Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/416

Burnet Fide’ in 1727. F. Wilkinson then printed an authoritative edition of the ‘De Fide’ in octavo, with a preface explanatory of its previous history, dated June 1727, and a similar edition of the ‘De Statu,’ with an appendix ‘De futura Judæorum Restauratione,’ in October 1727. A second edition of the ‘Archæologiæ’ appeared in 1728. Dennis published a translation of the ‘De Fide’ in 1728, and of the ‘De Statu’ in 1733. Various fragmentary translations were also published by piratical booksellers. A translation of the ‘Archæologiæ,’ with remarks by Mr. Foxton, in 1729, and a translation of the ‘De Statu,’ with remarks by Matthias Earbery, in 1727, second edition 1728, were catchpenny productions of Curll's press, who no doubt sought to take advantage of the curiosity excited by the carefully limited impressions.

[Biog. Brit.; Carte's Ormonde, ii. 546; Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. lxxvii; Hickes's Life of Kettlewell; Life of Burnet (by Dr. Ralph Heathcote), prefixed to seventh edition of Theory (1759); Relation of Proceedings at the Charterhouse upon occasion of King James II. presenting a Papist, &c. (1689); Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 195, iii. 540, vi. 221; Macaulay's History, ii. 293–4; Notes and Queries (1st ser.), i. 227.]  BURNET, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1750), rector of West Kington, Wiltshire, of New College, Oxford, became D.D. in 1720, and was prebendary of Salisbury from 1711 till his death on 28 May 1750. He wrote: 1. ‘An Essay upon Government,’ 1716. 2. ‘The Scripture-Trinity intelligibly explained,’ 1720, published anonymously. 3. ‘The Demonstration of True Religion,’ in sixteen sermons (Boyle lecture), 1726. 4. ‘The Argument set forth in a late book entitled Christianity as old as the Creation, reviewed and confuted,’ 1730. 5. ‘The Scripture Doctrine of the Redemption of the World by Christ,’ 1737. Kippis in the ‘Biographia’ mentions ‘Scripture Politics,’ which seems to be merely a misdescription of No. 1. Burnet is a fair and candid, but by no means a lively writer. In his treatises on the Trinity and atonement and redemption, he endeavours to mediate between orthodox and Arian views. In his defences of revelation, as well as in his political treatise, he tries to reason logically from propositions assumed as axiomatic. In the dedication of his ‘Scripture Doctrine’ to the Bishop of Salisbury, he says: ‘It was composed by broken snatches, and at such leisure time as I could steal from a life encumbered with disagreeable business, and embarrassed with care and difficulties.’

[Biog. Brit. under ‘Gilbert Burnet;’ Gent. Mag. 1750, p. 284.]  BURNET, THOMAS (1694–1753), judge, was grandson of the Scotch judge, Lord Cramond, and third and youngest son of Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury [q. v.], by his second wife, Mrs. Mary Scott, a rich Dutch lady of Scotch extraction. He was born in 1694, was educated at home, entered at Merton College, Oxford, and in 1706 went to the university of Leyden, where he remained two years. Afterwards he travelled in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and on his return entered at the Middle Temple in 1709. He appears to have been called to the bar in 1715 (see a pamphlet, Letter to a Merry Young Gentleman, T. Burnet, Esq., 1715). His attention was, however, directed to politics, not law, and he was notorious among the men of his time about town for debauchery and wit. Swift, writing of the Mohocks to Stella in 1712, says: ‘The bishop of Salisbury's son is said to be of the gang; they are all whigs.’ He published many pamphlets, for one of which, ‘Certain information of a certain discourse,’ the government imprisoned him. A story is told that his father, finding him one day in deep meditation, asked him of what he was thinking. ‘Of a greater work than your lordship's Reformation; of my own,’ said he. The whigs, on their accession to power, rewarded him with the consulship at Lisbon, and Pope says of him and Ducket:

There he quarrelled with Lord Tyrawley, the English ambassador, and took a curious revenge, by appearing on a great fête in a plain suit himself, but with lacqueys in suits copied from that which the ambassador was to wear. After remaining some years at Lisbon he returned to England, and at length began practice at the bar; he was made a serjeant-at-law in Easter term 1736, and succeeded Serjeant Eyre as king's serjeant in May 1740. He was appointed to a judgeship of the court of common pleas in October 1741, when Mr. Justice Fortescue became master of the rolls, and enjoyed a high reputation as a judge for learning. He was not knighted until November 1745, when, with three other judges, he received that honour on the occasion of the bench ‘serjeants’ and bar presenting an address of ‘utter detestation of the present wicked and most ungrateful rebellion.’ He was a member of the Royal Society. He died unmarried, at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on 8 Jan. 1753, of gout in the stomach, and was buried near his father at St. James's Church, Clerkenwell, where, on taking down the church in Sep- 