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LETTER VI.: Dr. Hurd's Artifices. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

Edition used:

Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

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LETTER VI.

Dr. Hurd's Artifices.

[EDINBURGH, 1757.]

DR Sir

I am positive not to reply a single Word to Dr. Hurd; and I also beg of you not to think of it. His Artifices or Forgeries, call them which you please, are such common things in all Controversy that a man woud be ridiculous who woud pretend to complain of them; and the Parsons in particular have got a Licence to practice them. I therefore beg of you again to let the Matter pass over in Silence1 . I have deliverd to Mr. Becket a Volume of Essays2 .

I am yours D. H.

[1]Note 1. Remarks on Mr. David Hume's Essay on the Natural History of Religion, by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. W., is advertised in the list of books for May 1757. Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 243. The book was written by Warburton and Hurd. On Feb. 7 of this year Warburton, writing to Hurd about Hume's Essay, says:—’I will trim the rogue's jacket, at least sit upon his skirts, as you will see when you come hither, and find his margins scribbled over … They say this man has several moral qualities. It may be so. But there are vices of the mind as well as body; and a wickeder heart, and more determined to do public mischief, I think I never knew.’ Letters from a late Eminent Prelate to one of his Friends, p. 239. In a second letter he writes that he is‘beating out of the mass’ an answer to Hume, to which Hurd is‘to give the elegance of form and splendour of polish…. I propose it to bear something like this title, Remarks on Mr. Hume's late Essay, called the Natural History of Religion, by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. W. I propose the address should be with the dryness and reserve of a stranger…. The address will remove it from me; the author, a Gentleman of Cambridge, from you; and the secrecy in printing from us both.’ Ib. p. 241.

The publication of Hume's Autobiography was at once followed by a republication of the Remarks. Speaking in it of his Natural History of Religion, Hume had said:—’Its public entry was rather obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance and scurrility which distinguish the Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.’ To the new edition of the Remarks was prefixed‘the following Advertisement from the bookseller to the reader:

‘“The following is supposed to be the pamphlet referred to by the late Mr. David Hume as being written by Dr. Hurd. Upon my applying to the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry [Hurd] for his permission to republish it, he very readily gave me his consent. His Lordship only added, he was sorry he could not take himself the WHOLE infamy of the charge brought against him; but that he should hereafter, if he thought it worth his while, explain himself more particularly on that subject.

“T. CADELL.”’ Annual Register, 1777, ii. 9.

Strand, March, 1777.

Hume at once suspected that Warburton had had a hand in the pamphlet. On Sept. 3 he wrote to Millar:—’I am positively assured that Dr. Warburton wrote that letter to himself, which you sent me; and indeed the style discovers him sufficiently. I should answer him; but he attacks so small a corner of my building, that I can abandon it without drawing great consequences after it.’ At the end of the letter Hume adds:—’I should not be displeased that you read to Dr. Warburton the paragraph in the first page with regard to himself. The hopes of getting an answer might probably engage him to give us something farther of the same kind; which at least saves you the expense of advertising. I see the Doctor likes a literary squabble.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 35. On July 28, 1759, in a letter to Adam Smith, mentioning some more‘abuse’ by Hurd, he says:—‘He is of the Warburtonian school; and consequently very insolent and very scurrilous; but I shall never reply a word to him.’ Ib. p. 60. Johnson shews why even Warburton might be left unanswered by those whom he attacked.‘When I read Warburton first, and observed his force and his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that was not the case; for Warburton by extending his abuse rendered it ineffectual.’ Boswell's Johnson, v. 93. Speaking of his controversy with Lowth he said:—’I do not know which of them calls names best.’ Ib. ii. 37.

On the publication of Hume's Autobiography, Horace Walpole wrote to Mason:—’It is a nothing, a brief account of his disappointments on his irreligious works making no noise at first, and his historic making some. He boasts that in the latter he dared to revive the cause of despotism—a great honour truly to a philosopher; and he speaks of your friend, Bishop Hurd, with a freedom that I dare to say the whole Court will profess to his Lordship they think monstrous rudeness. My Lord H[ertford], whose piety could swallow Hume's infidelity, will be shocked now that he should have employed such a brute.’ Letters, vi. 420. See ante in Hume's Autobiography, his‘fixed resolution never to reply to any body,’ and post, Letter of June 25, 1771 for a fresh attack on’Warburton and his gang.’

[2]Note 2. Perhaps a corrected copy of his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, of which a new edition was published in the following year.‘Mr. Becket’ is probably Thomas Becket, the bookseller, who had been, and perhaps still was, one of Millar's assistants. See Nichols's Lit. Anec. iii. 387. He had apparently some connection with the Scotch, for he published Macpherson's Ossian. He may at this time have been on a visit to Edinburgh.