beyond what was paied them in France was imputed to his Method of Writing that wants none of the beauties of History except that of Truth and to the Ignorance in which Strangers live as to the Particulars of their History It is true at last he has found a Patron and a Pension and now he has given us an Essay of his Merits but if this Work is examined severely he will very probably soon lose his appointments since mercenary Pens are seldom paied longer than they can be useful Here one finds so much occasion for censure that whereas in other Books one must run up and down to find matter for a Critical Judgment here it occurs so copiously that a Man must take care not to surfeit his Reader with too much of it and therefore must choose out the more remarkable Errours and there are even so many of these that it is to be feared that the World will not think him not his Writings worth the time and the pains that must be bestowed on them Mr. Maimbourg has set a Pattern to the World that thô few wil care to imitate yet it has taken so much with the present Age that it is no light indication of its degeneracy when surch books are so much read and sold in which the Writer seems to have so broken loose from all the common measures either of honesty or shame that one would wonder of what composition he were made if they did not know that he has lived 50 years the in Iesuite Order for as he has no regard to truth or likelyhood in what he writs so he seems to be proof against the evidentest discoveries of his prevarications that are possible and when they are laid open in a manner capable of making any man besides himself to blush he neither has the conscience to confess his errours nor the sense of honour to justify himself but he finds out still new matter to writ on and a new stock of Champaigne wine as I have been told that he has oft said to make his blood boil till he has spoild an other piece of History and he thinks a scornfull period or two in a Preface is enough to carry off all the shame to which his errours ought to condemn him He has also the Impudence to dedicate his books to the King and the world is still willing to be cosened by him This trade has succeeded so well with him that it seems Mr. Varillas vies with him in it and as he has the chaster stile and the more natural way of misleading his Reader so he has resolved not to be behind him in a bold quality that I love not to set down by its proper Name But thô Mr. Varillas has the art to refine upon the pattern that Mr. Maimbourg set him yet Mr. Maimbourg is the Author of the Invention and therefore he deserves the better Pension History is a sort of Trade in which false Coyn and false Weights are more criminal than in other Matters because the Errour may go further and run longer thô these Authors colour their copper too slightly to make it keep its credit long If Men think there are degrees of Lying then certainly those that are the most loudly told that wound the deepest that are told with the best grace and that are transmitted to Posterity under the deceitful colours of Truth have the blackest Guilt but some Men have arrived at equal degrees in hardning their Consciences and in steeling their Forheads and are without the reach either of inward Remorses or publick Discoveries so that as Augustus fancied there was a charm in the Pillour of a Roman that died hugely indebted since without an extraordinary saporiferous composition he could not fancy how such a Man could sleep securely so if humane Nature did not often produce some very irregular Individuals a Man that feels the Authority that Truth and Modesty have ever a pure mind can not easily imagine by what secret others can quite extinguish those Inclinations which he finds are so prevalent in himself But I will now by Mr. Varillas's leave take the liberty to set before him some of his most conspicuous errours and thô I do not expect much sincerity from himself yet I hope the world will be juster than he has shewed himself to be Mr. Varillas begins his History with a view of the progress of that which he calls Heresy in a Prophetick stile setting forth what effects it was to produce as if he were foretelling what was to fall out and that for 11. pages according to the Impression of Amsterdam this has so little of the air of a Historian and is so full of the figures of a Declaimer that it looks liker the strain of a heated and angry Fryer than of a grave and serious Writer of History who ought to be always in cold blood and ought not to let the heats of a vitious Rhetorick transport him But this is so like one of the forced raptures of some Missionary that one would think it was writ either by one of them or for one of them It is much a safer thing to prophecy concerning matters that are past than concerning those that are to come and one is less in danger of committing errours yet when heat enters into matters of History and meets with so vast a deal of Ignorance as is that of Mr. Varillas no wonder if it carries him into great errours If Mr. Varillas had gathered the History of the last Age out of any Books or out of those Letters tha◠he so often vouches he could not have said that Edward th◠6th's Tutor or Governour was the Duke of Northumberland since there is not any one Book writ concerning that Time that does not shew the contrary The Duke of Somerset was his Governour and for the Duke of Northumberland thô the last