Chapter X: 1756-1759. æt. 45-48

The second volume of the History of the Stuarts--His Apologies
for his Treatment of Religion--The Four Dissertations--The Two
Suppressed Dissertations--Resigns his Office of Librarian--
Home's Douglas--Commences the History of the Tudors--Wilkie's
Epigoniad--Hume's Nationalism--Warburton--Colonel Edmondstoune--
Dr. Robertson--Negotiations as to Ferguson's Chair--Hume goes
to London--Writes letters of Fictitious and Extravagant News--
Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments--Publication of the History
of the House of Tudor--General View of the Constitutional
Principles of the History.

We have now followed the personal history of David Hume through nearly twenty years of authorship. We have seen him approach the tribunal of public opinion with the strongest internal assurance of success, and in a form so different from that of his predecessors, as a high reliance on his own powers could alone have prompted. Baffled in the first, and in the second, and in the third attempt, he still persevered; and while the coldness of each reception showed him that his last effort had proved a failure, it never extinguished the fire of literary ardour which he felt burning within him, or quenched the hope, that it would one day blaze forth before the world. It is only towards the termination of this long period of laborious authorship that we find the philosopher's early visions of intellectual greatness beginning to be fulfilled. At the period at which we have now arrived, his name was famous over Europe. It was a fame that, once spread abroad, was not soon to die; for those to whom his name was first made known in his new popular work, speedily discovered that, in his earliest neglected effort, he had laid the foundation of a still surer claim on their admiration, and justified the sagacity with which, in the pride and strength of youthful genius, he had thrown its first fruits before the world unaided and unadvised.

The year 1756 seems to have been in a great measure devoted by Hume to the printing of the second volume of his History, to which the following letters to Millar refer. A great part of the correspondence with this sagacious publisher relates to minute business arrangements. It is presumed, that the reader may wish to see some specimens of the manner in which Hume transacted such matters, but that he will not care to have the whole of the arrangements between the author and publisher laid before him. A few specimens of the business part of the letters are accordingly selected, while those portions which have any general interest, literary, philosophical, or political, are given in full. The reader will see, perhaps, with some surprise, that he was very anxious to subject his style to the critical eye of Mallet. We shall hereafter have to disclose some curious features of his literary intercourse with this extraordinary person.

HUME _to_ ANDREW MILLAR.

"_Edinburgh, 22d September, 1756._

"Mr. Strahan, in a few days, will have finished the printing this volume; and I hope you will find leisure, before the hurry of winter, to peruse it, and to write me your remarks on it. I fancy you will publish about the middle of November. I must desire you to take the trouble of distributing a few copies to my friends in London, and of sending me a few copies here. The whole will be fifteen copies.

"Notwithstanding Mr. Mallet's impertinence in not answering my letter, (for it deserves no better a name,) if you can engage him from yourself to mark on the perusal such slips of language as he thinks I have fallen into in this volume, it will be a great obligation to me: I mean that I shall lie under an obligation to you; for I would not willingly owe any to him. I am, dear sir, your most humble servant."[3:1]

"_Edinburgh, 4th December, 1756._

"DEAR SIR,--I have two of yours before me, and should have answered them sooner, had not Mr. Dalrymple told me that he would come to a resolution, in a few days, about the method of printing his volume. As soon as he does so, I shall write you.

"I am certainly very well satisfied with your sale, which I hope continues. Lord Lyttelton's objection is not well grounded; I have not contradicted that story betwixt Shaftesbury and Clifford: I have only omitted it. It stands only on Burnet's authority, who is very careless and inaccurate. I believe I could convince both you and him that it was without foundation. I am very glad that Mr. Mallet has marked those expressions which appeared Scotticisms. You could not do me a greater pleasure than to procure me a list of them. I beg of you to employ all your interest with him to that purpose. I am very anxious to see them soon, that I may examine them at leisure, and correct them in all my writings. A very little time would suffice for him to take down the page and the line and the expression. If counting the line were too troublesome, he would oblige me by only marking the page and the expression; I would easily find it.

"I had a conversation, yesterday, with Messrs. Kincaid and Donaldson, when I made them a proposal, which, I hope, will be for both your advantage. They told me that you had only about four hundred complete sets of my philosophical writings. I am extremely desirous to have these four volumes, with that which you will publish this winter, brought into a quarto volume. They said that the small size was rather more proper for their sale; and, therefore, they would gladly take, at present, two hundred sets of the four volumes, to be paid for by so many of their shares in the quarto edition as would be an equivalent; that is, if the quarto volume were sold at the same price with the four volumes, then set for set: if at more, then such allowance to be made as, upon calculation, would appear to be an equivalent. If the History meet with success, it will certainly quicken the sale of the philosophical writings; and the taking two hundred sets from you, leaves you so small a number on hand, as gives you a certain prospect of coming soon to a new edition. Though some odd copies of particular volumes remain on hand, there is no great matter, as they may be disposed of with a small discount. If you agree to this proposal, they empowered me to desire you to put the two hundred copies on board a ship with the first occasion, and to write them a letter, by which they may be sure that there is no mistake in the conditions. The bringing these scattered pieces into one volume will, of itself, quicken the sale; and every new edition has naturally that effect.

