l. 17. John Wilmot (1647-80), second Earl of Rochester, son of Henry Wilmot, first Earl (No. 32). Burnet knew him well and wrote his life, _Some Passages of the Life and Death Of the Right Honourable John Earl of Rochester_, 1680; 'which', says Johnson, 'the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety' (_Lives of the Poets_, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. i, p. 222). ll. 25 ff. The resemblance to Tiberius was first pointed out in print in Welwood's _Memoirs_, p. 152, which appeared twenty-four years before Burnet's _History_. But Welwood was indebted to Burnet. He writes as if they had talked about it; or he might have seen Burnet's early manuscript. 65. Burnet's History of His Own Time. Vol. i. (pp. 94-5.) The author of most of the characters in this volume himself deserves a fuller character. The main portions of Burnet's original sketch (1683) are therefore given here, partly by way of supplement, and partly to illustrate the nature of Burnet's revision (1703): 'The great man with the king was chancellor Hyde, afterwards made Earl of Clarendon. He had been in the beginning of the long parliament very high against the judges upon the account of the ship-money and became then a considerable man; he spake well, his style had no flaw in it, but had a just mixture of wit and sense, only he spoke too copiously; he had a great pleasantness in his spirit, which carried him sometimes too far into raillery, in which he sometimes shewed more wit than discretion. He went over to the court party when the war was like to break out, and was much in the late king's councils and confidence during the war, though he was always of the party that pressed the king to treat, and so was not in good terms with the queen. The late king recommended him to this king as the person on whose advices he wished him to rely most, and he was about the king all the while that he was beyond sea, except a little that he was ambassador in Spain; he managed all the king's correspondences in England, both in the little designs that the cavaliers were sometimes engaged in, and chiefly in procuring money for the king's subsistence, in which Dr. Sheldon was very active; he had nothing so much before his eyes as the king's service and doated on him beyond expression: he had been a sort of governor to him and had given him many lectures on the politics and was thought to assume and dictate too much ... But to pursue Clarendon's character: he was a man that knew England well, and was lawyer good enough to be an able chancellor, and was certainly a very incorrupt man. In all the king's foreign negotiations he meddled too much, for I have been told that he had not a right notion of foreign matters, but he could not be gained to serve the interests of other princes. Mr. Fouquet sent him over a present of 10,000 pounds after the king's restoration and assured him he would renew that every