two Years of that Reign in which that King was past the Age of Tutelage he bore the chief sway of affairs yet he had neither the Character of the King's Tutor or Governour nor any other whatsoever but only that of a Privy Councellour that was much considered by him and he at his Death professed that he had been always a Catholick in his Heart so that his pretending to be of the Reformed Religion to serve his interests shews that he belongs no more to our Church than the now forced Converts belong to that of Rome In the same page he says that Mary Queen of Scotland did by her Bastard Brother's persuasions marry a single Gentleman and on the Margent he gives his Name Henry d' Arley this is a new proof how little he knows the Books of the last Age. This Henry whom he calls d' Arley was Henry Lord Darly eldest Son to the Earl of Lenox which was one of the chief Families of Scotland and a Branch of the Family of the Stewarts It is true it came off from it before the Crown came into it by Mariage yet the
to forgive who by the way was not Duke but only Earl of Suffolk is a Dream better becoming so slight a brain as is that of Mr. Varillas than the consummated wisdome of the King and Queen of Spain But thus it falls out when a Library Keeper turns Statesman and when from being a teller of tales he will turn a Writer of Histories which he composes out of his own Imaginations he must needs fall into childish errours When do Kings fall under those weaknesses as to disinherit an only Son to cover them from a remote fear and a very remote one it was for the Archduke needed at that time the assistance of England against France too much to be in a condition to raise a Civil War in England and to support a competition to the Crown which could have no other effect as to him but to give France an opportunity during the distractions of England to come and destroy him In short here is a Vision of a poor-spirited Pedant which is too much considered when it named and laught at 7. He pretends to enter into the reasons that were alledged at Rome both for and against the granting of the Bull but at last he concludes that Pope Alexander the 6th would not consent to it that he might not give occasion to accuse him of having broken the Discipline of the Church But here is such a false representation of the Court of Rome at that time and in particular of P. Alexander the 6th that since Mr. Varillas will needs write Romances I must put him in mind of one Rule that as Painters shew their Judgment and Learning in that which is in one Word called le Costume observing the Air Manners and Habits of the Ages and Scenes to which their Pieces belong so Poets when they bring unknown Names into their Plays they may clothe them with what Characters they please but if they represent Men whose Histories are known they must not confound Characters nor represent a Nero as a grave Philosopher or as a good natured Prince nor a Marcus Aurelius as a wanton Stage-player or as a bloody Tyrant And therefore thô Mr. Varillas may shew his pretended discoveries concerning Men that are less known yet when he brings in an Alexander the 6th on the Stage it is too bold a violation of Poetry to lay a strictness of Conscience or a sense of Honour to his charge and thô there is one part of this Period true that there had never been any dispensation of this sort formerly granted to serve as a Precedent for it yet that exactness in which he represents the Enquiry that the Divines of Rome made concerning this matter agrees ill with the State of the Court of Rome at that time and a Painter may as justly represent the old Romans in Pantalaons and with Hats in their hands 8. He says K. Henry the 7th was preparing all things for the Mariage of his Son to the Princess when he died And a little before that he had said that her Parents sacrificed the Interest of their Family to the satisfaction of the King of England by consenting to it A Match with the Heir of the Crown of England was no very costly Sacrifice and for his vision concerning the design of marrying her to the Duke of Calabria and by that means of restoring the Kingdome of Naples it does so ill agree with the Character of the King of Arragon that since there is no proof brought of this I must look on it as one of those Imaginations with which Mr. Varillas loves to entertain his Readers But for K. Henry the 7th he was so far from making any preparations for the Mariage that one of the Writers of that Age assures us that at his Death he charged his Son to break it apprehending perhaps a return of a new civil War upon the issue of a doubtful Marriage 9. He gives us a new tast of his unskilfulness in ordering his Scenes He had found that when Henry the 8th's Divorce came to be started there was some discourse of a Match between him and Francis the first 's Sister afterwards the Queen of Navarre and therefore he thought a proposition for her might come in before the Mariage as a pretty ornament to his Fable But the silence of all the Papers of that Time which I have seen is a much better evidence against it than his pretended negotiation of Mr. de Piennes is for it to which no credit is due It is well known that in the Archives of Venice there are Recitals laid up of all the Negotiations of their Ambassadours and Mr. Varillas having perhaps heard of this he fancied it would have a good grace to cite such Recitals as to French Affairs thô all that