assumed a definite and serious character, he took the side of the court party. In 1680, the favour of the Duke of York procured for him a place in the privy council, and he was one of the number who rejected the famous Bill of Exclusion. He was also one of the councillors whose dismission was demanded by the House of Commons on the 7th of January, 1681. In 1685, the accession of James II. redoubled the fears of all who were friendly to the civil and religious liberties of their country. Lord Henry Clarendon, who sympathised with these fears, was nevertheless the object of the new king's favours, as James wished to reward him for having opposed the Bill of Exclusion. He accepted the reward, and was first appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal, afterwards Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. There he became acquainted with the whole extent of the designs that were being formed against England. Sincerely attached to the Established Church, and respecting, if not the liberties, yet at all events the laws of his country, he saw the government of James II. direct all its efforts towards the establishment of Catholicism and absolute power, and alternately using the one as a means to advance the other. He conducted himself with as much honesty as his position allowed, writing with frankness to the king or his ministers, representing to them the danger as well as the unconstitutional nature of their proceedings, and endeavouring to diminish their criminality or ward off the effect of them, but without ever entertaining the thought of formally refusing concurrence in them. When a spirit of servility has taken possession of a man, his good sense, and even his moral integrity become useless to him; he sees the danger and advances onwards to it; he observes the evil and lends himself to it; he has lost the free disposal of his own conduct, he serves the projects which he abhors, and is ruined with the infatuated men whom he has warned. If James II., annoyed by the continual remonstrances and the timidity of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had not recalled him and substituted Tyrconnel, an avowed Papist, Lord Henry Clarendon would never have thought of retiring upon his own accord, and the revolution of 1688 would have found him in the service of a power to which he could never give his approval. When Lord Clarendon returned to England in the begin ning of 1687, he gained in private life a little of that independence which he would never possess by native force of character: he has himself related his life from that period: to the details which are contained in his journal, referring to his own conduct as well as to the general events of his time, nothing need be added. On the approach and during the course of the revolution of 1688 he was what he had always been an honest nobleman and sincere Protestant, convinced that the Established Church ought to be saved and the government of the king reformed; disposed even to accept, in order to obtain a better chance of success, the assistance of the Prince of Orange and the insurrection, but full of nervous apprehension, inclined to halt with indignation as soon as, in order to accomplish the work, the axe was laid to the root of that corrupt tree which, often as it had been assailed, had never ceased to increase. We may smile at the credulity with which he went forth to meet the Prince of Orange, flattering himself that he would confine himself to the office of mediating between James II. and his people; but, the revolution of 1688 once accomplished, we must honour the fidelity which Lord Clarendon showed towards the dethroned monarch; a fidelity the more creditable in that it alienated him from the court to which he was attached, and that, after having quitted the court, he took no active part in the plots of the Jacobites, convinced at once that he was interdicted from serving a new master, and from disturbing the repose of his country, in order to recal a power which he had found to be mischievous whilst he believed it to be legitimate. He died on the 22nd of October, 1709, on his estate at Cornbury. In 1763, the papers which Lord Henry Clarendon had left, on his death, were published at London, in two volumes, quarto. His correspondence with James II. and his ministers, during his government of Ireland, forms the greatest part of this publication; it is worth reading, but its interest is of an entirely special character, and confined to the affairs of Ireland. The Journal of Lord Henry Clarendon, on the contrary, is one of the most lively and truthful documents which have reached us relating to the revolution of 1688; nowhere can we better trace from step to step, through the familiar and daily details of a nobleman's life, the rapid progress of that memorable event, conducted at first by a few individuals as a conspiracy and an intrigue, but sustained and consummated by the expressed concurrence of the English people, and which has established in England that noble form of government to which it has owned, for more than a hundred and fifty years, its peace as well as its liberties, its welfare as well as its renown. GILBERT BURNET, BISHOP OF SALISBURY. REVOLUTIONS commence with infatuation and end with incredulity. In their origin proud assurance is dominant; the ruling opinion disdains doubt, and will not endure contradiction: at their completion scepticism takes the place of proud disdain; there is no longer any care for individual convictions nor any belief in truth. Such is the sad condition of man-faith blinds him and experience corrupts him. Nevertheless-and this secures the honour as well as the safety of humanity-some minds are always to be found in these grand epochs who escape both these evils; who, in the blind impetuousness of the first period preserve freedom of thought, and, in the unmanly incredulity