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LETTER XXI.: Session of 1765: Rage against the Scots. - 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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LETTER XXI.

Session of 1765: Rage against the Scots.

Paris, 26 of Jany. 1765.

DearSir,

I receivd both your Letters, which gave me great Satisfaction. Your Accounts of things are the fullest and most candid I meet with; and if your Leizure allowd you, you coud not do me a greater Satisfaction, than to continue them, when any thing remarkable occurs. I think there is all the Probability that this will prove a quiet Session1. ; and there is a general Tranquillity establishd in Europe2. ; so that we have nothing to do but cultivate Letters: There appears here a much greater Zeal of that kind than in England3. ; but the best & most taking works of the French are generally publishd in Geneva or Holland, and are in London before they are in Paris4. : So that I cannot have an Opportunity of serving you in the way I coud wish. I am sorry, that the last Publication5. has not been successfull. I only saw the Beginning and judged from the Authors Character. The Beginning is much the best of the Work. I have not lost view of continuing my History6. . But as to the Point of my rising in Reputation, I doubt much of it7. : The mad and wicked Rage against the Scots, I am told, continues and encreases, and the English are such a mobbish People as never to distinguish. Happily their Opinion gives me no great Concern8. . I see in your Chronicle9. an Abridgement of a Treatise on the Constitution10. ; which Treatise seems to be nothing but an Abridgement of my History; yet I shall engage, that the Author has not nam’d me from the beginning to the end of his Performance. On the whole, I can have no Motive of Ambition or Love of Fame to continue my History: Money in my present Circumstances is no Temptation: If I execute that Work, as is probable, it must be for Amusement to myself, after I am tir’d of Idleness. My Health and Spirits are as good at present as when I was five and twenty. Believe me, Dear Sir, with great Sincerity,

Your affectionate Friend and humble Servant

David Hume.

My Compliments to Dr. Franklin11. .

The House of Lords was not however careless of the tranquillity of America. On March 6 of this year the keeper of the Sun Tavern, in the Strand, was summoned to their bar, and examined about an exhibition in his house of two Indian Warriors. He assured their Lordships‘that they had their meals regularly and drank nothing stronger than small beer.’ The House resolved:‘That the bringing from America any of the Indians who are under his Majesty's protection, without proper authority for so doing, may tend to give great dissatisfaction to the Indian nations, and be of dangerous consequence to his Majesty's subjects residing in the Colonies.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. p. 51.

1In the Parl. Hist. xvii. 164, we read:—’April 10, 1771. Lord North opened his budget.’

Grimm, writing on Jan. 1, 1766, on the eve of Hume's return to England, says:—’M. Hume doit aimer la France; il y a requ l’accueil le plus distingué et le plus flatteur. Paris et la cour se sont disputé l’honneur de se surpasser….Ce qu’il y a encore de plaisant, c’est que toutes les jolies femmes se le sont arraché, et que le gros philosophe écossais s’est plu dans leur société. C’est un excellent homme que David Hume; il est naturellement serein, il entend finement, il dit quelquefois avec sel, quoiqu’il parle peu; mais il est lourd, il n’a ni chaleur, ni grace, ni agrément dans l’esprit, ni rien qui soit propre à s’allier au ramage de ces charmantes petites machines qu’on appelle jolies femmes.’ Corresp. Lit. v. 3.

Goldsmith wrote in 1759 in The Present State of Polite Learning, ch. vii:—’The fair sex in France have also not a little contributed to prevent the decline of taste and literature, by expecting such qualifications in their admirers. A man of fashion at Paris, however contemptible we may think him here, must be acquainted with the reigning modes of philosophy as well as of dress to be able to entertain his mistress agreeably. The sprightly pedants are not to be caught by dumb show, by the squeeze of a hand, or the ogling of a broad eye; but must be pursued at once through all the labyrinths of the Newtonian system, or the metaphysics of Locke.’ Dr. Moore, in his View of Society and Manners in France, 1779 (i. 24), says:—’Many of the eminent men of letters are received at the houses of the first nobility on the most liberal footing. You can scarcely believe the influence which this body of men have in the gay and dissipated city of Paris. Their opinions not only determine the merit of works of taste and science, but they have considerable weight on the manners and sentiments of people of rank, of the public in general, and consequently are not without effect on the measures of government.’ He points out the influence of the fashionable world on the men of letters,‘whose air, behaviour and conversation are equally purified from the awkward timidity contracted in retirement, and the disgusting arrogance inspired by university honours or church dignities. At Paris the pedants of Moliere are to be seen on the stage only.’ Ib. p. 26.

