At length a complete explanation and reconciliation were brought about by the agency of Gilbert Burnet.
The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice and pertinacity.

The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more than a century and a quarter in his grave.

He is indeed as fair a mark as factious animosity and petulant wit could desire.

The faults of his understanding and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed.

They were not the faults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to his country.
Alone among the many Scotchmen who have raised themselves to distinction and prosperity in England, he had that character which satirists, novelists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish adventurers.
His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his undissembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his provoking indiscretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to the Tories.