of the second, retain fixed and sincere convictions. These are minds of a superior order, whatever may be their defects, who know how to trust in truth without forgetting the weakness of man, and to distrust the feeble powers of man without ceasing to believe in the omnipotence of truth. Bishop Burnet is one of these men. Perhaps he owed this happiness to the favourable combination of circumstances which attended his youth. He was born on the 18th of September, 1643, at Edinburgh, of an ancient and reputable family in the county of Aberdeen, and was brought up in the midst of political parties without being prematurely engaged with or hastily plunged into any. His father, a learned juris-consult, was a sincere and moderate Royalist; his mother was a zealous Presbyterian, and Lord Waristoun, his uncle, was one of the most vehement opponents of Charles I. Burnet thus learned, from his infancy, to understand the language, and perhaps also at different times to sym pathise with the aims and sentiments of the most opposite parties. He says of himself: "As I had been bred up by my father to love liberty and moderation, so I spent the greatest part of the year 1664 in Holland and France, which contributed not a little to root and fix me in those principles. I saw much peace and quiet in Holland, notwithstanding the diversity of opinions amongst them, which was occasioned by the gentleness of the government, and the toleration that made all people easy and happy."* If the persons from whom Burnet had received in his youth so many contrary impressions had been, like so many others, undeceived and corrupted by events, he would, perhaps, have learned to respect no opinion, and, pursuing fortune only disdainfully, to ridicule all regard for principle. But the different convictions in the midst of which he lived and grew from 1643 to 1660, during the course of the first revolution, were and always continued serious and disinterested; so that he yielded them respect without succumbing to their authority, and that while his ideas were enlarged, he was never, even in his most ordinary and intimate relationships, induced to treat with suspicion or scorn any true earnestness and faith. From the restoration of Charles II. to the fall of James II., Burnet's life was active and busy, and was spent in close connexion with great personages and great events without being involved in their destinies. He has given a minute account of it in his "History of his own Time." At first sight this narrative does not give us that impression concerning the author which I have just indicated; we are even tempted, in reading it, to render him, if not a small share of esteem, yet certainly but little attention. He appears fickle, restless, awkward, indiscreet, continually meddling in intrigues, at one time with the popular party at another time with the court, familiarly connected with men on whose conduct he bestows the greatest blame, keeping up in order to gratify his vanity relationships the most opposed to his convictions, inconsiderate in his movements and in his language, setting no bounds to his activity, which is often without an aim, and of a character as little becoming the superiority of his mind as the dignity of his position. These were, so to speak, the exterior faults in Burnet's character, and he has taken no * Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i., p. 207, folio edition. pains to conceal them. But when we regard him more closely, another man appears and shows himself. Burnet's religious opinions are those of the Episcopalians, and yet we cannot find in him any of the vivid and arrogant passions of the bishops; his political principles are those of the Presbyterians, but he is a stranger to their narrow views, their insurmountable prejudices, their puerile and obstinate antipathies. He is familiar with a number of licentious noblemen, while his true friends, the only ones to whom he remained permanently attached whatever might be their condition, are the most upright men of the time. His life is full of intrigues and vicissitudes, yet nowhere can we perceive that he has yielded or changed in his principles, and his disinterestedness manifests itself on all occasions when his fortune might have been completed by the sacrifice of his freedom; he refuses to be a bishop as long as bishops are made the instruments of tyranny; he preaches tolerance to persecutors and reason to fanatics. Charles II. and his brother, the Duke of York, treated him with favour, he told them the truth: the favour of the princes is withdrawn, he speaks of them without disguise, but without anger. Sometimes his language would lead us to believe that the vices of the court were not displeasing to him; yet his manners are quite pure, and the thought which remains with him and governs him, in his familiar intercourse with Charles II., is how he may most impressively represent to the king the faults which have brought disorders into his kingdom, and induce him to return to virtue. "I had reason to believe," says Burnet, in 1681, "that he (the king) was highly displeased with me for what I had done a year before. Mrs. Roberts, whom he kept for some time, sent for me when she was a-dying: I saw her often for some weeks, and, among other things, I desired her to write a letter to the king, expressing the sense she had of her past life and at her desire I drew such a letter as might be fit for her to write; but she never had strength enough to write it: so upon I resolved to write a very plain letter to the king: I set before him his past life, and the effects it had on the nation, with the judgments of God that lay on him, which was but a small part of the punishment he might look for: I pressed upon him that earnestly to change the whole course of his life: I carried this letter to Chiffinch's,* on the 29th of * Valet-de-chambre to Charles II. that |