This, to say the truth, is the mode of life we should have ourselves liked best of all that seemed to be then open to a young man in Hume's circumstances; but for this, David was already getting too fat, and we think he chose wisely in preferring what we hope was to be called the place of private secretary; for if so, it would suggest a much pleasanter account of some execrable verses found in David's handwriting, than that which Mr. Burton gives, who supposes them to be the philosopher's own handiwork. Seventy-five pounds of Hume's salary remained unpaid. On this subject some unmeaning sentimentality has been uttered, as if Hume, in determining to enforce it at law, was acting shabbily. This is worse than nonsense. Hume's chief, if not only object, in this sacrifice of his time and comforts, is the salary promised; and is he to make a present of it, or any part of it, to the estate of an insane nobleman?

In the course of the next year he became, at the invitation of General St. Clair, "secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France." "The office," says David, “ is very genteel—ten shillings a day, perquisites, and no expenses." Hume was not only secretary to the general, but acted as judge-advocate. In the course of the same year he returned to Ninewells, to remain but for a short time, as he was again invited by the general to attend him as secretary in his military embassy to Vienna and Turin. David

now wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at court as aid-decamp to the general. At Turin the late Lord Charlemont became acquainted with him, and from Hardy's Memoir of Charlemont's Life, we transcribe a sentence:

communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman, than of a refined philosopher. His speech, in English, was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable; so that wisdom, most certainly, never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb. Though now near fifty years old [Hume was but thirty-seven], he was healthy and strong; but his health and strength, far from being advantageous to his figure, instead of manly comeliness, had only the appearance of rusticity. His wearing an uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. Sinclair was a lieutenant-general, and was sent to the courts of Vienna and Turin, as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Austrians and Piedmontese. It was, therefore, thought necessary that his secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet."-Hardy's Charlemont, vol. i. p. 15.

The result of Hume's campaign with Sir John Sinclair was, that after two years he found himself possessed of a fortune," which," says he, "I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when I said so; in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds."

On his return from Italy, he re-published parts of his old "Treatise of Human Nature" in some new shape. It never succeeded in any; and he was provoked at finding the theologians, who, he expected, would kick and cuff it into notice, otherwise, and probably much better, employed. He went down to live in the country with his brother, and then composed one or two more essays, which had more success. "I found," he says, 66 by Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company. However, I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body." Quite right, David; if an opponent says any thing unanswerable, always let him have his own way. That same Dr. Warburton, the attorney bishop, is likely to have a good deal the best of it, as there is no one quality of mind in which he is not very much your superior. An unlucky squeeze of his hard hand might crush that poor Human Nature of yours out of existence.

66

In 1751, Hume went to live in Edinburgh. In 1752, he published at Edinburgh his Political Discourses; and in the same year, at London, his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,' "which," he says, in my opinion, (who ought not to judge on that subject,) is, of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unmarked and undiscovered into the world."

In that year he became "Keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh"an office of which the emolument was but forty pounds a year, but which gave him a great command of books. Some disputes with the curators of the library, as to the purchase of books, made him think of resigning the office. However, the convenience of the command of books was of great moment to Hume, who had now commenced his history of the house of Stuart, and his pride was satisfied by declining any longer to receive the salary, and transferring it to Blacklock, the blind poet, whose works are, we do not well know why, still included in every reprint of those collections which are called, by a strange misnomer, the British poets. When Hume had the means of proving that he did not retain the office for the sake of the salary, the curators and he agreed better. At the end of 1754 appeared the first part of his great work, a quarto volume of four hundred and seventy-three pages-" The History of Great Britain, Volume I., containing the reigns of James I. and Charles I."

His own account of this event, and its effect on him, cannot be omitted :

"I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation: English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,

what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.

"I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and, had not the war at that time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never more have returned to my native country; but as this scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere." -Own Life.

That Hume's History of the House of Stuart should have provoked all, was but natural. There is no one motive of action which unites men into parties, which Hume acknowledges with approbation; and with respect to religion-the strongest influencing power that animates either individuals or bodies of men-Hume was, unhappily, utterly sceptical, if we

are

not to use a stronger word. Through his work there was another great and insuperable fault. His acquaintance with English literature was imperfect in a degree that, in our days, must be altogether incredible. In his

day, nothing seems to have been called literature except the showy publications that were addressed rather to the idle and disengaged portion of the public, than to the business mind of England. There is no country in the world in which the mind of the nation is less shown in that class of publications, which, except in accidental cases, are of little real value; nor is there any people whose men of business have been more the creators of its true literature, than this same England. In the parliamentary history, in the state trials, in the law reports, in the pamphlets of the day, at almost all periods of our history of which we have any valuable records, are found masses of thought to which, in their real interest and importance, and often even in reference to the artistic skill with