Mrs. Barbauld says:—’I believe it is true that in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most other parts of Europe.’ She censures‘the contemptuous manner in which Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:—’The doors of the Great,’ she says,‘were never opened to him.’ Richardson Corresp. i. clxxiv. Horace Walpole wrote from Paris on Sept. 22, 1765:—’For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else to do. I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed professedly; and besides in this country one is sure it is only the fashion of the day. Their taste in it is worst of all: could one believe that when they read our authors Richardson and Mr. Hume should be their favourites? The latter is treated here with perfect veneration. His History, so falsified in many points, so partial in many, so very unequal in its parts, is thought the standard of writing.’ Letters, iv. 408.‘The veneration’ with which he was received Hume describes to Robertson, on Dec. 1, 1763:—’do you ask me about my course of life? I can only say, that I eat nothing but ambrosia, drink nothing but nectar, breathe nothing but incense, and tread on nothing but flowers. Every man I meet, and still more every lady, would think they were wanting in the most indispensable duty, if they did not make to me a long and elaborate harangue in my praise. What happened last week, when I had the honour of being presented to the D[auphi]n's children at Versailles, is one of the most curious scenes I have yet passed through. The Duc de B[erri] the eldest [afterwards Lewis XVI] a boy of ten years old, stepped forth, and told me how many friends and admirers I had in this country, and that he reckoned himself in the number from the pleasure he had received from the reading of many passages in my works. When he had finished, his brother, the Count de P[rovence], [afterwards Lewis XVIII] who is two years younger, began his discourse, and informed me that I had been long and impatiently expected in France; and that he himself expected soon to have great satisfaction from the reading of my fine History. But what is more curious; when I was carried thence to the Count d’A[rtois] [afterwards Charles X], who is but four years of age1, I heard him mumble something, which, though he had forgot it in the way, I conjectured from some scattered words to have been also a panegyric dictated to him.’ Stewart's Robertson, p. 353.

The Marquis of Tavistock wrote to the Duke of Bedford from Paris on April 6, 1764:—’I have lived so much with French people that it's a wonder I have not yet seen the illustre Hume, for there is nobody so fêté by the fine ladies as he is.’ Correspondence of John, Duke of Bedford, iii. 261. The esteem in which Richardson was held at this time is shown by a letter of the Marquis de Mirabeau, the author of L’ami des Hommes, to Hume, dated Aug. 3, 1763. He writes:—’Je vous avoue que le plus digne des hommes selon moi, Richardson seul m’aurait souvent fait regreter de ne savoir pas l’anglais.’ M.S.R.S.E.

Lord Charlemont, after stating that‘no man from his manners was surely less formed for French society than Hume,’ attributes his reception to the fact that‘free thinking and English frocks were the fashion, and the Anglomanie was the ton du pays.’ He tells the following anecdote of the first Lord Holland who about this time visited Paris.‘The French concluded that an Englishman of his reputation must be a philosopher, and must be admired. It was customary with him to doze after dinner, and one day at a great entertainment he happened to fall asleep. “Le voilà!” says a Marquis, pulling his neighbour by the sleeve, “Le voilà qui pense!”’ He adds that, though Hume's conversation could give little pleasure to French men, still less to French women,‘yet no lady's toilette was complete without Hume's attendance. At the Opera his broad unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux jolis minois.’ Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont, i. 234.

