thereat, that he was not himself for a month after.' That his mind was then seriously disturbed is proved, and the disturbance was occasionally followed by fits of melancholia. Newton himself, writing on the 13th of September 1693 to Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, says: 'I am extremely troubled at the embroilment I am in, and have neither ate nor slept well this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind.' He wrote an apology to his friend Locke for having charged him with embroiling' him with other people— this being one of his hallucinations; and Locke's answer, also extant, is admirable for its gentle and kindly spirit. In 1722 Newton's health began to fail. In February 1727 he came to London to preside at a meeting of the Royal Society, suffered from the journey, and died at Kensington on the 20th of March. He was buried in his rightful place in Westminster Abbey, the Lord Chancellor, two scientific dukes, and three learned earls being pall-bearers.

A letter from Newton to Dr John Mill, written in January 1694, shows how painstaking Newton was in matters of biblical criticism, and implies the value attached to his help by the foremost New Testament scholar of his time:

:

In

SIR,I fear you think I have kept your book too long but to make some amends for detaining it so long, I have sent you not only my old collations so far as they vary from yours, but also some new ones of Dr Covil's two MSS.; for I have collated them anew, and sent you those readings which were either omitted in your printed ones, or there erroneously printed. collating these MSS., I set the readings down in the margin of your book, and thence transcribed them into a sheet of paper, which you will find in your book at the end of the Apocalypse, together with my old collations, and a copy of a side of Beza's MS. The collations I send you of Dr Covil's two MSS. you may rely upon; for I put them into Mr Laughton's hand with the two MSS., and he compared them with the MSS. and found them right. In the other collations you will find that Stephens made several omissions and some other mistakes, in collating the Complutensian edition, though it is probable that he collated this edition with more diligence and accurateness than he did any of the MSS. Where I have noted any readings of the Alexandrin MS., I desire you would collate that MS. again with my readings, because I never had a sight of it. I could not obserye any accurateness in the stops or commas in Beza's MS. You may rely upon the transcript of something more than a side of it, which you will find in your book at the end of the Apocalypse. In your little MS. book, which I return you, tied up together with your New Testament, you will find those transcripts you desired out of MSS., except two, which were in such running hands that I could not imitate them, nor did it seem worth the while, the MSS. being very new ones.--I am, in all sincerity, your most humble and most obedient servant,

IS. NEWTON.

In character Newton was gentle and courteous. He loathed hunting and the shooting of animals, and

held it a serious defect in a friend's character that 'he loved killing of birds.' As Burnet said of him, he had the whitest soul he ever knew.' He took little interest in art he playfully reproached a friendly archeologist with fondness for 'stone dolls.' He was singularly straightforward, modest, and willing to accept criticism, though at times a little difficult and 'nice' on questions of priority -hence many rather futile controversies in which he was engaged. No proposition of his Principia, no theorem of his Optics, has sunk so deeply into men's minds as the saying reported to have been made by him shortly before his death :

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered

before me.

See the Life of Newton by Sir David Brewster (1831; 2nd ed. 1855); A. de Morgan's Newton, his Friend, and his Niece (1885); G. J. Gray's bibliography of Newton's works and works about him (nearly 250 in all; 1888); and Professor P. G. Tait's Newton's Laws of Motion (1899).

John Ray (1627-1705), the son of a blacksmith at Black Notley in Essex, was an eminent naturalist. In botany his very numerous and important works rank him among the founders of the science; and he is commonly regarded as the father of natural history in England. He was educated at Braintree and Cambridge, becoming a Fellow of Trinity, and taking orders in 1660; but in 1662 he was ejected by the 'Black Bartholomew.' Thereupon, with his friend and former pupil, Francis Willughby, he travelled over Wales and southern England, collecting botanical and zoological specimens; and in 1663 they set out on a three years' Continental tour, Willughby taking the zoology, and Ray the botany. Willughby died in 1672, and Ray, after acting as tutor to his friend's sons, in 1679 settled down in his native village. Besides their joint Observations, Topographical, Moral, and Physiological, made in a Journey through the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France (1673), Ray edited Willughby's Ornithologia and Historia Piscium, and himself published A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), A Collection of English Words not generally used (1674), Historia Plantarum Generalis (3 vols. 1686–1704), Synopsis Methodica Animalium (1693), &c. 'Ray,' said Cuvier, 'was the first true systematist of the Animal Kingdom;' and White of Selborne speaks of him as the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators, in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information.' Ray's famous treatise on The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691; 12th ed. 1759) was translated into several Continental languages. He gives as one reason for writing it: By virtue of my function, I suspect myself to be obliged to write something

