HUME to DR. CAMPBELL.

"January 7, 1762.

"DEAR SIR, -It has so seldom happened that controversies in philosophy, much more in theology, have been carried on without producing a personal quarrel between the parties, that I must regard my present situation as somewhat extraordinary, who have reason to give you thanks for the civil and obliging manner in which you have conducted the dispute against me, on so interesting a subject as that of miracles. Any little symptoms of vehemence, of which I formerly used the freedom to complain, when you favoured me with a sight of the manuscript, are either removed or explained away, or atoned for by civilities, which are far beyond what I have any title to pretend to. It will be natural for you to imagine, that I will fall upon some shift to evade the force of your arguments, and to retain my former opinion in the point controverted between us; but it is impossible for me not to see the ingenuity of your performance, and the great learning which you have displayed against me.

"I consider myself as very much honoured in being thought worthy of an answer by a person of so much merit; and as I find that the public does you justice with regard to the ingenuity and good composition of your piece, I hope you will have no reason to repent engaging with an antagonist, whom, perhaps, in strictness, you might have ventured to neglect. I own to you, that I never felt so violent an inclination to defend myself as at present, when I am thus fairly challenged by you, and I think I could find something specious at least to urge in my defence; but as I had fixed a resolution, in the beginning of my life, always

to leave the public to judge between my adversaries and me, without making any reply, I must adhere inviolably to this resolution, otherwise my silence on any future occasion would be construed an inability to answer, and would be matter of triumph against me."

"1

He then, in the passage already cited, describes the occasion on which the "Theory of Miracles" was suggested to him.

In answer to this, there is a letter by Campbell, in which he endeavours to rival his opponent in candour, politeness, and gentlemanlike feeling. The happy courtesy with which he apologizes for the occasionally irascible tone of his essay, shows that the retired northern divine possessed in no small degree the qualities that might have adorned a more showy station.

DR. CAMPBELL to HUME.

25th June, 1762.

The testimony you are pleased to give in favour of my performance, is an honour of which 1 should be entirely unworthy, were I not sensible of the uncommon generosity you have shown in giving it. Ever since I was acquainted with your works, your talents as a writer have, notwithstanding some differences in abstract principles, extorted from me the highest veneration. But I could scarce have thought that, in spite of differences of a more interesting nature, even such as regard morals and religion, you could ever force me to love and honour you as a man. Yet no religious prejudices (as you would probably term them,) can hinder me from doing justice to that goodness and candour, which appear in every line of your letter.

1 European Magazine, 1785, p. 250.

• Vol. i. p. 57.

It would be in vain to dissemble the pleasure which it gives me, that I am thought to have acquitted myself tolerably in a dispute with an author of such acknowledged merit. At the same time, it gives me real pain, that any symptoms of vehemence (which are not so easily avoided in disputation as one would imagine,) should give so generous an adversary the least ground of complaint. You have (if I remember right, for I have not the book here,) in the appendix to the third volume of your "Treatise on Human Nature," apologized for using sometimes the expressions-'Tis certain, 'Tis evident, and the like. These, you observe, were in a manner forced from you by the strong, though transient light in which a particular object then appeared, and are therefore not to be considered as at all inconsistent with the general principles of scepticism which are maintained in the Treatise. My apology is somewhat similar. There is in all controversy a struggle for victory, which I may say compels one to take every fair advantage that either the sentiments or the words. of an antagonist present him with. But the appearances of asperity or raillery, which one will be thereby necessarily drawn into, ought not to be constructed as in the least affecting the habitual good opinion, or even the high esteem, which the writer may nevertheless entertain of his adversary.

The Publication of the History anterior to the Accession of the Tudors Completion of the History - Inquiry how far it is a complete History Hume's Intention to write an Ecclesiastical History - Opinions of Townsend and others on his History Appreciation of the Fine Arts-Hume's House in James's Court - Its subsequent occupation by Boswell and Johnson Conduct of David Mallet-Hume's Projects - The Douglas Cause Correspondence with Reid.

