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Letter XI.: The History of England under the Tudors completed. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

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

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The History of England under the Tudors completed.

Dear Sir

I sent off last Tuesday by the Stage Coach a corrected Copy of the first Volume of my History directed to you, and it will probably be with you as soon as this. There is only a small Correction more, which you will please to make. At Page 100. Line 16; Add this Note. Rushworth Vol. 1. p. 82.

On Tuesday come Sennight the 15 of this Month, the Manuscript Copy of my new Volume1. will be put into the Stage Coach, in two white Iron Boxes, directed to you. As there are in the same Boxes a few Papers on private Business, you will please to leave the Boxes unopened till I come to London, which will probably be about the End of this Month or beginning of the next. I go up on Horse-back2. , which is the Reason why I send the Manuscript before me.

I shall be sure to see you as soon as I arrive, and hope then to commence a personal Acquaintance with you, and to return you thanks for the many Instances, which I have receivd of your Attention and Friendship.

I am Dr Sir Your most obedient humble Servant

David Hume.

EDINBURGH, 5 of August, 1758.

[1.]Note 1. The History of England under the House of Tudor. It was published in two volumes quarto early in the following year. See Gent. Mag. 1759, p. 133.

[2.]Note 2. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 302) tells how John Home three years earlier started on the same journey on horse-back, with his‘tragedy in one pocket of his great coat and his clean shirt and night cap in the other.’ His friends, alarmed lest the tragedy should be lost, persuaded him to buy a pair of leather bags. In the spring of 1758 Carlyle accompanied his eldest sister to London.‘It is to be noted,’ he writes,‘that we could get no four-wheeled chaise till we came to Durham. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.’ Ib. p. 331.‘The first toll,’ says Hume,‘we read of in England for mending the highways was imposed in the reign of Edward III. It was that for repairing the road between St. Giles's and Temple-bar.’ Ed. 1802, ii. 496.‘The morning of the Perthshire election in 1761 I heard James, Duke of Athole, say that in 1713, when he was chosen member of Parliament, there was a great meeting, yet his father's coach was the only carriage there.’ Scotland and Scotsmen, ii. 88.