In one respect Hume had owned that authors were far better off here than on the other side of the Channel. After describing to Elliot in 1762 his comfortable flat in James's Court, for which he had paid £500, he continues:—’On comparing my situation with poor Rousseau's, I cannot but reflect how much better book-sellers we have in this country than they in France.’ Stewart's Robertson, p. 360. Voltaire, in his review of Julia Mandeville, says:—’Pour peu qu’un roman, une tragédie, une comédie ait de succès à Londres, on en fait trois et quatre éditions en peu de mois; c’est que l’état mitoyen est plus riche et plus instruit en Angleterre qu’en France, &c.’ Œuvres de Voltaire, xliii. 364.

Little more than a year before Hume wrote that‘the little company in London that is worth conversing with are cold and unsociable,’ Reynolds and Johnson had founded their famous club. Boswell's Johnson, i. 477. Nearly ninety years after he had complained of the want of zeal in England for the cultivation of letters, Darwin was lamenting the indifference to science. Writing in 1854 about an unsolicited grant by the Colonial Government of Tasmania towards the expenses of Sir. J. Hooker's Flora of Tasmania, he says:—’ It is really a very singular and delightful fact, contrasted with the slight appreciation of science in the old country.’ Life of Darwin, i. 394.

1The three princes were nine, eight, and six years old.

’Edinburgh, March 10, 1763. I am in a good measure idle at present; but if I tire of this way of Life, as is probable, I shall certainly continue my History, and have no Thoughts of any other work. But in this State of Affairs, I suppose your People of Rank and Quality woud throw the Door in my Face because I am a Scotsman.’ M. S. R. S. E.

’Edinburgh, 12 March, 1763. I am engaged in no work at present; but if I tire of idleness, or more properly speaking, of reading for my amusement, I may probably continue my History. My only discouragement is that I cannot hope to finish this work in my closet, but must apply to the great for papers and intelligence, a thing I mortally abhor.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 146.

’Edinburgh, 28 March, 1763. I may perhaps very soon gather silently together the books which will enable me to sketch out the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and shall finish them afterwards, together with that of George I; in London. But to tell you the truth, I have an aversion to appear in that capital till I see that more justice is done tome with regard to the preceding volumes. The languishing sale of this edition makes me conjecture that the time is not yet come; and the general rage against the Scots is an additional discouragement.’ Ib. ii. 147. (Seven weeks after this letter was written Boswell, on being introduced to Johnson, said:—’I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.’ Boswell's Johnson, i. 392.)

’Paris, 14 Jany. 1765. I am now in a situation to have access to all the families which have papers relative to public affairs transacted in the end of the last and beginning of this century…. The rage and prejudice of parties frighten me; and above all, this rage against the Scots, which is so dishonourable, and indeed so infamous to the English nation. We hear that it increases every day without the least appearance of provocation on our part. It has frequently made me resolve never in my life to set foot on English ground. I dread if I should undertake a more modern history the impertinence and ill manners, to which it would expose me.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 264.

’[1766.] Some push me to continue my History. Millar offers me any price. All the Marlborough papers are offered me; and I believe nobody would venture to refuse me. But cui bono? Why should I forego idleness and sauntering and society, and expose myself again to the clamours of a stupid factious public ?’ Ib. ii. 392. (The Marlborough papers had been in Mallet's possession. For more than twenty years‘ he had a pension from the late Duke of Marlborough to promote his industry,’ in publishing them. On his death in 1765 it was found that he had not even touched them. Boswell's Johnson, v. 175.)

’Oct. 6, 1767. When Mr. Conway was on the point of resigning, I desird him to propose to the King that I might afterwards have the liberty of inspecting all the public Offices for such Papers as might serve to my purpose. His Majesty said that he was glad I had that object in my Eye; and I should certainly have all the Assistance in his Power.’ David Hume to John Home of Ninewells. M. S. R. S. E.

’8 Oct. 1766. I shall probably do as you advise, and sketch out the outlines of the two or three subsequent reigns, which I may finish at London.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 393.

’London, 27 Nov. 1767. The king himself has been pleased to order that all the records and public offices shall be open to me, and has even sent for some papers from Hanover, which he thought would be useful.’ Private Corresp. p. 250.

