[Footnote 1: For a detailed examination of the composition and value of Clarendon's _History_ see the three articles by Professor C.H. Firth in _The English Historical Review_ for 1904. No student of Clarendon can ever afford to neglect them.] [Footnote 2: See No. 33, introductory note.] [Footnote 3: See No. 6, introductory note, and No. 36, p. 140, II. 17-22 note.] [Footnote 4: Contractions have been expanded. The punctuation of the original is slight, and it has been found desirable occasionally to insert commas, where seventeenth century printers would have inserted them; but the run of the sentences has not been disturbed. In modernized versions Clarendon's long sentences are sometimes needlessly subdivided.] [Footnote 5: _State Papers_, 1773, vol. ii, pp. 288-9.] [Footnote 6: Letter of March 16, 1647; _infra_ p. 275.] [Footnote 7: Letter of January 8, 1647; T.H. Lister, _Life of Clarendon_, 1837, vol. iii, p. 43.] [Footnote 8: Ed. 1857, part 1, § 85; omitted in the edition of 1759.] [Footnote 9: Of the thirty-seven characters by Clarendon in this volume, twenty-seven are from the 'Manuscript Life'.] [Footnote 10: _State Papers_, 1786, vol. iii, supp., p. xlv.] [Footnote 11: Clarendon's lifetime coincided almost exactly with Milton's. He was two months younger than Milton, and died one month later.] [Footnote 12: December 14, 1647; _infra_ p. 275.] [Footnote 13: Book ix, _ad init._; ed. Macray, vol. iv, p. 3.] [Footnote 14: See note, p. 129, ll. 22 ff.] [Footnote 15: Evelyn's _Diary_, December 20, 1668. See the account of 'The Clarendon Gallery' in Lady Theresa Lewis's _Lives of the friends of Clarendon_, 1852, vol. i, pp. 15* ff., and vol. iii, pp. 241 ff.] IV. Other Character Writers. When Clarendon's _History_ was at last made public, no part of it was more frequently discussed, or more highly praised, than its characters--'so just', said Evelyn, 'and tempered without the least ingredient of passion or tincture of revenge, yet with such natural and lively touches as show his lordship well knew not only the persons' outsides, but their very interiors.'[1] About the same time, and probably as a consequence of the publication of Clarendon's work, Bishop Burnet proceeded to put into its final form the _History_ on which he had been engaged since 1683. He gave special attention to his characters, some of which he entirely rewrote. They at once invited comparison with Clarendon's, and first impressions, then as now, were not in their favour. 'His characters are miserably wrought,' said Swift.[2]