unexpectedly an address requesting the King to remove the Bishop
of Salisbury from the place of preceptor to the young heir
apparent. But it soon appeared that many who could not help
smiling at Burnet's weaknesses did justice to his abilities and
virtues. The debate was hot. The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of
course not forgotten. It was asked whether a man who had
proclaimed that England was a conquered country, a man whose
servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burned by the
hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Some
reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and
some for being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought
his battle gallantly. "Grant," they said, "that it is possible to
find, amidst an immense mass of eloquent and learned matter
published in defence of the Protestant religion and of the
English Constitution, a paragraph which, though well intended,
was not well considered, is that error of an unguarded minute to
outweigh the services of more than twenty years? If one House of
Commons, by a very small majority, censured a little tract of
which his Lordship was the author, let it be remembered that
another House of Commons unanimously voted thanks to him for a
work of very different magnitude and importance, the History of
the Reformation. And, as to what is said about his birthplace, is
there not already ill humour enough in Scotland? Has not the
failure of that unhappy expedition to Darien raised a
sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout that kingdom?
Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angry
passions of our neighbours. And shall we, just at this moment,
exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the
north of the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable
trust?" The ministerial members would gladly have permitted the