repeated the offence a fortnight afterwards, he was sent to Newgate. A few months later he and William Simpson, the author of the far-famed ‘Going Naked a Sign,’ again sailed for America, where Burneyeat stayed as an unpaid preacher for several years. A feeling of much bitterness had developed among the American Friends against their brethren in England, and especially against ‘George Fox and his papers of wholesome advice,’ and, hearing that Fox and some of his immediate followers were coming to America, Burneyeat set himself the task of allaying ill-feeling, and was so successful that when Fox and his companions landed they received a hearty welcome from the colonists, nor through the whole of their protracted stay does there appear to have been the slightest display of animosity. At Rhode Island Burneyeat with several other quakers took part in a dispute with Roger Williams, who complains, and not without reason, that he was barely permitted to speak, and who, to justify his position, wrote a book entitled ‘George Fox digg'd out of his Burrows,’ in reply to which Burneyeat, in conjunction with Fox, published ‘A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched,’ a work which at the time enjoyed considerable popularity. Burneyeat accounts for the fulness with which the dispute is recorded by asserting that it had been taken down in shorthand. In 1673 he left America, and, returning to England, spent most of his time in visiting and overlooking various quaker societies. In the following year he was one of the Friends chosen to inquire into and settle the dissensions in Westmoreland caused by the eccentricities of Story and Wilkinson, but his efforts were utterly futile. Somewhat later he again visited Ireland, where in 1683 he married. During the same year the Irish authorities became troubled by the rapid increase of quakerism in that island, and Burneyeat, who was the most active disseminator of the creed, was arrested at a meeting and sent to prison, though no formal charge seems to have been brought against him. After two months he was unconditionally released by order of the Earl of Arran. In 1688 his wife died, and was buried near Dublin. From this time Burneyeat appears to have resided almost entirely in Ireland, and, though he continued to preach, his high character protected him from legal molestation. He died in 1690, and was buried at the New Garden burial-ground, near Dublin, having been a quaker minister for twenty-three years. All the various ‘testimonies’ to him which remain concur in representing him as a fine type of man, humble, patient, earnest, and moderate. ‘And in all his travels,’ says one of these ‘testimonies’ quaintly, ‘into whose house he entered he was content with such things as were set before him, were they ever so mean, which was great satisfaction to many poor, honest Friends among whom his lot was cast.’ He left one son, Jonathan, who became a quaker minister at the age of twelve, and died in Cumberland in 1723. Unlike so many of the early Friends, Burneyeat was not a voluminous writer; but though his scholarship was small and his literary style poor, his works were much esteemed during the early part of the eighteenth century, owing to their earnest spirit of piety.
The following is a fairly complete list of his works: 1. ‘A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched; being an answer to a slanderous book entituled “George Fox digg'd out of his Burrows,”’ &c. By John Burneyeat [and George Fox], 4to, 1679. 2. ‘An Epistle from John Burneyeat to Friends in Pennsylvania,’ &c. 4to, 1686. 3. ‘The Innocency of the Christian Quakers manifested,’ &c. By John Burneyeat [and Amos Strettel], 4to, 1688. 4. ‘The Holy Truth and its Professions defended,’ &c. By John Burneyeat [and John Watson], 4to, 1688.
His collected works were published in 1691 under the title of ‘The Truth exalted in the Writings of that Eminent and Faithful Servant of Christ, John Burneyeat, &c., with Prefaces to the Reader and several testimonies from various Friends in England, Ireland, and America.’ No life of Burneyeat has ever been published, and the scanty remnants of his history can only be gleaned from the testimonies of his friends and occasional references in the works of himself and his contemporaries.
[Fox's Journal; Wight's Quakers in Ireland; Smith's Catalogue of Friends' Books; MSS. in the Library of the Meeting for Sufferings, Devonshire House, Bishopsgate Street.]
BURNHAM, RICHARD (1711–1752), biographer, was born at Guildford, Surrey, in 1711, of pious parents. He collected the dying sayings of more than a hundred pious persons, with some account of their lives and last hours. He died in 1752, and in the following year was published ‘Pious Memorials; or the Power of Religion upon the Mind in Sickness and at Death,’ by the Rev. Richard Burnham, with a recommendatory preface by the Rev. James Hervey, author of the ‘Meditations.’ Besides the preface, Mr. Hervey added to the ‘Memorials’ an account of Richard Burnham himself, by which it appears he preached for a few years to a small congregation, and ended his life on 4 June 1752. When he was dying, seeing
