Having but recently become acquainted with your useful and learned work (for _scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, magna pars eruditionis est_), I have been much interested in looking over the earlier volumes. Allow me to add a couple of links to your _catena_ on Bishop Burnet. The first is the opinion of Hampton, the translator of Polybius; the other is especially valuable, it being nothing less than the portrait of Burnet drawn by himself, but certainly not with any idea of its being suspended beside the worthies of his "Own Time," for the edification of posterity. Hampton's testimony is as follows: "His personal resentments put him upon writing history. He relates the actions of a persecutor and benefactor; and it is easy to believe that a man in such circumstances must violate the laws of truth. The remembrance of his injuries is always present, and gives venom to his pen. Let us add to this, that intemperate and malicious curiosity which penetrates into the most private recesses of vice. The greatest of his triumphs is to draw the veil of secret infamy, and expose to view transactions that were before concealed from the world; though they serve not in the least either to embellish the style or connect the series of his history, and will never obtain more credit than, perhaps, to suspend the judgment of the reader, since they are supported only by one single, _suspected_ testimony."--_Reflections on Ancient and Modern History_, 4to.: Oxford, 1746. Let me now refer you to a document, written with his own hand, which sets the question of {60} Burnet's truthfulness and impartiality in his delineations of character completely at rest.