very little from the _Life_. Sincerity and honest conviction
are present on every page, and the inaccuracies are due not to wilful
misrepresentation, but to failure of memory and to the disadvantages
under which the author laboured in exile. But they lessen considerably
the value of his work, and detract from his reputation as chronicler of
contemporary events, for which he was specially fitted by his practical
experience in public business, a qualification declared by himself to be
the "genius, spirit and soul of an historian." In general, Clarendon,
like many of his contemporaries, failed signally to comprehend the real
issues and principles at stake in the great struggle, laying far too
much stress on personalities and never understanding the real aims and
motives of the Presbyterian party. The work was first published in
1702-1704 from a copy of a transcript made by Clarendon's secretary,
with a few unimportant alterations, and was the object of a violent
attack by John Oldmixon for supposed changes and omissions in _Clarendon
and Whitelocke compared_ (1727) and again in a preface to his _History
of England_ (1730), repelled and refuted by John Burton in the
_Genuineness of Lord Clarendon's History Vindicated_ (1744). The history
was first published from the original in 1826; the best edition being
that of 1888 edited by W.D. Macray and issued by the Clarendon Press.
_The Lord Clarendon's History ... Compleated_, a supplement containing
portraits and illustrative papers, was published in 1717, and _An
Appendix to the History_, containing a life, speeches and various
pieces, in 1724. The _Sutherland Clarendon_ in the Bodleian library at
Oxford contains several thousand portraits and illustrations of the
_History_. _The Life of Edward, earl of Clarendon ... [and the]
Continuation of the History ..._, the first consisting of that portion
of the _Life_ not included in the _History_, and the second of the
account of Clarendon's administration and exile in France, begun in
1672, was published in 1759, the _History of the Reign of King Charles
II. from the Restoration ..._, published about 1755, being a
surreptitious edition of this work, of which the latest and best edition
is that of the Clarendon Press of 1857.

Clarendon was also the author of _The Difference and Disparity between
the Estate and Condition of George, duke of Buckingham and Robert, earl
of Essex_, a youthful production vindicating Buckingham, printed in