IN 1762 there was published, in two quarto volumes, the "History of England, from the Invasion

of Julius Cæsar, to the Accession of Henry VII." The farther back we proceed from those periods of which a full narrative of historical events is preserved by contemporary chroniclers, into those more obscure ages when even the lines of kings are hardly preserved, and fragments of laws, or of long obsolete literature, and antiquarian relics, are the historian's only guide, the less satisfactory is Hume's history, when compared with other historical works. The earliest part is thus the least valuable. He had here, however, to encounter difficulties which we are only at this day able to estimate, in the absence of those materials which the industry of antiquaries has lately brought to light, to so great an extent, as almost necessarily to supersede Hume's "History of England" during the early ages, as a source of historical knowledge.1

1 The works prepared by the Record Commission, whether it be true or not that it has failed to fulfil the services expected from so large an expenditure of the public money, present the sources of British history on a very different scale from that in which they appeared before Hume; and if he had lived in the present day, he would not have attempted to write the history of the first fourteen centuries in less than three years; or, attempting it, would have palpably overlooked materials which, in his own time, he could not have found access to. Among such sources may be viewed, Domesday Book, the Rotuli Hundredorum, the many records of the various courts of justice, the "Parliamentary writs, or writs of military summons, together with the records and muniments relating to the suit and service due and performed to the king's high court of parliament and the councils of the realm, as affording evidence of attendance given at parliaments and councils ;" the remains of Anglo-Saxon legislation, collected under the name of "Ancient laws and institutions of England," and the "Ancient laws and institutes of Wales."

To these must be added the many antiquarian labours of private individuals or societies, such as the county histories, the works circulated by the numerous book clubs, and the inquiries into the early ecclesiastical history, which the controversies on church polity, for which this age is becoming peculiar, have excited. The publi

But both in this and the other departments of his work, we are bound to estimate Hume, as we do great

cation of charters and other documents connected with private rights has opened a means of becoming acquainted with contemporary habits and institutions, slow certainly but sure. Besides his labours in the Record Commission, Sir Francis Palgrave has excavated much curious but not attractive matter, of which the world will never know the value till some Hume shall arise to give it shape and symmetry.

It has been a usual practice to rank those who, by such critical inquiries, ascertain the truth regarding minute historical propositions, in the category of "harmless drudges." But perhaps the character has been applied to the really useful workers in this field, as inaptly as it was appropriated by Dr. Johnson to the race of Lexicographers, in a moment of bitter cynicism. Antiquarianism, archæology, palæology, or whatever name it may receive, is a field in which there are many paltry workers; and these are sometimes, from adventitious circumstances, conspicuous enough to give a tone in popular estimation to the science. Dates are but one, and perhaps an inferior branch, of the subject; yet the labours of Petau, of Antine Durand and Clemencet the authors of the "Art de vérifier les dates," of Newton, Hailes, and Nicolas, would be enough to vindicate the dignity of this species of inquiry. It is, indeed, an essential one to history; and where it has been vaguely or unscientifically applied, the foundations of historical speculation are rotten. The prevalent failing of antiquaries is the inability to distinguish the important from the trifling; to perceive that the labour which might be necessary to fix the era of the restoration of the study of the civil law in Europe, would be ill bestowed on an inquiry into the foundation of some inconsiderable rectorship, or the birth of some undistinguished landed proprietor. But there is perhaps as much worthless historical Speculation as trifling Antiquarianism extant in literature. But it does not follow in either case, from the defects of the injudicious, that the able and accomplished followers of the subject were ill employed. A late and signal instance may be adduced of the intimate connexion of the speculative and the minute departments of history. Dr. Allen, in his "Inquiry into the rise and progress of the royal prerogative," maintaining that the older kings of England did not perform public acts until they had taken the coronation oath of fidelity to the people, found that there was just one exception, in the case of Richard II. which disconcerted his theory. It was subsequently