’London, 26 April, 1768. Lord Hertford told me that he and his brother [General Conway] had made a point with the King and the ministers, that in consideration of my services I should have some further provision made for me, which was immediately assented to, only loaded with this condition by the King, that I should seriously apply myself to the consummation of my History.’ Ib. p. 257.

’London, 24 May, 1768. The King has given me a considerable augmentation of my pension, expressing at the same time his expectation that I am to continue my History. This motive, with my habits of application, will probably engage me in this undertaking, and occupy me for some years.’ Ib. p. 261.

Strahan wrote to Sir A. Mitchell on April 1, 1768:—’Mr. D. Hume dined with me to-day. He is now applying in good earnest to the continuation of his History, having collected very considerable materials.’ M. S. R. S. E. On May 14, 1768, Boswell, whom Hume had lately visited, wrote:—’david is going to give us two more volumes of History, down to George II. I wish he may not mire himself in the Brunswick sands. Pactolus is there.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 151. On Dec. 9, writing from Edinburgh, Boswell says:—’ Mr. Hume is not to go to Paris; he is busy with the continuance of his History.’ Ib. p. 159. Hume relapses once more into indolence. He writes to Strahan on May 22, 1770:—’I am fully determined never to continue my History, and have indeed put it entirely out of my power by retiring to this country for the rest of my life.’ Two years later his determination is not quite so strong.‘If I find my time lie heavy on my hands, I may, for my amusement, undertake a reign or two after the Revolution. But I believe, in case of my composing any more, I had better write something that has no Reference to the affairs of these factious Barbarians.’ Post, Letter of March 5,1772. His amusement apparently does not require any fresh composition, for at the beginning of the next year he writes:—’ Considering the treatment I have met with, it would have been very silly for me at my years to continue writing any more, and still more blamable to warp my principles and sentiments in conformity to the prejudices of a stupid, factious nation, with whom I am heartily disgusted.’ Post, Letter of Jan. 30, 1773.

A great change was wrought in Hume by the storm of abuse which burst on his countrymen when the new King put himself and the nation in the leading-strings of the Earl of Bute. Though he had written the History of England, he never seemed to understand for one moment the anger that was stirred up in a proud people, when their Great Commoner had to yield to the favourite of a Palace, with his vile system of‘King's friends’ and secret‘influence.’ Some indulgence must be extended to him as a man, though not perhaps as a philosopher, on account of the disappointment which he himself had suffered through his origin. As will be seen (post, p. 58) he was refused the high office of Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland merely because he was born north of the Tweed. His return from France, which followed close on this humiliation, still further embittered his feelings. In that country his genius had been recognised to the full.‘Few people,’ wrote Dr. Blair to him,‘have been more fortunate than you; you have enjoyed in France the full blaze of your reputation and fame; you have tasted all the pleasures of a court and of public life; and after receiving every tribute due to letters and to merit, you retire before it was too late to your own philosophic ease and tranquillity.’ Blair to Hume, Oct. 8, 1765. M. S. R. S. E. Philosophic ease was not by any means enough. His ruling passion, as he himself owned in his Autobiography, was‘love of literary fame.’ To him might be applied, though not in all its extent, what Johnson said of Richardson:—’He could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.’ (Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 184.) He returned to our shores one of the most famous men in Europe, and he at once passed from‘the full blaze’ to that dim and uncertain glimmer which was all that genius could throw round itself here. Had he been content with the company of men of letters, his love of fame might perhaps have been satisfied; but he was used to the homage of men and women of rank and fashion in the most famous drawing-rooms of Paris. Princes no longer made him addresses, nor did fine ladies‘believe him implicitly,’ (Walpole's Letters, iv. 426). His vanity, I believe, was wounded just as was Rousseau's, when that philosopher found how quickly a great writer sinks into insignificance in London. Both men were wanting in that humour which‘holds the world but as the world,’ and in the midst of disappointments and neglect smiles at them and at itself.