know the State of France know that this has not been the practice of that Court But as there is no proof to shew that there was any such Proposition made at that Time so the State of K. Lewis the 12th's Court differs extreamly from it in which the Count of Angoulême afterwards Francis the first and his Sister were not so favourable as to give us reason to think that pains was taken to raise that Lady to the Throne of England 10. He tells us that King Henry the 8th calling a Parliament in the beginning of his Reign they thought themselves bound in point of Honour to oblige to execute his Father's Orders relating to his Mariage who had not only made it the chief Article of his Testament and charged his Son to do it upon his last Blessing but had laid the same charge on the Men of the greatest Credit in England as he spoke his last Words to them upon which the Parliament being careful to maintain this Authority to which they pretended over their Master did oblige him by repeated Remonstrances to marry the Princess Here he goes to show how implacably he is set against the Crown of England formerly he had debased their Birth but he thought that was not enough now he will degrade them of their Dignity and give the Parliament a Superiority over them But it is a fatal thing for an ignorant Man to write History for if Mr. Varillas could have so much as opened our Book of Statutes he would have found that the first Parliament that K. Henry the 8th held was assembled the 21. of Ianuary 1510. almost 8. Months after the Mariage which was celebrated six Weeks after he came to the Crown in which time if Mr. Varillas had understood any thing of our Constitutions he would have known that it was impossible for a Parliament to have met since there must be 40. Days between a Summonds and a Meeting of Parliament so that if the new King had summoned one the Day after his Father's Death it could not have met sooner than the day before the Mariage 11. He says the Queen bore five Children the first three Sons and the other two Girls
REFLECTIONS On Mr. VARILLAS's HISTORY Of the Revolutions that have happned in Europe in matters of Religion And more particularly on his Ninth Book that relates to England By G. BURNET D. D. Amsterdam Printed for P. Savouret in the Warmoes-street near the Dam. 1686. REFLECTIONS On Mr. VARILLAS's HISTORY of the Revolutions that have happned in Europe in matters of Religion and more particularly on his 9 th Book that relates to England MR Varillas has within a few Years given the World so many-Books of History and these have been so much read and so well received that it seems he thinks he is now so far possessed of the esteem of the Age that he may venture to impose upon it the falsest coyn that can be struck not doubting but that the name Varillas stampt upon it will make it pass current and this being a time in which some have thought that they might doe whatsoever they pleased against those of the Religion he it seems thinks he may likewise say whatsoever he pleased against them that so there may be a due proportion between the injuries that he does them with his pen and those that others make them feel with severer tools and perhaps he thought the severities that are now exercised upon them are so contrary to that tenderness with which the humane Nature not to say the Christian Religion is apt to inspire all that are not transported with such violent Passions that they drown the Motions of our bowels towards the miserable that nothing could divert the World from those merciful inclinations but the dressing up the first beginnings of the Reformation in such odious representations as might possess the Age with so much fury against them that none of the miseries that they suffer might create the least Compassion for them It is true Princes have their Prerogatives with which they take great liberties as their several passions are excited and dextrously managed the desire of glory mixing with a heat of blood at one time can produce a wâ—r as terrible in its consequences as it was injustifiable in its first beginnings and the same ambition mixing with a superstitious disposition of mind and working upon colder Blood can at another time produce a violation of Edicts that have been solemnly sworn to and often confirmed and accompany that with a sequel of Severities that are more easily lamented than expressed yet an humble regard to the sublime character of a Crown'd Head lays a restraint on those Groans which we would rather stifle than give them their full scope least the language of our Sorrows look like an accusing of those whom after all that our brethren have suffered at their hands we would still force our selves to reverence and therfore we choose rather to support our grief than to vent it at their cost But small Scriblers who have set a price upon their pens and sacrifice our reputation that they may merite a pension at the hands of the chief Instruments of our Brethrens sufferings are not to look for such respect he that fights against the Laws of War ought to expect no quarter when he is taken A Historian that favours his own side is to be forgiven thô he puts a little too much life in his colours when he sets out the best sides of his party and the worst of those from whom he disfers and if he but slightly touches the failings of his Friends and severely aggravates those of the other side thô in this he departs from