geous to his family than to the public, better for this age than for posterity, and more pernicious by bad precedents than by real grievances. During his time trade has flourished, liberty declined, and learning gone to ruin. As I am a man I love him ; as I am a scholar, I hate him; as I am a Briton, I calmly with his fall. And were I a member of either house, I would give my vote for removing him from St. James's; but fhould be glad to fee him retire to Houghton-Hall, to pass the remainder of his days in ease and pleasure.

N. B. This Effay, in the edition of 1760, was inserted by way of note to the Effay " On Politics as a Science," after the words in the text, "by the violence of their factions," as follows:

"What our author's opinion was of the famous minister here pointed at, may be learned from that Effay, printed in the former editions under the title of A Character of Sir Robert Walpole. It was as follow:

*

"The author is pleased to find, that after animofities are laid, and calumny has ceased, the whole nation almost have returned to the fame moderate fentiments with regard to this great man; if they are not rather become more favourable to him, by a very natural transition, from one extreme to another. The author would not oppose these hu

mane fentiments towards the dead, though he cannot forbear obferving, that the not paying more of our public debts was, as hinted in this character, a great, and the only great, error in that long administration."

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No. II.

Letter from Mr. Hume to the Authors of the Critical Review, refpecting Mr. WILKIE's Epigoniad, 2d edit.; referred to by him in his Letter to Dr. Adam Smith, of 12 April, 1759.

[By perufing the following article, the reader will perceive, that how fubject foever we, the Reviewers, may be to overfights and errors, we are not fo hardened in critical pride and infolence, but that, upon conviction, we can retract our cenfures, and provided we be candidly rebuked, kifs the rod of correction with great humility.]

TO THE AUTHORS OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW.

Gentlemen,

April, 1759.

The great advantages which refult from literary journals have recommended the ufe of them all over Europe; but as nothing is free from abufe, it must be confeffed, that fome inconveniencies have alfo attended thefe undertakings. The works of the learned multiply in fuch a furprising manner, that a journalist, in order to give an account to the public of all new performances, is obliged to perufe

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rufe a small library every month; and as it is impoffible for him to bestow equal attention on every piece which he criticizes, he may readily be furprifed into mistakes, and give to a book fuch a character as, on a more careful perufal, he would willingly retract. Even performances of the greateft merit are not fecure against this injury, and, perhaps, are fometimes the moft expofed to it. An author of genius fcorns the vulgar arts of catching applaufe; he pays no court to the great; gives no adulation to those celebrated for learning; takes no care to provide himfelf of partizans, or proneurs, as the French call them; and by that means his work fteals unobserved into the world; and it is fome time before the public, and even men of penetration, are fenfible of its merit. We take up the book with prepoffeffion, peruse it carelessly, are feebly affected by its beauties, and lay it down with neglect, perhaps with disapprobation.

The public has done fo much juftice to the gentlemen engaged in the Critical Review as to acknowledge that no literary journal was ever carried on in this country with equal fpirit and impartiality; yet I must confess that an article, published in your Review of 1757, gave me great surprise, and not a little uneafiness. It regarded a book called the Epigoniad, a poem of the epic kind, which was at that time published with great applause at Edinburgh, and of which a few copies had been fent up to London. The author of that article had furely been lying under ftrong prepoffeffions, when he

spoke

fpoke fo negligently of a work which abounds in fuch fublime beauties, and could endeavour to difcredit a poem, confisting of near fix thousand lines, on account of a few mistakes in expreffion and profody, proceeding entirely from the author's being a Scotchman, who had never been out of his own country. As there is a new edition publifhed of this poem, wherein all or most of thefe trivial miftakes are corrected, I flatter myself that you will gladly lay hold of this opportunity of retracting your overfight, and doing justice to a performance, which may, perhaps, be regarded as one of the ornaments of our language. I appeal from your fentence, as an old woman did from a fentence pronounced by Philip of Macedon: I appeal from Philip, ill-counfelled and in a hurry, to Philip welladvised, and judging with deliberation.

The authority which you poffefs with the public makes your cenfure fall with weight, and I question not but you will be the more ready on that account to redress any injury, into which either negligence, prejudice, or mistake, may have betrayed you. As I profess myself to be an admirer of this performance, it will afford me pleasure to give you a fhort analyfis of it, and to collect a few fpecimens of those great beauties in which it abounds.

The author, who appears throughout his whole work to be a great admirer and imitator of Homer, drew the subject of this poem from the fourth Iliad, where Sthenelus gives Agamemnon a fhort account