PREFACE, p. 3. Burnet.
Indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition
of many clergymen has sharpened my spirits perhaps
too much against them; so I warn my reader
to take all that I say on these heads with some grains
of allowance.—Swift. I will take
his warning.
P. 4. Burnet. Over and over again retouched
and polished by me.—Swift. Rarely
polished; I never read so ill a style.
Ibid. Burnet. That thereby I may awaken the
world to just reflections on their own errors and
follies.—Swift. This I take to be
nonsense.
P. 6. Burnet. That king saw that those who
were most in his interests were likewise jealous of
his authority, and apt to encroach upon it.—Swift.
Nonsense.
P. 10. Burnet says that competent provision
to those who served the cure:—was afterwards
in his son’s time raised to about fifty pounds
a year.—Swift. Scotch pounds, I
suppose.
P. 11. Burnet. Colonel Titus assured me that
he had from King Charles the First’s own mouth,
that he was well assured he [Prince Henry] was poisoned
by the Earl of Somerset’s means.—Swift.
Titus was the greatest rogue in England.
P. 18. Burnet says that Gowry’s conspiracy
against King James was confirmed to him by his father.—Swift.
Melvil makes nothing of it.
P. 20. Burnet. I turn now to the affairs of
Scotland, which are but little known.—Swift.
Not worth knowing.
P. 23. Burnet, Archbishop Spotswood began:—his
journey as he often did on a Sunday, which was a very
odious thing in that country.—Swift.
Poor malice.
P. 24. Burnet, Mr. Steward, a private gentleman,
became:—so considerable that he was raised
by several degrees to be made Earl of Traquair and
Lord-Treasurer [of Scotland], and was in great favour;
but suffered afterwards such a reverse of fortune,
that I saw him so low that he wanted bread, ... and
it was believed died of hunger.—Swift.
A strange death: perhaps it was of want of meat.
P. 26. Burnet. My father ... carefully preserved
the petition itself, and the papers relating to the
trial [of Lord Balmerinoch]; of which I never saw
any copy besides those which I have. ... The whole
record ... is indeed a very noble piece, full of curious
matter.—Swift. Puppy.
P. 28. Burnet. The Earl of Argyle was a more
solemn sort of man, grave and sober, free of all scandalous
vices.—Swift. As a man is free of
a corporation, he means.
P. 29. Burnet. The Lord Wharton and the Lord
Howard of Escrick undertook to deliver some of these;
which they did, and were clapt up upon it.—Swift.
Dignity of expression.
