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finite, that, like mushrooms or flies, are born and die in small circles of time; whereas books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed. Besides the account of this library at Alexandria, and others very voluminous in the lesser Asia and Rome, we have frequent mention of ancient writers in many of those books, which we now call ancient, both philosophers and historians. 'Tis true that, besides what we have in Scripture concerning the original and progress of the Jewish nation, all that passed in the rest of our world before the Trojan War is either sunk in the depths of time, wrapped up in the mysteries of fables, or so maimed by the want of testimonies and loss of authors, that it appears to us in too obscure a shade to make any judgment upon it. For the fragments of Manethon about the antiquities of Egypt, the relations in Justin concerning the Scythian empire, and many others in Herodotus and Diadorus Siculus, as well as the records of China, make such excursions beyond the periods of time given us by the Holy Scriptures, that we are not allowed to reason upon them. And this disagreement itself, after so great a part of the world became Christian, may have contributed to the loss of many ancient authors. For Solomon tells us, even in his time, of writing many books there was no end; and whoever considers the subject and the style of Job, which by many is thought more ancient than Moses, will hardly think it was written in an age or country that wanted either books or learning; and yet he speaks of the ancients then, and their wisdom, as we do now. But if any should so very rashly and presumptuously conclude, that there were few books before those we have either extant or upon record, yet that cannot argue there was no knowledge or learning before those periods of time, whereof they give us the short account. Books may be helps to learning and knowledge, and make it more common and diffused; but I doubt whether they are necessary ones or no, or much advance any other science, beyond the particular records of actions or registers of time; and these perhaps might be as long preserved without them, by the care and exactness of tradition in the long successions of certain races of men, with whom they are intrusted. So in Mexico and Peru, before the least use or mention of letters, there was remaining among them the knowledge of what had passed in those mighty nations and governments for many ages. Whereas in Ireland, that is said to have flourished in books and learning before they had much progress in Gaul or Brittany, there are now hardly any traces left of what passed there before the conquest made of that country by the English in Henry the Second's time. A strange but plain demonstration how knowledge and ignorance, as well as civility and barbarism, may succeed each other in the several countries of the world; how much better the records of time may be kept by tradition in one country than by writing in another; and how much we owe to those learned languages of Greek and Latin, without which, for ought I know, the world in all these western parts would hardly be known to have been above five or six

hundred years old, nor any certainty remain of what passed in it before that time.

I do not know whether the high flights of wit and knowledge, like those of power and of empire in the world, may not have been made by the pure native force of spirit or genius in some single men, rather than by any derived strength among them, however increased by succession; and whether they may not have been the achievements of nature rather than the improvements of art. Thus the conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, of Alexander and Tamerlane, which I take to have been the greatest recorded in story, were at their height in those persons that began them; and so far from being increased by their successors, that they were not preserved in their extent and vigour by any of them, grew weaker in every hand they passed through, or were divided into many that set up for great princes out of several small ruins of the first empires, till they withered away in time, or were lost by the change of names, and forms of families or of governments.

Just the same fate seems to have attended the highest flights of learning and of knowledge that are upon our registers.___ Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, were the first mighty conquerors of ignorance in our world, and made greater progresses in the several empires of science than any of their successors have been since able to reach. These have hardly ever pretended more than to learn what the others taught, to remember what they invented, and, not able to compass that itself, they have set up for authors upon some parcels of those great stocks, or else have contented themselves only to comment upon those texts, and make the best copies they could after those originals.

I have long thought that the different abilities of men, which we call wisdom or prudence, for the conduct of public affairs or private life, grow directly out of that little grain of intellect or good sense which they bring with them into the world; and that the defect of it in men comes from some want in their conception or birth. And though this may be improved or impaired in some degree by accidents of education, of study, and of conversation and business, yet it cannot go beyond the reach of its native force, no more than life can go beyond the period to which it was destined, by the strength or weakness of the seminal virtue.

If these speculations should be true, then I know not what advantages we can pretend to modern knowledge, by any we receive from the ancients: "nay, 'tis possible men may lose rather than gain by them; may lessen the force and growth of their own genius, by constraining and forming it upon that of others; may have less knowledge of their own, for contenting himself with that of those before them. So a man that only translates shall never be a poet, nor a painter that always copies, nor a swimmer that swims always with bladders. So people that trust wholly to others' charity, and without industry of their own, will be always poor. Besides, who

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209 can tell whether learning may not even weaken invention in a man that has great advantages from nature and birth; whether the weight and number of so many other men's thoughts and notions may not suppress his own, or hinder the motion and agitation of them, from which all invention arises; as heaping on wood, or too many sticks, or too close together, suppresses, and sometimes quite extinguishes a little spark, that would otherwise have grown up to a noble flame. The strength of mind, as well as of body, grows more from the warmth of exercise than of clothes; nay, too much of this foreign heat rather makes men faint, and their constitutions tender, or weaker than they would be without them. Let it come about how it will, if we are dwarfs, we are still so, though we stand upon a giant's shoulders; and even so placed, yet we see less than he, if we are naturally short-sighted, or if we do not look as much about us, or if we are dazzled with the height, which often happens from weakness either of heart or brain.1