in divinity, having written so much on other subjects; for, not being permitted to serve the Church with my tongue in preaching, I know not but it may be my duty to serve it with my hand in writing; and I have made choice of this subject, as thinking myself best qualified to treat of it.' Natural theology had previously been developed in England by Boyle, Stillingfleet, Wilkins, Henry More, and Cudworth, and the Essex clergyman, William Derham (1657–1735); but Ray systematised and popularised the subject. Paley's Natural Theology (1802), which superseded Ray's work, is really a development of Ray's argument.

The following excerpts are from the Observations, a book of travels which, always lucid and often very entertaining, yet sometimes-as in the greater Italian towns- becomes almost like a guide-book. On the journey up the Rhine from Collen' to Mentz, hardly one of the castles escapes mention. In university towns, Ray prints the professors' names and the courses of lectures being delivered when he was there. He had an especially open eye for botany and zoology, and 'natural curiosities;' thus at Naples he ascended Vesuvius, stood in the Grotto del Cane till 'the sulphureous twinge in his nose' threatened to stifle him, and thrust a sword into the vents of the Solfatara of Pozzuoli.

The Dutch People.

The common people of Holland, especially inn-keepers, waggoners (foremen they call them), boat-men, and porters, are surly and uncivil. The waggoners bait themselves and their horses four or five times in a day's journey. Generally the Dutch men and women are almost always eating as they travel, whether it be by boat, coach, or waggon. The men are for the most part big-boned and gross-bodied. The first dish at ordinaries and entertainments is usually a salade, Sla they call it, of which they eat abundance in Holland. The meat they commonly stew, and make their Hotchpots of it. Puddings neither here nor in any place we have travelled beyond sea do they eat any; either not knowing the goodness of the dish, or not having the skill to make them: puddings and brawn are dishes proper to England. Boil'd spinage minc'd and butter'd (sometimes also with currans added) is a great dish all over these countries. The common people feed much upon cabiliau (that is cod-fish) and pickled herrings, which they know how to cure or prepare better than we do in England. You shall seldom fail of hung beef in any inn you come into, which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter, laying the slices upon the butter. They have four or five sorts of cheese; three they usually bring forth and set before you. (1) Those great round cheeses, colour'd red on the outside, commonly in England called Holland-cheeses. (2) Cummin-seed cheese. (3) Green cheese, said to be so colour'd with the juice of sheep's-dung. This they scrape upon bread butter'd, and so eat. (4) Sometimes Angelots (5) Cheese like to Our common country cheese.

sions.

Milk is the cheapest of all belly-proviTheir strong beer (thick beer they call it, and well they may) is sold for three stivers the quart, which is more than three pence English. All manner of victuals, both meat and drink, are very dear, not for the scarcity

