s, although perhaps not so equally poised;
it may probably concern those who are now in their height, if they have
any regard for their own memories in future ages, to be less warm
against others, who humbly differ from them in some state opinions. Old
persons remember, at least by tradition, the horrible prejudices that
prevailed against the first Earl of Clarendon, whose character, as it
now stands, might be a pattern for all ministers; although even Bishop
Burnet of Sarum, whose principles, veracity, and manner of writing, are
so little esteemed upon many accounts, hath been at the pains to
vindicate him.

Upon that irreparable breach between the treasurer and secretary
Bolingbroke, after my utmost endeavours, for above two years, to
reconcile them, I retired to a friend in Berkshire, where I stayed until
Her Majesty's death;[5] and then immediately returned to my station in
Dublin, where I continued about twelve years without once seeing
England. I there often reviewed the following Memoirs; neither changing
nor adding, further than by correcting the style: And, if I have been
guilty of any mistakes, they must be of small moment; for it was hardly
possible I could be wrong informed, with all the advantages I have
already mentioned.

[Footnote 5: See vol. v. of the present edition--the notes on pp. 390,
393-394, 420, 421, and 426. [T.S.]]

I shall not be very uneasy under the obloquy that may, perhaps, be cast
upon me by the violent leaders and followers of the present prevailing
party. And yet I cannot find the least inconsistence with conscience or
honour, upon the death of so excellent a princess as her late Majesty,
for a wise and good man to submit, with a true and loyal heart, to her
lawful Protestant successor; whose hereditary title was confirmed by the
Queen and both Houses of Parliament, with the greatest unanimity, after
it had been made an article in the treaty, that every prince in our
alliance should be a guarantee of that succession. Nay, I will venture
to go one step farther; that, if the negotiators of that peace had been
chosen out of the most professed zealots for the interests of the
Hanover family, they could not have bound up the French king, or the
Hollanders, more strictly than the Queen's plenipotentiaries did, in
confirming the present succession; which was in them so much a greater
mark of virtue and loyalty, because they perfectly well knew, that they
should never receive the least mark