might

In

which arguments of great power are elaborated and exhibited, the works of our later literature bear no comparison whatever; and of all these, Hume was, except when by bare accident he looked farther than the popular works by which he was directed to his authorities, altogether ignorant. Hume thought himself a Whig, and perhaps the temper in which the French writers, whose tone he assumed, then spoke of proposed improvements in their political constitution, have deceived him into the belief. every government-the most tyrannical and absolute, as well as the most free the peace of society must be the first object; and, though Hume would not admit it in words, he seems to think that whenever this is attained all is accomplished. Had Hume written the history of the Church, as he once thought of doing, woe to the poor reformers, unless indeed Rome had, in the days of her first usurpations, put forward, instead of her claim of antiquity, that of development-the dream, it would, no doubt, have seemed to him, of wandering dotage, and a symptom of approaching change. If Hume can be said to have had any sympathies, they were altogether with things as established; and to this, rather than to any thing else, are we to ascribe what we must regard as the entirely false spirit in which his narrative of the civil wars in the reign of the second king of the House of Stuart is conceived. The language of every early document whatever of our history, that can be brought to bear on the subject, proves that the claims of the popular party were not, as Hume would represent them, encroachments on the prerogative, but that the king of England's was a limited power. The extent of his power was defined by the fact, that he could as king only act through responsible officers, no one of whom could without a violation of law, exceed his proper duties. That the power of an English king had its legal limits, was expressed in the maxim so often strangely perverted into a meaning directly opposite to what was meant to be conveyed by it-The king can do

*

*

no wrong. From our early history we do not think that with all the confusion of occasional civil wars, and the loose language of documents drawn up without particular reference to a point not in dispute, any case can be plausibly made by the advocates of the doctrine that arbitrary power in the monarch was consistent with the constitution of government in England. The doubt with respect to the rightful limits of the prerogative arose, we think, chiefly from the arrogant claims of the House of Tudor, and were suggested by the anomalous position in which the crown, and a great and influential portion of its subjects, were placed by the king's being declared Head of the Church, before the meaning of that new title, or the claims depending on it, were practically reduced to an assertion, that the clergy owed undivided allegiance to the state, and were subject to the same jurisdiction as the laity.† To the accession of the family of Stuart, and to the false notions which James, brought up under the laws of another country, from the first took of his position, we ascribe the contest between the crown and people being placed by any one on the grounds

which Hume endeavoured to take. All the notions which James brought with him from Scotland were essentially and in first principles opposed to the theory and the practice of the English constitution. All his notions were referable to the civil law; and the effort to engraft on the English law and forms of government those of a system essentially and in every thing different, and to simplify despotism, was a thing not very easily borne. It was easy enough for Hume to make a plausible case for the Stuart kings, on the supposition that the names of king and parliament had the same meaning in England as in countries where the laws and mode of government were essentially different; and while we are willing to believe that the usurpations of the Stuarts arose from their never having fairly considered the true points of difference, it seems to demonstrable that a practical change wholly unjustified was sought

us

to be made by them, which it was an absolute duty in the people of England to resist. James's talents had enabled him to systematise into a sort of theory his notions of kingly govern ment, and when the vanity of an author was added to that of a monarch, it is no wonder that he deceived himself. It is a sad delusion when the feeling of loyalty degenerates into a baseless superstition, and the claim of a divine right is stated, as it was then stated by James, for the purpose of extending the power of the crown beyond anything known by the name of kingly power in the government which he was called on by Providence to administer. To assert in argument, from the facts of a man being king, and of God, who rules in the affairs of men, having called him to that high trust, the further consequence that such man has a right to enlarge the powers committed to him, whenever opportunity offers, is, we think, not only a doctrine wholly untenable, but offensive in the highest degree to those whose feeling of religion and loyalty are least questionable.

Hume has been accused of a dishonest perversion of facts on evidence that, wherever it has been examined, has wholly failed. Of this we shall hereafter give proofs, to our own mind entirely decisive.Hume's history has faults enough without the aggravation of intentional misstatement; but it has beauties of narrative more than sufficient, where the reader is sufficiently guarded against the errors which we have indicated, to redeem many of its imputed faults, and the book is calculated to give more instruction, as well as more pleasure, than any other single account of the same period. It cannot supply, and no book can, the place of the original authorities; but it certainly is, in every respect whatever in which they can be fairly compared, superior “to the orderly and solid works" of Turner, Mackintosh, Lingard, and all those whom Mr. Landor describes in his amusing jingle of wordswhich is not without some meaning too-as "the Coxes and Foxes of our age."