the laws of an exact Historian yet this biass is so natural that if it lessens the credit of the Writer yet it does not blacken him but if he has no regard either to truth or decency if he gives his imagination a full scope to invent and his pen all the liberties of foul language he ought not to think it strange if others take some pains to expose him to the World And thô their Conscience and Religion obliges them to take other measures with relation to Truth and their Breeding engages them to a strict modesty of Stile yet if the things that are said are as severe as they are true and as wounding as they may appear soft it is nothing but what a Zeal for Truth and an Indignation at so much ill-managed injustice draws from them It is not to be denied that Mr. Varillas has an art of writing that is entertaining he pretends to discover many Secrets to give pictures of Men to the life and to interweave the Histories that he relates with a thread of Politiques that is very agreable only this appears to be overdone and those who have had much practice in humane Affairs see that the conduct of the World is not so steady and so regular a thing as he loves to represent it unlookt for Accidents the caprices of some Tempers the secrets of Amours and Jealousies with other particular Passions are the true sources of almost all that is transacted in the World even Interest it self does not always govern Mankind but Humour and Passion have their turns and oft times the largest share in humane affairs So that I ever thought that his books had too much of the air of a Romance and seemed too fine to be true He does indeed now and then to maintain his Reputation in his Reader 's mind vouch some letter or narrative but he neither tells whither it is in Print or in Manuscript or where he had it and where others may find it so this way of Citation looked suspitious yet I could not easily take up such hard thoughts of him as to imagine that all this was his own Invention but being in Paris last Summer I had the good fortune to become acquainted with some men of great probity and that had particularly applied themselves to examine the History of France with great exactness they were of the Church of Rome and seemed to have no other dislike at Mr. Varillas but that which was occasioned by the liberty that he had given himself to writ his own Imaginations for true Histories they assured me there was no regard to be had to any thing that he writ that he had gathered together many little stories which he knit together as he pleased and that without any good Authority and they told me that the greatest number of the pieces he cited were to be found now here but in his own fancy In a word they spoke of all his books with a sharpness of stile and a degree of contempt that I will not repeat least I seem to come too near his forms of speech which are the worst Patterns that one can follow I found he was generally so much decried in Paris that he has reason to say in his Preface that when the Archbishop of Paris thought on him all the World had abandoned him for I did not find any Man under a more universal Contempt than he was and the esteem in which his Works were held in Forreign Parts far
thô it is certain they were then in no sort of fear of that that the four chief Cantons were seduced in less than a years time but that the seven little Cantons continued in the belief of their Fathers and the two midle sised Cantons tollerated equally both the Religions One would have thought that a man that had pretended to the name of a Historian would have at least begun his studies with some small tast of Cosmography and would have taken some pains to know the Map and as the Switzers are in the neighbourhood of France so they have been so long the Allies of that Crown that the Ignorance of the Importance of the Cantons is a fault in one that pretends to be such an illuminated Historian that deserves a worse correction than I think fit to give it To reckon Basle and Shaff housen among the great Cantons and Lucern among the small Cantons Solohern and Fribourg being also so considerable that some reckon them with the great Cantons and to put Glaris and Appeuzel in a superiour order to them that are among the smallest of the least is such a Complication of errours that it is not easy to imagine how he had the luck to fetch in so many into one period But this is not all the Ignorance that is in it for whereas he pretends that the four Cantons that received the Reformation did it in less than a year this is so false that Zwinglius having begun to preach the Reformation in the year 1519. the whole matter was examined in a course of several years and at last Zurich received the Reformation in the year 1525. Bern three years after in the year 1528. and Basle a year after in the year 1529. as for Schaff house I must confess my Ignorance but there was at least 10 years interval in this matter and if Lucern is not so much in his favour because it is the Residence of the Spanish Ambassadour yet I cannot imagine what has made him degrade Solohern into the number of the small Cantons which is the Residence of the French Ambassadour and is reckoned by many among the greater But it is likely that he knew nothing of all this matter except by report and perhaps he thought the period would run smoother to range the Cantons thus in the great in the small and the midle-sised Cantons and that it