in that sense; but his language is often, nay, generally, racy, and he avails himself of the expressions, both the terms and the phrases, which he finds in older writers, transferring them to his own page. In this he enjoys a great advantage over Robertson, who, resorting necessarily to Latin, or to foreign or provincial authors, could not manage such transfers, and was obliged to make all undergo the digestive and assimilating process, converting the whole into his own beautiful, correct, and uniform style. Another reach of art Hume has attained, and better than any writer in our language; he has given either a new sense to expressions, or revived an old, so as never to offend us by the neology of the one process or by the archaism of the other. With this style, sustained by his profound philosophy, there can be nothing more beautiful than some of his descriptions of personal character, or of public feeling, or of manners, or of individual suffering; and like all great masters of composition, he produces his effect suddenly, and, as it were, with a single blow.

Who that has read can ever forget his account, fanciful though it be, of the effects produced on the people by Charles's death and his son's return? Or his picture of the French Ambassador at his first audience of Elizabeth, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, proceeding "through the palace,-silence, as in the dead of night, reigning through all the chambers, and sorrow sitting on every face-the courtiers and ladies clad in deep mourning, ranged on each side, and allowing him to pass without affording him one salute or favourable look:"* Or Cromwell's state of mind when "society terrified him, surrounded by numerous, unknown, implacable enemies; solitude astonished him by withdrawing the protection necessary for his security."t Or the groups of great men who

⚫ Chap. xl.

+ Chap. lxii.

subverted the monarchy, when "was celebrated the sagacity of Pym, more fitted for use than ornament; matured, not chilled by age"-when "was displayed the mighty ambition of Hampden, taught disguise, not moderation, from former constraint; sustained by courage, conducted by prudence, embellished by modesty"-when "were known the dark, ardent, and dangerous character of St. John, the impetuous spirit of Hollis, violent, open, and entire in his enmities and in his friendships; the enthusiastic genius of young Vane, extravagant in the ends which he proposed, sagacious and profound in the means which he employed, incited by the appearances of religion, negligent of the duties of morality."* These are the

strokes of a master's pencil, and beauties such as these would make this the first of histories, if the grace of form could atone for the defect of substance; if the want of diligence and the transgressions against fidelity could be covered over by the magical power

of diction.

The sagacious reflections and spirit of profound philosophy must not be passed over; they are another praise of this work. These rarely fail the author, whether in judging of the connection and the influence of events; or in estimating the value of conflicting accounts, where he will give himself the trouble of comparison; or in noting the errors and the merits of the policy pursued by statesmen. It is to be observed, however, that as in treating of ecclesiastical affairs he generally suffers his peculiar religious opinions to be superseded by the received principles of those rulers whose conduct he describes, and of their subjects; so does he not often obtrude his sound and enlightened views of public policy, especially of economical science, upon his reader, rather conforming himself to the vulgar errors on the subject, as when he

* Chap. lix.

speaks of the balance being for or against a commercial state. Perhaps, too, in ranking Galileo above Bacon he made the same kind of sacrifice, though certainly his disrespectful remarks on Shakspeare run counter to the critical faith commonly received in England; and the contempt with which he treats the political writings of Locke and Sidney in his concluding chapter is a sacrifice of his own taste as well as of his reader's feelings to the prejudices of his party.

·

It must be added-because great mistakes have been committed in this matter that though the whole work was written in too short a time to give an opportunity for investigating the subject, yet the composition was exceedingly careful, and anything rather than hasty. He is represented as having written with such ease that he hardly ever corrected. Even Mr. Stewart has fallen into this error;* and Mr. Gibbon commends as a thing admitted the "careless, inimitable beauties" of Hume's style. It was exactly the reverse, of which evidence remains admitting of no doubt and no appeal. His manuscript of the reigns before that of Henry VI., written after the History of the Stuarts and the Tudors,' is still extant, and bears marks of composition anxiously laboured, words being written and scored out, and even several times changed, until he could find the expression to his mind. The manuscript of his 'Dialogues' also remains, and is written in the same manner. Nay, his very letters appear by this test to have been the result of care and labour. maxim of Quinctilian-"Quæramus optimum, nec protinus offerentibus gaudeamus"-seems always to have been his rule as to words; and his own testimony to the same effect is to be found in a letter which I have cbtained. Certainly it would have been well if he had not adopted the opposite principle as to facts and authorities. It is remarkable, however, that he hesi† See Appendix.

Life of A. Smith.

The

tated much as to the subject he should choose for his historical labours, and more strange still that he should have balanced between England and the Church. From this he was dissuaded chiefly by the strong recommendations of Adam Smith and Sir Gilbert Elliott. I have this fact upon the authority of Dr. Robertson, who, in relating it to the late Lord Meadowbank, added, "It would, at any rate, have suited me had he adhered to the plan he himself proposed, as the 'History of England' would have thus been left open, which fell in with an early plan of my own."

After the publication of his 'History' was closed in 1761, being now fifty years old, and possessed of an ample competency, Mr. Hume resolved, he tells us, "never more to set his foot out of his native country, enjoying the satisfaction of never having asked a favour, or made advances to any great man's acquaintance. In less than two years, however, a great man's repeated solicitation to him changed his plan of life; and he accompanied Lord Hertford, the British Ambassador, to Paris, with the immediate prospect of being appointed Secretary of Embassy. This was realized; and in 1765, when the Ambassador went to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, the philosopher was for part of the year chargé d'affaires. His station, his agreeable manners, but above all his philosophical, including his irreligious, fame, were well suited to make a deep impression upon the society of the Paris circles. He was as popular among the wits, the philosophers, the coteries, and the women, as Franklin was at a later period, when his name was given to articles of fashionable attire. One of his letters gives an amusing account of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI., then a child, having paid him court at his presentation, by speaking familiarly of his works, and of his younger brother, afterwards Louis XVIII., having followed in the same complimentary strain. The charms, however, of such society as Paris then presented, the elegance of the

manners, the easy good humour of the inhabitants, the freedom from all coarse dissipation, and, above all, from factious brawls, naturally made a pleasing contrast with that which he had left behind him at home. There certainly was nothing in this country more alien to his nature, and less suited to his taste, than our political violence; and the intolerance of our religious feelings, as well as the rudeness of our manners, he had some right to complain of, when a man like Dr. Johnson could be found to roar out "No, Sir!" in his presence, on being asked by a common friend to let him present the Historian to the Moralist. Upon a subsequent occasion the same intolerant believer behaved with marked insolence to Dr. Smith,* as good a Christian as himself, and a man of purer moral life, merely because he had, while afflicted with Mr. Hume's recent death, vented his grief in a touching panegyric upon his undoubtedly profound wisdom, and his virtue free from all reproach. This model of bigotry and rudeness had, notwithstanding, met at dinner, with perfect satisfaction, and conversed for hours, with Wilkes, whose life was as abandoned as his faith was scanty, who had been convicted of blasphemy and obscenity in a court of justice, and who held in bitter scorn every one of the sturdy moralist's religious and political principles. But Wilkes was English, Hume Scotch. From the country of the Johnsons, the latter deemed that he had made a happy escape, when he found himself among the gay, the polite, the tolerant French; and he remained there happy, and respected, and beloved, till 1766, when he was diverted from his project of settling in Paris for the rest of his life, by being appointed Under-Secretary of State in General Conway's ministry, who was Lord Hertford's brother. He held that office for about two years, and in 1769 returned to Edinburgh with an income of a thousand

• See Life of Johnson, vol. ii.