of such commodities, but partly by reason of the great excise and impost wherewith they are charged, partly by reason of the abundance of money that is stirring here. By the way we may note, that the dearness of this sort of provisions is an argument of the riches of a town or country, these things being always cheapest in the poorest places. Land is also here sold at 30 or 40 years purchase, and yet both houses and land set at very high annual rents: so that, were not the poor workmen and labourers well paid for their pains, they could not possibly live. Their beds are for the most part like cabbins, inconveniently short and narrow; and yet such as they are, you pay in some places ten stivers a night the man for them, and in most six. There is no way for a stranger to deal with inn-keepers, waggoners, porters, and boatmen but by bargaining with them before-hand. Their houses in Holland are kept clean with extraordinary niceness, and the entrance before the door curiously paved with stone. All things both within and without, floor, posts, walls, glass, houshold stuff, marvellously clean, bright and handsomly kept: nay, some are so extraordinarily curious as to take down the very tiles of their pent-houses and cleanse them. Yet about the preparing and dressing of their victuals our English houswives are, I think, more cleanly and curious than they; so that no wonder Englishmen were formerly noted for excessive eating, they having greater temptation to eat, both from the goodness of their meat, and the curiosity of the dressing it, than other nations.

Ray's 'foreman' is the Dutch voerman, German fuhrmann, Angelots were well-known Normandy cheeses.

At Heidelberg.

About the middle of the ascent of the hill, called Koningsthall, stands the castle where the prince keeps his court, a stately pile and of great capacity, encompassed with a strong wall and a deep trench hewn out of the rock, which upon occasion may be filled with water. Over the gate leading into the palace is a Dutch inscription, signifying the building of it by Ludovicus V. in the year 1519. It is not all of one piece, but since the first foundation several buildings have been added by several princes. One part is called the English building. Under one of the towers stood the great tun, which almost fill'd a room. It held 132 fudders, a fudder (as we were informed) being equal to four English hogsheads. The old tun is taken in pieces, and there is a new one in building by the prince's order, which is to contain 150 fudders, or 600 hogsheads. Being invited by the prince's order, we dined in the palace, where we observed all things carried with little noise and great decency. After dinner his highness was pleased to call us into his closet and shew us many curiosities, among others (1) a purse made of Alumen plumosum, which we saw put into a pan of burning charcoal, till it was thoroughly ignite, and yet when taken out and cool, we could not perceive that it had received any harm at all from the fire. (2) Two unicorns horns, each eight or ten foot long, wreathed and hollow to the top. By the way we may note, that these are the horns of a fish of the cetaceous kind (two distinct species whereof you may find described and figured in the History and Description of the Antilles, or Caribee Islands, written in French by R. F. of Tertre, and the head of one in Wormius's Museum), not the horns of a quadruped, as is vulgarly but erroneously thought. Whatever the antients have

delivered, modern voyages and enquiries have discovered no other terrestrial unicorn besides the rhinoceros, which it's most likely is signified by the word RAM used in scripture, which the Septuagint render MovoKÉPWS. (3) The imperial crown and globe of Rupertus Imp., who was of this family, richly adorned with precious stones. (4) An excellent and well digested collection of antient and modern coins and medals of all sorts, in which the prince himself is very knowing. Among the rest, we could not but take notice of a Swedish doller of copper, about the bigness and of the figure of a square trencher, stamped at the four corners with the king's image and arms, of that weight, that if a man be to receive ten or twenty pound in such coin, he must come with a cart and team of horse to carry it home. The Prince Palatine's name and titles are Carolus Ludovicus, Comes Palatinus Rheni, sacri Romani Imperii Elector, utriusque Bavariæ Dux. He speaks six languages perfectly well, viz., High-Dutch, Low-Dutch, English, French, Italian and Latin, is greatly beloved of his subjects, of whom he hath a paternal care, and whose interest he makes his own. In the great church where the famous library was kept, we observed many fair monuments of princes of this family, some with Dutch, most with Latin epitaphs or inscriptions: others in the Franciscans church. In St. Peter's church also a great number of monuments of learned men of the university; which is of good account and one of the best in Germany. Three or four colleges there are built and endowed chiefly for the maintenance and accommodation of poor students. The government of this university is by a senate, which consists only of sixteen professors. The number of professors is limited, and their stipends fix'd by the statutes of the university given them by their founder Rupertus count palatine anno 1346, and confirmed by the pope and emperor. Of these professors three are of divinity; four of law; three of medicine; and six of philosophy.