would also reflect on the Reformation as a precipitated change to say that 4 Cantons turnd in one year But thô Impertinence is a fault scarce to be named when one has so many of a more criminal nature in his way yet such as are more signal and more advantageously situated for the Reader 's eye deserve to be viewed in our passage with the scorn that they deserve Mr. Varillas begins his 3. book which opens the progress of Luther's affairs with a Preamble of 38. pages in which he sets out the state of Europe at that time so copiously and with so little judgement that he bestows 14. pages on the Conquests that Selim the Turk had made and on his defeat of the Mamelucks This whole tedious ramble signifies nothing to Luther's matters but in short it was a secret to swell the Volume and to raise the price of the book as well as it must lessen the price of the Author who shews how little he understands where he ought to place his digressions What notions does that view of every State of Europe give the world that doe any way prepare the Readers mind for what was to come after unless it be that Mr. Var. being to present a piece of as arrant Poëtry as any that ever possessed the Stage he thought it necessary to fill it at first with many Actors and to make a great appearance thô none of them were to act any part in his Play But since he will needs be writing thô he understands not the common-Elements I will take the pains for once to instruct him a little how he ought to have made this introduction since he it seems was resolved to begin with one He ought then to have open'd the State of Europe with Relation to Religion and Learning he to have shewed what scandals the Popes and the Court of Rome had given what was the State of the secular Clergy the Ignorance Irregularity and vices of the Bishops and Curates what were the â—isorders and dissolutions of the Monastick Orders both of those that were endowed and of the Mendicants He ought to have shewed in what sort of Studies they imploied their time and with what sort of Sermons they entertained the People and to this he ought to have added somewhat of the State of the Universities of Europe and of the beginnings of Learning that were then arising He ought to have shewed the different Interests in which the several Nations of Europe were engaged after the times of the Councils of Constance and Basle and to this he might have added the State of the Courts of Europe with Relation to Religion upon all which he might have found matter for a long and a much more pertinent Introduction And to conclude he ought to have told the Dispositions in which the Peoples minds were as to those matters and if he would needs make a vain shew of his faculty of telling of tales he might have set out the State of the Eastern Churches after the Treaty at the Council of Florence and of its effects of the ruine of those Churches and of the Ignorance as well as misery to which they were reduced by the rigour of the Mahometan yoke It is true this was not a necessary preliminary to the bringing Luther on the Stage but it had been much less impertinent than a long recital of Sultan Selim's Conquests But I am caried too far and hereafter I will confine my self to that which does more immediatly belong to me He begins that part of his Advertisement that relates to the affairs of England with a sort of an Apophthegme worthy of him he says it is without comparison more difficult to be exactly true in matters of Religion than in other matters since in those others it is only Interest and Passion that make Men lie but in matters of Religion Conscience does so entirely conquer all the powers of the Soul and reduces them to such a Slavery that it forces a man to write that which it dictates without troubling himself to examine whither it is true or false Here is such a view of his Notion of Religion that how false soever this proposition is in it self yet it gives us a true light of his Ideas of Religion Good God shall that principle which does elevate and illuminate our natures be considered as a more powerful depravation of them than that which flows either from Interest or Passion shall that which is the Image of the God of Truth and that reduces the Soul to a chast purity of Spirit be made the Author of the enslaving of
all our powers and the emancipating us from all scrupulosity concerning truth or falsehood this perhaps is the character of Mr. Varillas's Religion thô those that know him well assure me that Religion makes very little impression on him and if that is true then his Apophthegme fails in himself since the Interest of a Pension and the passion of making himself acceptable in the present time have as entirely freed him from all regard to Truth as ever any false Principle of Religion did an enraged Zealot It is matter of horrour to see Religion and Conscience set up as the violentest Corrupters of Truth but we know out of what school this has sprung and it seems Mr. Varillas has so devoted himself to the Order of the Jesuites that he is resolved to speak aloud that which they more prudently think fit to whisper in secret and indeed if we may judge of him by this character that he gives of Religion we must conclude him to be entirely possessed with it since never Man seem'd to be less solicitous than he is concerning the truth or falsehood of the things that hoavers He accuses me of favouring my own side too much and