immediately formed the refolution of compiling a history of England. At this time, Rapin de Thoyras, a French refugee, was the only reputable writer on the fubject. His work, however, was esteemed chiefly as a faithful chronicle or register of facts; for, as was to be expected from the production of a stranger writing in a foreign tongue, it could not boaft of elegance of language, and was unadorned with thofe political reflections which constitute the philofophy of historical compofition, and of which Thucydides and Polybius have tranfmitted valuable examples. The history of Rapin was a work of labour, but not of tafte. Hume had been accustomed to difquifition; and he carried with him to his new undertaking the bold and liberal fpirit of inquiry, which he had displayed in his former writings. Intimidated, however, by the magnitude of a work, which was to contain a narrative of English affairs during a period of 1700 years, he felected, for his firft effay, that portion of it which commences with the acceffion of the Houfe of Stuart, and forms a most important epoch in the British annals.

Other motives feem likewife to have influenced his choice. The hiftorian of those times, when the gloom of feudalifm darkened Europe, has little else to relate but the fanguinary disputes of semibarbarians, and the fatal confequences of family feuds. The contests between rival candidates for the throne are not fufceptible of much ornament in point

point of language; while the ferocious manners of warlike but illiterate chieftains, and their fol. lowers, do not promise much gratification to the inquifitive mind, in point of legislation and useful policy. But fociety, like the individual, is pro greffive the invention of printing, and the gra dual diffufion of knowledge among all ranks of men, spread their benign influence throughout Europe; and the peafant and the artizan rofe, as it were, in the scale of being. They learned to inquire, to calculate their own value, and to probe, with daring hands, the civil and ecclefiaftical impoftures of former days. Such were the happy effects refulting from the blaze of science, which, at the time of the Reformation, illumined Chrif tendom effects fortunate indeed when compared with that ignorance, torpor, and abafement which formerly oppreffed it. The caftellated manfions of the nobility ceased to difplay the standards of rebellion; and the fovereign, in his turn, was conftrained to cultivate, in his administration, that liberality which accorded with the popular fentiment, and to confult the wants and wishes of his fubjects in preference to his own caprice and selfish interefts. It is this conflict, and the glorious refult of it, that conftitute a subject of research, which can repay the labours of the philofophic inquirer.

The political events under the dynasty of the Stuarts appeared to Mr. Hume to form the æra moft worthy of the exertion of his talents; and as he flattered himself with a belief of his own im

partiality,

partiality, he fancied that he was deftined to free that portion of our history from the mifreprefenta tions of party. This idea ftimulated his diligence, and great were his expectations of fuccefs. Devoting himself wholly to the reclufe habits of a literary life, he laboured with unceafing perfe verance until he had accomplished part of his undertaking; and accordingly, in the month of October 1754, the firft volume of his Hiftory of Great Britain, containing the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was published at Edinburgh *.

A more convenient opportunity to inquire into the merits of this volume will hereafter occur: fuffice it, at prefent, to obferve, that the fanguine hopes, in which our author had indulged himself, were completely difappointed. The fale of the work was extremely dull, infomuch that he felt it neceffary to hold a confultation with his bookfeller, the late Mr. John Balfour of Edinburgh, as to what should be done to leffen the load of expence he had incurred. The indefatigable Andrew Millar was then taking the lead as a bookfeller in London, and his name and extenfive correfpondence with the country dealers were fufficient to buoy up, in fome degree, the character of a book, and facilitate its circulation. Mr. Balfour urged the neceffity of obtaining the aid of Millar, in order to push the work into notice; and this advice was prudently followed.

* In 4to. price 14s. boards.

Another

Another incident had lately occurred, which not a little chagrined our author. The profefforfhip of Moral Philofophy, in the university of Edinburgh, having become vacant by the death of Mr. William Cleghorn, Mr. Hume appeared as a candidate for the chair, which is in the gift of the town-council. But the intereft of his friends proved unfuccefsful: his philofophical opinions were mifreprefented, his character was traduced, and fo great an outcry raised by the religious zealots as to endanger his perfonal fafety. The clergy were particularly active on this occafion, fome of whom reprefented Mr. Hume's principles to be thofe of an atheift, while others charitably branded them as the dogmas of deifm. Their remonftrances fucceeded; but the event gave rife to a rooted antipathy on the part of Hume towards the Scottish clergy, although at this time he lived, and continued afterwards to live, in the ftrictest intimacy, and moft cordial friendship, with Blair, Wallace, Dryfdale, Wifhart, Jardine, Home, Robertfon, Carlyle, and a few others.

The election took place on the 28th of Auguft, and the office was conferred on Mr. James Balfour of Pilrig, advocate and fheriff depute of the county of Edinburgh. Mr. Balfour was the author of the Delineation of the Nature and Obligations of Morality, written in oppofition to Mr. Hume's Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals; and from this pious fpecimen of his erudition, it must be acknowledged,

1

knowledged, that he was a fafer man than our hiftorian, in the chair of Moral Philofophy. The Delineation is a work not deftitute of found argu. ment, though its prolixity is tirefome; and as Mr. Balfour attacked propofitions in the Enquiry, which were unfounded in fair reasoning, and exceptionable in point of morality, he had, in every way, the better of Hume in the difpute. From the obfervations on the philofophical and ethical writings of the latter, inferted in the concluding part of this biography, the reader, who bears in his recollection that Hume's reputation refted as yet on thefe only, will, perhaps, join with us in thinking that the univerfity was no lofer by the iffue of the contest.

Confirmed as was Mr. Hume's philofophic habit of bearing up against disappointment, a kind of defpondency began, at this time, to ruffle the usual ferenity of his mind. He himself tells us, that he was prevented only by the war, which had broken out between Great Britain and France, from retiring to fome provincial town in the latter kingdom, where he might, under a borrowed name, fpend his days at a distance from his native country. This scheme of a folitary retreat was, however, no longer practicable; and as he had made confiderable progrefs with the second volume of his History, and been invited by fome perfons of refpectability, among whom he enumerates, with just satisfaction, Dr. Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr.

Stone,