Castle, the family seat, a magnificent full-length portrait
of the Bishop in his robes, as Prelate of the Garter, by Sir Godfrey
Kneller. It was presented by himself to the head of his family. But, as
one great object of the Bishop's history was to laud and magnify the
personal character and public acts of William of Orange, his friend and
patron, and as William was held in special abhorrence by the Jacobite
party in Scotland, the Bishop holds a prominent, and, with many, a very
odious position in Scottish Reminiscences; in fact, he drew upon himself
and upon his memory the determined hatred and unrelenting hostility of
adherents to the Stuart cause. They never failed to abuse him on all
occasions, and I recollect old ladies in Montrose, devoted to the exiled
Prince, with whom the epithet usually applied to the Prelate was that of
"Leein' Gibby[14]."

Such language has happily become a "Reminiscence." Few would be found
now to apply such an epithet to the author of the _History of his Own
Times_, and certainly it would not be applied on the ground of the
Jacobite principles to which he was opposed. But a curious additional
proof of this hostility of Scottish Jacobites to the memory of Burnett
has lately come to light. In a box of political papers lately found at
Brechin Castle, belonging to the Panmure branch of the family, who, in
'15, were forfeited on the ground of their Jacobite opinions and
adherence to the cause of Charles Edward, there has been found a severe
and bitter supposed _epitaph_ for Bishop Burnett. By the kindness of the
Earl of Dalhousie I was permitted to see this epitaph, and, if I chose,
to print it in this edition. I am, however, unwilling to stain my pages
with such an ungenerous and, indeed, I may say, so scurrilous a
representation of the character of one who, in the just opinion of our
Lyon King-at-Arms, himself a Burnett of the Kemnay branch, has
characterised the Bishop of Salisbury as "true and honest, and far
beyond the standard of his times as a Clergyman and as a Bishop." But
the epitaph found in these Panmure papers shows clearly the prejudices
of the age in which it was written, and in fact only embodies something
of that spirit and of those opinions which we have known as still
lingering in our own Reminiscences.

If it were not on my part a degree of presumption, I might be inclined
to consider myself in this volume a fellow-labourer with the late
accomplished and able Mr. Robert Ch