If you're not already familiar with this era of English history, Burnet's book will be hard to follow. Important characters (so familiar to those times) enter our stage without introduction, and after dropping famous hints, or carrying off some great exploit, are discarded without subsequent investigation. In short, Burnet touches lightly on the events and main players of each year from 1660-1712, but scarcely troubles himself to round out his topics, or give life to his characters. As he himself says, he only writes on areas where he was a key witness, but doesn't enlarge on events which most likely would appear in other history books.

After reading Hume or Macaulay, Burnet's writings seem almost useless. An important figure of the times, it is difficult to conceive how this volume figures as an important journal of the times, yet for its defense, we are told that Swift owned a copy.