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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_n	writer_n	64	3	7.7052	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30405	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 ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1686 (1686)	Wing B5852; ESTC R13985	50,351	202

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

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-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 w●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