Koningsthall is a misapprehension for Königstuhl. Dutch is, of course, High German, as of old. The Heidelberg tun known to modern tourists was built in 1751. Plume alum or feather alum, as opposed to rock alum, is also called magnesia alum. The book on the Antilles is the Histoire Générale des Antilles habitées par les François (4 vols. 1667-71), by Jean Baptiste du Tertre, a Dominican missionary (R. F.' being le Réverend Frère). Ole Worm, a Copenhagen collector, published in 1655 a folio catalogue and description of his collection, called Musæum Wormianum.

Ray's Remains, published in 1760 by Derham, contained this touching letter, written with difficulty on his death-bed, to Sir Hans Sloane:

DEAR SIR, the best of friends, these are to take a finall leave of you as to this world: I look upon my self as a dying man. God requite your kindnesse expressed any ways toward me a hundred-fold, blesse you with a confluence of all good things in this world, and eternall life and hapinesse heer after; grant us an happy meeting in heaven. Sr, eternally yours, JOHN RAY.

Dr Thomas Burnet (1635?-1715), born at Croft near Darlington, studied at Cambridge, became in 1685 Master of the Charterhouse in London, and acquired great celebrity by the publication of his work, Telluris Theoria Sacra (1680-89), of which he published versions in English in 1684-89, entitled The Sacred Theory of the Earth. The unequal and rugged appearance of the earth's surface suggested that this our globe is the ruin of

some more regular fabric. Unlike Kant's Theory of the Heavens, published seventy years later, this is no serious and reasonable theory of the evolu tion of a planet from nebulæ; it has no relation to geology or physics, and is purely fantastic and hypothetical, a cosmogonic dream. In a journey across the Alps and Apennines, Burnet says, the sight of those wild, vast, and indigested heaps of stones and earth did so deeply strike my fancy, that I was not easy till I could give myself some tolerable account how that confusion came in nature.' The theory which he formed was the following: The globe in its state of chaos was a dark fluid mass, in which the elements of air, water, and earth were blended into one universal compound. Gradually the heavier parts fell towards the centre, and formed a nucleus of solid matter. Around this floated the liquid ingredients, and over them was the still lighter atmospheric air. By-and-by the liquid mass became separated into two layers, by the separation of the watery particles from those of an oily composition, which, being the lighter, tended upwards, and, when hardened by time, became a smooth and solid crust. This was

ours.

the surface of the antediluvian globe. In this smooth earth,' says Burnet, 'were the first scenes of the world, and the first generations of mankind; it had the beauty of youth and blooming nature, fresh and fruitful, and not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture in all its body; no rocks nor mountains, no hollow caves nor gaping channels, but even and uniform all over. And the smoothness of the earth made the face of the heavens so too; the air was calm and serene; none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts of vapours, which the mountains and the winds cause in 'Twas suited to a golden age, and to the first innocency of nature.' By degrees, however, the heat of the sun, penetrating the superficial crust, converted a portion of the water beneath into steam, the expansive force of which at length burst the superincumbent shell, already weakened by the dryness and cracks occasioned by the solar rays. When, therefore, the 'appointed time was come that All-wise Providence had designed for the punishment of a sinful world, the whole fabric brake, and the frame of the earth was torn in pieces, as by an earthquake; and those great portions or fragments into which it was divided fell into the abyss, some in one posture, and some in another.' The waters of course now appeared, tumultuously raging as the rock masses plunged into the abyss. The impact 'could not but impel the water with so much strength as would carry it up to a great height in the air, and to the top of anything that lay in its way; any eminency or high fragment whatsoever : and then rolling back again, it would sweep down with it whatsoever it rushed upon-woods, buildings, living creatures-and carry them all headlong into the great gulf. Sometimes a mass

of water would be quite struck off and separate from the rest, and tossed through the air like a flying river; but the common motion of the waves was to climb up the hills, or inclined fragments, and then return into the valleys and deeps again, with a perpetual fluctuation going and coming, ascending and descending, till the violence of them being spent by degrees, they settled at last in the places allotted for them; where "bounds are set that they cannot pass over, that they return not again to cover the earth."'