that if I confess some of King Henry's faults it is only that I may have an occasion to excuse the wretched Cranmer This is some Intimation as if he had read my Book but I doe not believe he has done it for thô I have no great opinion either of his Vertue or of his Understanding yet I doe not think he is so forsaken of common-sense and of all regard to his reputation as to have adventured to have advanced so many notorious falsehoods if he had seen upon what Authentical grounds I had so exposed them that I doe not think it possible even for Mr. Maimbourg himself after all his 50 years Noviciat to arrive at a confidence able to maintain them any longer if he had once read my Book and what I had writ was at least so important that he ought to have weakned the credit of my History by some more evident proofs than that of saying barely that I was extreamly partial to my own side My book was so much read and so favourably spoken of in France these three Years past that in common decency he ought to have alledged somewhat to have justified his Censure but this manner of writing was more easy as well as more imperious And if a large Volume of History supported with the most Authentick proofs that has ever yet perhaps accompanied any Book of that sort is to be thus shaken off it is a vain thing to write Books for Men of Mr. Varillas's temper This had been more pertinent if he had voucht for it a report which was so spread over Paris that I had received advices of it from several hands of a design in which as was reported a Clergy-man was engaged that has many excellent qualities to which Mr. Varillas seems to be a great Stranger for he has both great application and much sincerity He has searcht with great exactness that vast Collection of Mss. that relate to the last Age which are laid up in the King's Library and he had found so many things relating to England that he intended to publish a Volume of Memoires relating to our Affairs he had also said that in some things he would enlarge himself more copiously than I had done and that in other things he must differ from me Matters generally grow bigger by being oft told so this was given out as a design to write a Counter-History which should overthrow all the credit that my Work had got But upon my coming to Paris I found some sincere enquirers into truth and who by consequence are Men that have no value for Mr. Varillas who intended to bring us together that we might in an amicable manner reason the matter be foresome of our common Friends and both of us seemed to be so well disposed to sacrifice all to truth that two Persons of such Eminence that they can receive no honour by the most advantageous Characters that I can give them who were Mr. Thevenot and Mr. Auzont did procure us a meeting in the King's Library and in their presence In which the Abbot as he discovered a vast memory great exactness and much sincerity so he confessed that he had no exceptions to the main parts of my History he mentioned some things of less moment in all which I gave not only our two learned Arbiters but even himself full satisfaction so that I quickly perceived I had to doe with a man of honour He insisted most on the judgment of the Sorbonne against K. Henry's Mariage which is not in their Registers But I was certainly informed by a Dr. of the Sorbonne that their Registers are extreamly defective and that many of their Books are lost He alledged a letter to K. Henry that he had seen telling him that it was to be feared that he might be displeased with the decision of the Sorbonne and that it might doe him more hurt than good which Letter bearing s after the decision that I have printed does not seem to agree with it To this I answered that all the other decisions of Universities being given simply in the King's favours and that of the Sorbonne bearing only that the Majority had declared for him this left ablot upon the matter since when the opposition is inconsiderable decisions are given in the Name of the whole Body but the mention of the Majority imported that there was a great opposition made which thô it was not supported by a number equal to the other yet was so considerable as to lessen very much the credit of the Decision To this I added that K. Henry's printing this the Year after it was given and none ever accusing that piece of Forgery Card. Pool on the contrary acknowledging that he was in Paris when it was obtained these were undeniable Evidences of its genuinness to which he answered by a hearty acknowledgment that he had seen another Letter in which the detail of the whole Proceeding of the Sorbonne is set down and as I remember there were but one or two more than the Majority that opined on the King's side but the rest were in different Classes Some suspended their opinions others thô they condemned the Mariage yet did not think it could be broken since it was once made and some were positively of the Pope's side In end after some hours discours in which all the Company was fully satisfied with the Answers that I gave he concluded that as he had seen many more Letters relating to that matter than I had done so if I thought fit he would furnish me with a Volume of Authentical proofs for what I had writ greater than that which I had already printed And these were the Letters of the French Ambassadours that were in King Henry the 8th's Court that are in the King's Library but I did not stay