XXV. BISHOP BURNET.

GILBERT BURNET was born at Edinburgh in 1643, and received his education at the University of Aberdeen. He officiated for some time as a clergyman in Scotland, but disliking the tyranny of Lauderdale, he removed to London, where he became famous as one of the greatest pulpit orators of the day. In 1679 he published the first volume of his "History of the Reformation in England,” which was completed by the issue of a second volume in 1681, and a third in 1714. He had, however, no prospect of rising in the Church, for his politics were opposed to the court, which he had mortally offended by attending Lord William Russell to the place of execution; and at length he quitted England and settled at the Hague, where he enjoyed the friendship of William of Orange. He took a prominent share in the Revolution, and his services were rewarded with the Bishopric of Salisbury in 1689. From that time till his death, he was unceasingly occupied either in important political and religious transactions, or in the assiduous discharge of the duties of his diocese. In addition to his "History of the Reformation," which is allowed to have been compiled with great care and accuracy, and contains a large appendix of valuable documents, he wrote an "Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles," which is a standard theological work, and left for publication a "History of his own Times," which, according to his own directions, was not printed for some years after his death. This last work provoked much hostile criticism, and is peculiarly open to ridicule from the self-importance which Burnet displays in it, and which has been imitated with such caustic sarcasm by Pope in his " Memoirs of P. P., Clerk of this Parish." The style is deficient both in dignity and strength, and the narrative is of course coloured according to

This Essay was replied to, and part of its reasoning triumphantly overthrown by the famous Bentley. Swift defended his patron Temple in his well-known "Battle of the Books."

Burnet's own opinions; still the work is highly valuable from his personal knowledge of the events and characters which he describes.

1. THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.-(" HISTORY OF MY OWN TIMES," BOOK V. 1692.)

There was, at this time, a very barbarous massacre committed in Scotland, which showed both the cruelty and the treachery of some of those who had unhappily insinuated themselves into the king's confidence. The Earl of Breadalbane formed a scheme of quieting all the highlanders if the king would give L.12,000 or L.15,000 for doing it, which was remitted down from England, and this was to be divided among the heads of the tribes or clans of the highlanders. He employed his emissaries among them, and told them the best service they could do King James was to lie quiet, and reserve themselves to a better time; and if they would take the oaths, the king would be contented with that, and they were to have a share of the sum that was sent down to buy their quiet: but this came to nothing; their demands rose high; they knew this lord had money to distribute among them; they believed he intended to keep the best part of it to himself; so they asked more than he could give. Among the most clamorous and obstinate of these were the Macdonalds of Glencoe, who were believed guilty of much robbery and many murders; and so had gained too much by their pilfering war to be easily brought to give it over. The head of that valley had so particularly provoked Lord Breadalbane, that as his scheme was quite defeated by the opposition that he raised, so he designed a severe revenge. The king had, by a proclamation, offered an indemnity to all the highlanders that had been in arms against him, upon their coming in, by a prefixed day, to take the oaths. The day had been twice or thrice prolonged; and it was at last carried to the end of the year 1691; with a positive threatening of proceeding to military execution against such as should not come into his obedience by the last day of December.

All were so terrified that they came in, and even that Macdonald went to the governor of Fort-William on the last of December, and offered to take oaths; but he, being only a military man, could not or would not tender them, and Macdonald was forced to seek for some of the legal magistrates to tender them to him: the snows were then fallen, so four or five days passed before he could come to a magistrate; he took the oaths in his presence on the 4th or 5th of January, when, by the strictness of law, be could claim no benefit by it; the matter was signified to the council, and the person had a reprimand for giving him the oaths when the day was passed.

This was kept up from the king, and the Earl of Breadalbane came to court to give an account of his diligence, and to bring back the money, since he could not do the service for which he had it. He informed against this Macdonald as the chief person who had

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defeated that good design; and that he might both gratify his own revenge, and render the king odious to all the highlanders, he proposed that orders should be sent for a military execution on those of Glencoe. An instruction was drawn by the Secretary of State, the Master of Stair, to be both signed and countersigned by the king (that so he might bear no part of the blame, but that it might be wholly on the king), that such as had not taken the oaths by the time limited should be shut out of the benefit of the indemnity, and be received only upon mercy. But when it was found that this would not authorize what was intended, a second order was got to be signed and countersigned, that if the Glencoe men could be separated from the rest of the highlanders, some examples might be made of them, in order to strike terror into the rest. The king signed this without any inquiry about it, for he was too apt to sign papers in a hurry, without examining the importance of them. This was one effect of his slowness in despatching business; for as he was apt to suffer things to run on till there was a great heap of papers laid before him, so then he signed them a little too precipitately. But all this while the king knew nothing of Macdonald's offering to take the oaths within the time, nor of his having taken them soon after it was past, when he came to a proper magistrate. As these orders were sent down, the Secretary of State writ many letters to Levingstoun, who commanded in Scotland, giving him a strict charge and particular directions for the execution of them; and he ordered the passes in the valley to be kept, describing them so minutely that the orders were certainly drawn by one who knew the country well. He gave also a positive direction that no prisoners should be taken, that so the execution might be as terrible as was possible. He pressed this upon Levingstoun, with strains of vehemence, that looked as if there was something more than ordinary in it: he, indeed, grounded it on his zeal for the king's service, adding, that such rebels and murderers should be made examples of.

In February a company was sent to Glencoe, who were kindly received and quartered over the valley, the inhabitants thinking themselves safe, and looking for no hostilities: after they had staid a week among them, they took their time in the night, and killed about six and thirty of them, the rest taking the alarm and escaping; this raised a mighty outcry, and was published by the French in their gazettes, and by the Jacobites in their libels, to cast a reproach on the king's government as cruel and barbarous, though in all other instances it had appeared that his own inclinations were gentle and mild rather to an excess. The king sent orders to inquire into the matter; but when the letters, writ upon this business, were all examined, which I myself read, it appeared that so many were involved in the matter, that the king's gentleness prevailed on him to a fault, and he contented himself with dismissing only the Master of Stair from his service. The highlanders were so inflamed with this, that they were put in as forward a disposition as the Jacobites could wish for, to have rebelled upon the first