the king and the duke were highly offended with the reception I They did not know what to make of it, and

met with in France.

fancied there was something hid under it."

If we are to be influenced by the vulgar sneers at Burnett's patriotism, we are to convert his honesty in telling the nation all its faults, into a secret pleasure in railing against its most revered institutions. Undoubtedly, he who should expose these faults, runs the risk of being treated as the enemy of his country, by those whose national partialities are so excessive that they will even magnify defects into excellences. Is it not, however, unreasonable to suppose, that a man can pour forth the most virtuous anxieties for the public good, and not at the same time be warmly attached to the constitution ? It is impossible, indeed, I think, for any unprejudiced person to read the memorable address that concludes the Bishop's posthumous labours, without perceiving, that upon no human heart did the claims of his country ever fall more deep and irresistible. To the very last, he never slumbered nor slept upon his post; but laboured to improve mankind, by teaching and declaring what he deemed to be the truth. The warm, the ennobling strain of patriotism which breathes throughout this appeal, the artless but solemn pathos which marks some of its passages, the unworldly purity and simplicity, the strength of reason, the ardent love of religious liberty and justice which pervade its pages, should have taught his enemies to respect a name which all upright men must revere. As the flowers send up their sweetest odours at the close of day, as the sun appears with the greatest beauty at its going down, all the virtues and graces of this excellent prelate come before us in this final address with the most pleasing remembrance The most careless of readers will peruse it with the deepest conviction of all the sentiments having proceeded from the author's heart; while written, as it is, at an advanced period of life, it has all the determination of age and decision of principle; and I am bold enough to add, that if all which Burnett had given to the public, were comprised in this brief paper-such are the lights which shine unclouded in it,—such are the pearls of rare price to be picked out of it,-it alone would have entitled his memory to be contemplated with the highest veneration. His statesman-like remarks upon episcopal, ecclesiastical, parliamentary, and aristo

cratical abuses,-upon a radical reformation of the people by education and a good judicature,—his further observations upon the employment of able men in diplomacy,-and of the best means of a sovereign's obtaining the noblest reward of his labours, the love and esteem of his subjects,-have been the themes of panegyric among all competent judges. At a period, too, when the science of political economy was little known or attended to, the suggestions of Burnett, respecting that most important branch-the bettering the condition of the poor,—evince a sagacity and sound sense very surprising in their start before the public mind, if we consider the direct contrary notions so current with the best and wisest statesmen of his day: "The other matter that must take its rise in the House of Commons is about the poor, and should be much laid to heart. It may be thought a strange notion from a bishop to wish that the act for charging every parish to maintain their own poor, were well reviewed, if not quite taken away; this seems to encourage idle and lazy people in their sloth, when they know they must be maintained. I know no other place in the world, where such a law was ever made. Scotland is much the poorest part of the island; yet the poor there are maintained by the voluntary charities of the people."

Strong claims, however, as the History of his own Time possesses to our attention, from having been written, according to a former observation, at a most interesting period, in which the author was not merely a spectator, but often an actor in some of the most important and striking scenes described in it; yet, as a piece of composition, it must be confessed, that it will stand very low in the estimation of those who are fond of pretty conceits and laborious efforts after fine writing. Swift, who hated Burnett, if it were only because the consistency of his political attachment reminded him of the baseness and profligacy of his own apostacy, has been scurrilous to the last degree respecting the style of his performance. Unquestionably, it has too great a profusion of low, familiar and colloquial forms of expression,-though graphic and acute, the manner is too often garrulous and vulgar. The sterling weight, however, of most of his observations, and the masterly boldness which often sketches a portrait in a single line, will more than compensate for the want of polished sentences and figurative modes of speech. Things, not words-the matter, not the manner of the

book, were what Burnett principally regarded. He thinks, and therefore makes his readers think-i. e. reflect; since, according to a striking aphorism of his model and master, Archbishop Leighton, "he only thinks who reflects."

In this, as in most of his other productions, Burnett appears to have left his sentences just as the fervid heat of his imagination struck them out. The duties of his life were too multifarious to allow time to give to all his opinions a comely and suitable covering; much less to be studious of "taffeta phrases, or silken terms precise." He said what he had to say in long or short sentences, with little or no regard to the turn of a phrase, to the music of a cadence; not hesitating, in his dramatic narrative, to use any image or expression, however coarse or homely, provided it conveyed his meaning with liveliness and force. There were no strainings for false and meretricious ornaments, for mawkish sentiments, extravagant and sparkling conceits, nor any attempts to hide a want of meaning under the semblance of a stern and pompous wordiness. Impartial criticism may assert that the work bears all the traces of a rugged and careless composition; but, at the same time, it will not deny that this defect is amply atoned for by the warm, native, and ever-varying graces of a spontaneous effusion. It is a question, if Burnett's language, from its idiomatical strength, did not shew that the author had drawn more freely of the pure well of English than many of the wits of the Augustan period,—as the reign of Queen Anne has been designated. At least, in comparing his cast of phraseology, especially in his sermons, with that of several of his own countrymen of recent celebrity, he does not, like them, from the dread of falling into scotticisms, lose much of that which Dr. Johnson has denominated, genuine anglicism.