Noah's Flood.

Thus the flood came to its height; and it is not easy to represent to ourselves this strange scene of things, when the deluge was in its fury and extremity; when the earth was broken and swallowed up in the abyss, whose raging waters rose higher than the mountains, and filled the air with broken waves, with a universal mist, and with thick darkness, so as nature seemed to be in a second chaos; and upon this chaos rid the distressed ark that bore the small remains of mankind. No sea was ever so tumultuous as this, nor is there anything in present nature to be compared with the disorder of these waters. All the poetry, and all the hyperboles that are used in the description of storms and raging seas, were literally true in this, if not beneath it. The ark was really carried to the tops of the highest mountains, and into the places of the clouds, and thrown down again into the deepest gulfs; and to this very state of the deluge and of the ark, which was a type of the church in this world, David seems to have alluded in the name of the church (Psalm, xlii. 7): Abyss calls upon abyss at the noise of thy cataracts or water-spouts : all thy waves and billows have gone over me.' It was no doubt an extraordinary and miraculous providence that could make a vessel so ill-manned live upon such a sea; that kept it from being dashed against the hills, or overwhelmed in the deeps. That abyss which had devoured and swallowed up whole forests of woods, cities, and provinces, nay, the whole earth, when it had conquered all and triumphed over all, could not destroy this single ship. I remember in the story of the Argonautics, when Jason set out to fetch the golden fleece, the poet saith, all the gods that day looked down from heaven to view the ship, and the nymphs stood upon the mountain-tops to see the noble youth of Thessaly pulling at the oars; we may with more reason suppose the good angels to have looked down upon this ship of Noah's, and that not out of curiosity, as idle spectators, but with a passionate concern for its safety and deliverance. A ship whose cargo was no less than a whole world; that carried the fortune and hopes of all posterity; and if this had perished, the earth, for anything we know, had been nothing but a desert, a great ruin, a dead heap of rubbish, from the deluge to the conflagration. But death and hell, the grave and destruction, have their bounds.

The concluding part of his work relates to the final conflagration of the world, by which, he supposes, the surface of the new chaotic mass will be restored to smoothness, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it.' Here the style rises to a dignity almost worthy

of the sublimity of the theme; the passage was aptly termed by Addison the author's funeral oration over this globe.

The Final Conflagration.

But is not possible from any station to have a full prospect of this last scene of the earth, for 'tis a mixture of fire and darkness. This new temple is filled with smoke while it is consecrating, and none can enter into it. But I am apt to think, if we could look down upon this burning world from above the clouds, and have a full view of it in all its parts, we should think it a lively representation of hell itself; for fire and darkness are the two chief things by which that state or that place uses to be described; and they are both here mingled together, with all other ingredients that make that Tophet that is prepared of old (Isaiah, xxx.). Here are lakes of fire and brimstone, rivers of melted glowing matter, ten thousand volcanoes vomiting flames all at once, thick darkness, and pillars of smoke twisted about with wreaths of flame, like fiery snakes; mountains of earth thrown up into the air, and the heavens dropping down in lumps of fire. These things will all be literally true concerning that day and that state of the earth. And if we suppose Beelzebub and his apostate crew in the midst of this fiery furnace—and I know not where they can be else-it will be hard to find any part of the universe, or any state of things, that answers to so many of the properties and characters of hell as this which is now before us.

But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath gotten an entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued everything to itself, the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for when the exterior region of the earth is melted into a fluor like molten glass or running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire, like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it. But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world; how by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men, are reduced to nothing; all that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Shew me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name! What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous: she glorified herself, and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow. But her hour is come; she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion.

But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found. Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder towards the north stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire. (Rev. xv. 3)-Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Hallelujah.