THE time has not yet come-we trust it may be far distant-when we would feel ourselves at liberty to express the sense which we entertain of the merits and the services of the exalted individual whom it has pleased Divine Providence to place at the head of the Church of Ireland. But we can

not, without a grave neglect of duty, omit a brief notice of the charge delivered by him at his last annual visitation, and which is important both as it bears upon the present condition of the Irish Church, and as it illustrates the Christian character of its distinguished author.

We believe it is now admitted by

most candid inquirers, that "enormous lying" has been the staple of all those attacks upon the Irish Church by which it has suffered so much detriment. It was basely and treacherously assailed, and feebly or falsely defended. Its enemies evinced a hatred of it, such as the lovers of darkness always entertain towards the light by which their misdeeds would be revealed; and those who were called its friends, were satisfied with such a vague and apologetic line of defence as could scarcely be called any thing better than a species of complimentary condemnation. The consequence was, that timid and de

VOL. XXVII.-No. 159.

2 c

precatory advocacy, which seemed to shrink from boldly grappling with the accusations which were made, was no match for the unscrupulous malignity of assailants who were resolved to stop at nothing by which the object of their hostility might be destroyed; and an impression was made upon the honest and unreflecting English public to the prejudice of our church, which has already wrought against it much of evil, and will, if not promptly counteracted by such just views and reasonings as may produce a favourable effect upon the public mind, in no long time prove fatal to its existence.

First-The enormous wealth of the Irish Church was made the ground of an attack upon its revenues. Let us see how the primate disposes of that part of the question :

"And, first, I would refer to the revenues of the Church, which are still The spoken of as being 'enormous.' 'immense riches,' the lavish endowment' of the Irish Church, occupy a prominent place in every speech and pamphlet on this subject. In the last of these publications that I have seen, the attempt is made to lead the British public to believe that tithe, meaning thereby, as it is specifically asserted, a tenth part of the produce of the land, is still paid to the clergy by the cultivators of the soil; although, even when what was called tithe was formerly paid, it was not a tenth, but a thirtieth part that was received by them. And since that which was denominated tithe has been commuted into a rent-charge, paid by the landlord, it has been diminished by one fourth; and it is, in reality, but a fortieth that is paid to the clergy of the Established Church. In other words, they receive a fourth part of the title. And, were the income derived from this source, and from minister's money, to be divided equally amongst the beneficed clergy, it would yield them (after paying the salaries of their assistant curates) about £230 a-year each. Were it equally shared amongst all the clergy, incumbents and curates, it would not give to each of them an income of £170. If the value of the glebe-lands be also taken into account, the whole property of the parochial clergy, were it divided into equal shares amongst them all, would not produce for each of them £200 a-year. To call this endowment lavish'-to denominate this income 'immense riches,' and 'enormous wealth,' is absurd and ridiculous. The fact which I have stated, needs only to

be known, to make apparent the exaggeration of those figures of speech which have been employed on this subject. The phantom of the Church's wealth, which seems to haunt perpetually, and to disturb the quiet of so many of its reformers, requires only to have the light of truth let in upon it, and it instantly disappears."

So much for the "enormous wealth" of the Irish establishment! But an objection has been raised against the distribution of its revenues, which may seem better founded. Upon this subject the primate observes, that "means have been in effective operation for some years past," by which the grievance, supposing it to be one, must soon be removed :

"I allude to the dissolution of unions of parishes, and the subdivision of those which are of too large extent, and the augmentation of the incomes of the smaller benefices. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that, since the passing of the Church Temporalities' Act, in 1833, upwards of £4000 a-year have been applied to augment poorly-endowed parishes."

The revenues of the bishops have been said to be too large. His grace clearly shows, that when all the reductions in progress and in contemplation shall have taken place, they will not exceed, upon an average, the salaries paid to the judges of the land, and that any diminution of them must damage the condition of the possessors, and utterly disqualify them for the position which they are called upon to occupy in church and state, when as peers they take their place in the parliament of the United Kingdom. This, we admit, would be no bar to those who desire to see our prelacy degraded from their pre-eminence, and who would rob them of their revenues, if it were only for the purpose of depriving them of their dignity. But it will assuredly weigh with members of the episcopal communion, whose credulity may have been abused by false representations.

The Irish cathedral establishments have been another fruitful source of calumny; and of calumny the more plausible, because, as the primate observes, the people of England are naturally led to "judge of our church by what they know of their own." It