"I again recommend to you, very earnestly, the procuring me that favour from Mr. Mallet. It is not possible that he can refuse you. I wish I had desired you to ask the same favour of Mr. Reid, to whom please to make my compliments. I am, dear sir, your most obedient servant."[5:1]

The second volume of the History, bringing down the narrative to the Revolution, was published in 1756. "This performance," says Hume in his "own life," alluding to the previous volume, "happened to give less displeasure to the Whigs, and was better received. It not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother."

The manner in which he had characterized the different religious bodies, whose conduct he had to describe, gave offence to many readers, and was afterwards matter of regret to himself. The toleration which forbids us to punish our neighbour on account of his creed, he had fully learned. That still higher toleration, which forbids us to treat our neighbour's religious creed with disrespect, he had not yet acquired. He always speaks of the extreme Independents and Presbyterians as enthusiasts. With this term, not in itself opprobrious, because, though it implies excess, it does not imply the excess of a bad quality, he, on some occasions, associates the word fanaticism, and other expressions having a like sarcastic, or at least slighting tendency. To the Roman Catholic religion he was still less respectful, generally speaking of it as "the Catholic superstition."[5:2] In his "Natural History of Religion," published in 1757, he used the same offensive expressions, and spoke of the ceremonies and essential doctrines of the church of Rome, in a tone which no sincere member of that church can encounter without painful feelings. In this respect he certainly did not act up to the character of a true philosopher, though his expressions are no doubt in harmony with the general tone of his mind. He certainly had no wish to insult any man's creed, but he never dreamed that, among his readers, there might be some who sympathized deeply with the catholic spirit of the gothic ages, or with the independent temper of the covenanters. One whose mind revolted so nervously against whatever was not stamped with the character of profound philosophy, or of brilliant intellect, could see nothing to admire in the adaptation of the catholic system to the dark ages in which it flourished; and would have little respect for such achievements as it gained in the war with barbarous minds and brutal passions.[6:1]

In Scotland, the Episcopal Church was at that time barely tolerated; and many an outcry against this toleration, as one of the sins of the time, made its adherents daily fear that their freedom of conscience might be made still more narrow. For the Roman Catholics there was no toleration in the proper acceptation of the term. Had their priesthood mingled in the ordinary society of Edinburgh, and had Hume become acquainted with them as he afterwards was with the clergy of France, he would perhaps have blushed to write as he did, of the creed of learned and accomplished men. In his subsequent editions, he carefully cleansed his History of these offensive expressions, substituting in general the word "creed" or "religion," instead of superstition.

The coincidence of his metaphysical opinions, with those of a considerable portion of the Presbyterians, has already been noticed; and his desire to strip religion of all forms and symbols, would seem to point out the Presbyterian system as that with which he should naturally have had the greatest sympathy. But he disliked enthusiasm or zeal, whatever were the opinions of the zealots; and therefore he invariably marks with censure the extreme views of that religious party. In the English church, on the other hand, he met with a larger proportion of learned, accomplished, and gentlemanlike men. Among persons, too, many of whom were tempted to assume the sacerdotal character by its emoluments, not by its duties, he found a tolerable portion of that philosophical indifference, which it is to be feared he looked upon as no blemish in a clergyman's character. In the Church of England, his sympathies were thus with the insincere.[9:1] Where there was sincere belief, but not to the extent of enthusiasm, the clergy of the Church of Scotland would have the largest share of his confidence. Accordingly, we find that he had formed a warm intimacy with many of the members of the "moderate" party in that church. His own good taste and sense of colloquial politeness, would suggest to him the propriety of avoiding, whether in correspondence or conversation, all forms of expression or enunciations of opinion, such as it would be unbecoming in a clergyman to hear without reproving. On the other hand, his correspondence with the clergy bears traces of his having made it part of the understanding on which their intercourse was to be based, that they were not to make him a subject for the exercise of their calling; and that they were to abstain from all efforts of conversion, and all discussion of religious subjects. Hence, although there are many observations on church politics in his correspondence with his reverend friends, religion is a matter never mentioned.

Before he published his second volume, Hume felt conscious of the impropriety of the tone he had adopted in the first, towards religious creeds. In a letter to Dr. Clephane, he says,--"I am convinced that whatever I have said of religion should have received some more softenings. There is no passage in the History which strikes in the least at revelation. But as I run over all the sects successively, and speak of each of them with some mark of disregard, the reader, putting the whole together, concludes that I am of no sect; which to him will appear the same thing as the being of no religion. With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I think I am very moderate. My views of _things_ are more conformable to Whig principles; my representations of _persons_ to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories."[11:1]

The following paper is evidently a draft of a preface, which, in the consciousness that some apology was called for in connexion with this subject, he intended to prefix to the second volume. He afterwards published a great part of the substance of it in a note towards the end of the volume: but there is sufficient difference in the contents of the two papers to make the following a distinct object of interest.