Steele in the Spectator (No. 146) praised the Theory; and Warton thought it proved that Burnet had an imagination nearly equal to Milton's, as well as a solid understanding. Burnet's Archeologia Philosophica, on the origin of things (1692; Englished in the same year), 'reconciles' by a non-literal interpretation the story of Genesis with his own theory-one of the earliest 'reconciliations' of Genesis with modern views; the Fall becomes little more than an allegory; and his report of the conversation between Eve and the serpent startled society even more than the heretical character of his speculations, which led to a multitude of examinations and refutations and answers. In consequence he had to retire from the office of Clerk of the Closet to the king, and lived in the Charterhouse till his death. His Latin treatises On Christian Faith and Duties, and On the State of the Dead and Reviving (translated in 1728 and 1733), contain unorthodox views on original sin and the sacraments, and maintain the ultimate salvation of the whole human race.

Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715), Bishop of Salisbury, was equally active and eminent as theologian, politician, and historian. He was the son of a royalist and Episcopalian lawyer in Edinburgh, who was after the Restoration raised to the Bench. His mother was of a strong Presbyterian house, being a sister of the Covenanting leader Johnston of Warriston, who was created a peer by Cromwell, and put to death in the reign of Charles II. by a mockery of legal forms. Gilbert adhered to the Episcopalian side of his house, but his divided parental allegiance in Church matters taught him the importance of religious toleration. He was M.A. of Marischal College, Aberdeen, before he was fifteen years of age, and in 1664 he studied Hebrew under a learned rabbi in Amsterdam. Having become a probationer in 1661, the year of the re-establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland, he was in 1665-69 minister of Saltoun, in East Lothian, whence he removed to Glasgow as professor of divinity. Always zealous and ambitious, Burnet wrote pamphlets in favour of reconciling Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, remedying abuses, and

vindicating the authority and constitution of Churc and State in Scotland. He was offered a bishopric but refused it; and opposing the Scottish adminis tration of Lauderdale, he removed in 1674 t London, where he obtained the appointment preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and lecturer at S Clement's. As a preacher Burnet was highl popular. His appearance and action were com manding, his manner was frank and open, and h was a master of extempore eloquence. It was ther not unusual for congregations to express approba tion of particular passages by a deep hum, and Burnet's hearers, it is said, used to hum so long and loud that he would, during the pause, sit down and wipe the perspiration from his forehead. His first historical work was the Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton (1676), and his reputation was raised by the publication, in 1679, of the first volume of his History of the Reformation of the Church of England (vol. ii. 1681; supplement, 1714). Some Passages in the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester, whom Burnet had attended on his deathbed (see Vol. I. page 780), appeared in 1680, and heightened the impression of Burnet's talents and piety. Charles would have pressed a bishopric on the popular divine; but Burnet declined court favour. He even went the length of writing a strong remonstrance to the king on the errors of his government and his personal vices. Charles threw the letter into the fire; and when Burnet attended Lord Russell to the scaffold, wrote an account of his last moments, and preached against popery, he increased the Duke of York's resentment against him to the uttermost. The king was also so incensed that he dismissed Burnet from his lectureship, and prohibited him from preaching at the Rolls Chapel. Burnet, however, went on writing treatises and sermons in favour of toleration, and he compiled Lives of Sir Matthew Hale (1682) and Bishop Bedell (1685). He wrote a narrative of a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy; and settling at the Hague in 1687, became one of the counsellors and adherents of the party of William of Orange. In the Revolution of 1688 he played a conspicuous part, accompanying William to England as chaplain; and was rewarded with the bishopric of Salisbury. As a prelate Burnet was noted for liberality and attention to his duties, and besides discharging the duties of his see, found time for work such as his Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, long a standard work.

Burnet left for publication the work by which he is best known, the History of my Own Time, giving an outline of the events of the Civil War and Commonwealth, and a full narrative of the succeeding period down to 1713. As he had personally known the conspicuous characters of a century, and penetrated most of its State secrets, he was able to relate events with a fullness and authority not inferior to Clarendon's. This he did in an easier, if vastly less dignified, style, and at least as much allowance must be