Swift pretends to discover, in almost every line of the Bishop's work, striking instances of error, ignorance, partiality, fraud, and misrepresentation: while, according to his judgment, from the coarseness and vulgarity of its style, it is, as a composition, beneath criticism. But, after a repeated, after a serious, and, I hope, after an impartial perusal of this work, I speak, I am persuaded, the language of sound criticism, when I assert, that the Memoirs of the reign of Queen Anne, which Swift himself designates as his master-piece, and which, without doubt, he meant to be one of those

eternal possessions that great minds generate and perfect in retirement, will be utterly forgotten, or if remembered, will-from its tame, monotonous, and colourless style-its wilful perversions and malevolent misrepresentations-its accumulated mass of personal abuse and intolerant zeal,-its insolent dogmatism and absurd pretensions to the dignified form of history,-be only cited as a performance deserving the most just contempt from friends* as well as enemies; while, on the other hand, the History of his own Time, from its masculine and energetic style,-the perspicuity and acumen of its observations-the breathing vitality of its portraitsthe honesty of its opinions-the bold spirit of its criticism upon the public men of the day—and the profound knowledge of the transactions recorded-will transmit the name of Burnett to future generations, as one of the most instructive and most amusing of memoir writers.

Great Malvern, September 10, 1835.

H. C.

*If the Dean had not been so peremptorily opinionative, so desperately pertinacious in this matter, he would, it is to be presumed, have listened to the advice of Pope and Bolingbroke, whose penetration, taste, larger views in history, and great talents for composition, alike led them to oppose the publication of this wretchedly stupid work. Never was a truer criticism pronounced upon it than in the following remarks of Horace Walpole. "There is just published Swift's history of the four last years of Queen Anne. Pope and Lord Bolingbroke always told him it would disgrace him, and persuaded him to burn it. Disgrace him, indeed, it does; being a weak libel, ill-written for style, uninformed, and adopting the most errand mob stories. He makes the Duke of Marlborough a coward, Prince Eugene an assassin, my father remarkable for nothing but impudence, and would make my Lord Somers anything but the most amiable character in the world, if, unfortunately, he did not praise him while he tries to abuse."—Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. iii, p. 317–318.

[Our thanks are due to the learned writer for this admirable article, as also for six highly interesting papers in former numbers of "The Analyst ;" more especially that on Charles II, which was executed in so masterly a style as to obtain the unqualified approbation of one of the most accurate thinkers upon all curious matters of History. The subject here alluded to was so full of perplexities that it quite baffled the sound and vigorous understanding of the Edinburgh Reviewer. The importance, indeed, of a paper which clears up difficulties embarrassing to many a statesman of the present day, cannot be too highly appreciated by the student of English History.— ED.]

26

REMARKS CONDUCIVE TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF ORNITHOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE.

In a former paper, (vol. ii., p. 305), I pointed out some very glaring errors in the nomenclature adopted by Selby in his British Ornithology. I shall now do what I conceive will be of still greater utility, and what I have often been asked to do,—give a list of the birds of Britain; each species denoted by its proper generic and spe cific appellation. But before commencing the list, I shall make a few remarks on the subject, which appear to be peculiarly called for, when there are writers who openly maintain that the names in use, whether right or wrong, ought to be continued, simply because they are in use, writers, too, who do not simply adopt the vulgar names from mere thoughtlessness, or from thinking the subject beneath their attention, but who, having considered the subject, actually defend what they themselves confess to be erroneous, because it would give too much trouble to learn what is right!

I do not here mean to refute any of Mr. Strickland's arguments for his vulgar names; but one assertion I cannot let pass unnoticed, namely, that the newly-introduced English names are certain never to be universally adopted. Let Mr. Strickland turn to the ornithological works of the time of Willoughby or of Edwards, and compare the English names therein used with those of Selby or Mudie; or let him compare the French names used by Buffon, with those of Vieillot or Temminck. In Willoughby's work he will find Water Hen, Water Ouzel, Solan Goose, Sea Lark, Greenland Dove, Land Hen, and many other equally ridiculous and erroneous names, which, in Selby's work, are designated as follows: Gallinule, Dipper, Gannet, Plover, Rotch, and Crake, and by these names they are now universally known, except by those, indeed, who "don't know a rose from a cabbage."

Boswell, in his life of Johnson, speaking of orthography, says, that Johnson very strongly expressed his disapprobation at the practice, which was then creeping in, of omitting the k at the end of such words as public, music, &c.; and Boswell adds, that he really hopes that so great an authority will have the effect of stop