotland.

John Leslie (1630-81), seventh Earl and first Duke of Rothes, President of the Council in Scotland; Lord Chancellor, 1667.

On the composition of the ministry in Scotland, compare Burnet, ed. Osmund Airy, vol. i, pp. 199, ff.

67.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 101-2.)

We are fortunate in having companion characters of Lauderdale by Clarendon and Burnet. Their point of view is different. Clarendon describes the Lauderdale of the Restoration who is climbing to power and is officially his inferior. Burnet looks back on him at the height of power and remembers how it was made to be felt. But the two characters have a strong likeness. Burnet is here seen at his best.

Page 228, ll. 14-17. Compare Roger North's _Lives of the Norths_, ed. 1890, vol. i, p. 231: 'the duke himself, being also learned, having a choice library, took great pleasure ... in hearing him talk of languages and criticism'. Compare also Evelyn's _Diary_, August 27, 1678. His library was dispersed by auction--the French, Italian, and Spanish books on May 14, and the English books on May 27, 1690: copies of the sale catalogues are in the Bodleian. The catalogue of his manuscripts, 1692, is printed in the _Bannatyne Miscellany_, vol. ii, 1836, p. 149.

l. 30. As Professor of Theology in the University of Glasgow Burnet had enjoyed the favour of Lauderdale, and had dedicated to him, in fulsome terms, _A Vindication of the Church and State of Scotland_. The break came suddenly, and with no apparent cause, in 1673, when Burnet was appointed royal chaplain and was winning the ears of the King. Henceforward Lauderdale continued a 'violent enemy'. Their relations at this time are described in Clarke and Foxcroft's _Life of Gilbert Burnet_, 1907, pp. 109 ff., where Burnet's concluding letter of December 15, 1673, is printed in full.

Page 229, ll. 2-7. Richard Baxter delivered himself to Lauderdale in a long letter about his lapse from his former professions of piety--'so fallne from all that can be called serious religion, as that sensuality and complyance with sin is your ordinary course.' The letter (undated, but before 1672) is printed in _The Landerdale Papers_, ed. Osmund Airy, Camden Society, vol. iii, 1885, pp. 235-9.

ll. 8-12. 'The broad and pungent wit, and the brutal _bonhomie_.. probably went as far as anything else in securing Charles's favour.' Osmund Airy, Burnet's _History_, vol. i, p. 185.

68.

Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 96-7.)

Page 230, l. 14. He was chosen for Tewkesbury in March 1640, but he did not sit in the Long Parliament.

l. 18, _a town_, Weymouth: see p. 70, l. 21 note. He had been appointed governor of it in August 1643 after some dispute, but was shortly afterwards removed (Clarendon, vol. iii, pp. 163-5, 362).

Page 231, l. 2. Shaftesbury writes about the prediction of 'Doctor Olivian, a German, a very learned physician', in his autobiographical fragment: see No. 14 note.

ll. 14, 15. Compare Burnet's first sketch of Shaftesbury, ed. Foxcroft, p. 59: 'he told some that Cromwell offered once to make him king, but he never offered to impose so gross a thing on me.'

ll. 17, 18. See the Newsletter of December 28, 1654, in _The Clarke Papers_, ed. C.H. Firth, Camden Society, 1899, p. 16: 'a few daies since when the House was in a Grand Committee of the whole House upon the Government, Mr. Garland mooved to have my Lord Protectour crowned, which mocion was seconded by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Mr. Hen. Cromwell, and others, but waved.'

l. 26. After 'party' Burnet wrote (autograph, fol. 49) 'He had no sort of virtue: for he was both a leud and corrupt man: and had no regard either to trueth or Justice.' But he struck out 'no sort ... and had'. The sentence thus read in the transcript (p. 76) 'He had no regard either to Truth or Justice'. This in turn was struck out, either by Burnet himself or by the editor.

The following words are likewise struck out in the transcript, after 'manner' (l. 28): 'and was not out of countenance in owning his unsteadiness and deceitfullness.'

69.

Absalom and Achitophel. A Poem ... The Second Edition; Augmented and Revised. London, 1681. (ll. 142-227.)

The first edition was published on November 17, 1681, a few days before Shaftesbury's trial for high treason. In the second, which appeared within a month, the character of Shaftesbury was 'augmented' by twelve lines (p. 233, ll. 17-28).

Shaftesbury had been satirized by Butler in the Third Part of _Hudibras_, 1678, three years before the crisis in his remarkable career, and while his schemes still prospered. To Butler he is the unprincipled turn-coat who thinks only of his own interests:

So Politick, as if one eye Upon the other were a Spye;... H'had seen three Governments Run down, And had a Hand in ev'ry one, Was for 'em, and against 'em all. But Barb'rous when they came to fall:... By giving aim from side, to side, He never fail'd to save his Tide, But got the start of ev'ry State, And at a Change, ne'r came too late.... Our _State-Artificer_ foresaw, Which way the World began to draw:... He therefore wisely cast about, All ways he could, t'_insure his Throat_; And hither came t'observe, and smoke What Courses other Riscers took: And to the utmost do his Best To Save himself, and Hang the Rest.

(Canto II, ll. 351-420).

Dryden's satire should be compared with Butler's. But a comparison with the prose character by Burnet, which had no immediate political purpose, will reveal even better Dryden's mastery in satirical portraiture. Another verse character is in _The Review_ by Richard Duke, written shortly after Dryden's poem.

Absalom is Monmouth, David Charles II, Israel England, the Jews the English, and a Jebusite a Romanist.

Page 232, l. 28. Compare Seneca, _De Tranquillitate Animi_, xvii. 10: 'nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit.'

Page 233, l. 7. The humorous definition of man ascribed to Plato in Diogenes Laertius, Lib. vi. 40 (Life of Diogenes), [Greek: Platonos horisamenou, anthropos esti zoon dipoun apteron.]

The son was a handsomer man than the father, though he did not inherit his ability. His son, the third earl, was the critic and philosopher who wrote the _Characteristicks_.

l. 12. _the Triple Bond_, the alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden against France in 1667, broken by the war with France against Holland in 1672. But Shaftesbury then knew nothing of the secret Treaty of Dover, 1670.

l. 16. _Usurp'd_, in ed. 1 'Assum'd'.

l. 25. _Abbethdin_ 'the president of the Jewish judicature', 'the father of the house of judgement'. Shaftesbury was Lord Chancellor, 1672-3.

Page 234, l. 4. David would have sung his praises instead of writing a psalm, and so Heaven would have had one psalm the less.

ll. 5, 6. Macaulay pointed out in his essay on Sir William Temple that these lines are a reminiscence of a couplet under the portrait of Sultan Mustapha the First in Knolles's _Historie of the Turkes_ (ed. 1638, p. 1370):

Greatnesse, on Goodnesse loues to slide, not stand, and leaues for Fortunes ice, Vertues firm land.

l. 15. The alleged Popish Plot, invented by Titus Oates, to murder the king and put the government in the hands of the Jesuits. Shaftesbury had no share in the invention, but he believed it, and made political use of it.

Page 235, l. 4. This line reappears in _The Hind and the Panther_,