y word in it, and a giving all the different expositions with
the grounds of them, and the entring into some parts of controversy,
and all concluding in some, but very short, practical applications,
according to the subject or the occasion. This was both long and
heavy, when all was pye-balled, full of many sayings of different
languages. The common style of sermons was either very flat and low,
or swelled up with rhetorick to a false pitch of a wrong sublime. The
King had little or no literature, but true and good sense; and had got
a right notion of style; for he was in _France_ at a time when they
were much set on reforming their language. It soon appear'd that he
had a true taste. So this help'd to raise the value of these men,
when the King approved of the style their discourses generally ran
in; which was clear, plain, and short. They gave a short paraphrase
of their text, unless where great difficulties required a more copious
enlargement: But even then they cut off unnecessary shews of learning,
and applied themselves to the matter, in which they opened the nature
and reasons of things so fully, and with that simplicity, that their
hearers felt an instruction of another sort than had commonly been
observed before. So they became very much followed: And a set of these
men brought off the City in a great measure from the prejudices they
had formerly to the Church.

75.

JAMES II.

_Born 1633. Created Duke of York. Succeeded Charles II 1685. Fled to
France 1688. Died 1701._

By BURNET.

I will digress a little to give an account of the Duke's character,
whom I knew for some years so particularly, that I can say much
upon my own knowledge. He was very brave in his youth, and so much
magnified by Monsieur _Turenne_, that, till his marriage lessened him
he really clouded the King, and pass'd for the superior genius. He was
naturally candid and sincere, and a firm friend, till affairs and his
religion wore out all his first principles and inclinations. He had
a great desire to understand affairs: And in order to that he kept
a constant journal of all that pass'd, of which he shewed me a
great deal. The Duke of _Buckingham_ gave me once a short but severe
character of the two brothers. It was the more severe, because it
was-true: The King (he said) could see things if he would, and the
Duke would see things if he could. He had no true judgment, and
was soon determined by those whom he trusted: But he was