In the extracts from his letters given in Note 3 the bitterness of his feelings has been seen. The following passages show that it did not lessen with growing years:—

’Paris, 1 Dec. 1763. It is probable that this place will long be my home. I feel little inclination to the factious barbarians of London.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 178.

’Paris, 27 March, 1764. I have been accustomed to meet with nothing but insults and indignities from my native country1.’ Ib. p. 191.

’Paris, 26 April, 1764. The taste for literature is neither decayed nor depraved here, as with the barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames.’ Ib. p. 196.

’Paris, 22 Sept. 1764. From what human motive or consideration can I prefer living in England than in foreign countries? I believe, taking the continent of Europe from Petersburgh to Lisbon and from Bergen to Naples, there is not one who ever heard of my name, who has not heard of it with advantage, both in point of morals and genius. I do not believe there is one Englishman in fifty who, if he heard I had broke my neck to-night, would be sorry. Some, because I am not a Whig; some because I am not a Christian; and all because I am a Scotsman. Can you seriously talk of my continuing an Englishman2? Am I, or are you, an Englishman? Do they not treat with derision our pretensions to that name, and with hatred our just pretensions to surpass and govern them?’ Ib. p. 238.

’Paris, 14 Jany. 1765. The rage and prejudice of parties frighten me; and above all this rage against the Scots, which is so dishonourable, and indeed so infamous to the English nation. We hear that it increases every day without the least appearance of provocation on our part. It has frequently made me resolve never in my life to set foot on English ground.’ Ib. p. 265.

’Paris, Aug. 23, 1765. I have a reluctance to think of living among the factious barbarians of London; who will hate me because I am a Scotsman, and am not a Whig, and despise me because I am a man of letters…. Lord Hertford, on his arrival in London, found great difficulty of executing his intentions in my favour1. The cry is loud against the Scots; and the present ministry2 are unwilling to support any of our countrymen, lest they bear the reproach of being connected with Lord Bute.’ Ib. p. 290.

’Paris, Nov. 5, 1765. London is the capital of my own country; but it never pleased me much. Letters are there held in no honour; Scotsmen are hated; superstition and ignorance gain ground daily.’ Ib. p. 292.

It was my duty, as editor of Boswell's Life of Johnson, to gather in a Concordance Johnson's sayings against the Scotch. I shall feel more confidence among my friends of that race, when I show them that Hume in his abuse of the English as much surpassed Johnson in violence as he was inferior to him in wit. On one occasion, and on one alone, do I find him writing as an Englishman. In a letter to the Abbé Morellet, dated London, July 10, 1769, he says:—’The Abbé Galliani goes to Naples; he does well to leave Paris before I come thither; for I should certainly put him to death for all the ill he has spoken of England. But it has happened, as was foretold by his friend Caraccioli, who said that the Abbé would remain two months in this country, would speak all himself, would not allow an Englishman to utter a syllable, and after returning would give the character of the nation during the rest of his life as if he were perfectly well acquainted with them.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 428.

He urges indeed his brother to give his eldest son an English education, so that he may not, by staying in Scotland,‘acquire such an accent as he will never be able to cure of.’ Ib. p. 403. In his History moreover he recognises the advantage of a union of the two nations. So early as the reign of Edward I. he speaks of it as‘a project so favourable to the happiness and grandeur of both Kingdoms.’ He describes that King's attempt to seize the Scottish crown, as a‘great object, very advantageous to England, perhaps in the end no less beneficial to Scotland, but extremely unjust and iniquitous in itself.’ Ed. 1802, ii. 246, 250.

I do not find that Hume's friends among his countrymen shared in the violence of his dislike. On the contrary some of them remonstrated with him. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote to him in the autumn of 1764:—’Notwithstanding all you say, we are both Englishmen; that is, true British subjects, entitled to every emolument and advantage that our happy constitution can bestow. Do not you speak and write and publish what you please? and though attacking favourite and popular opinions, are you not in the confidential friendship of Lord Hertford, and intrusted with the most important national concerns? Am not I a member of Parliament….? Had it not been for the clamour of a Scott, perhaps indeed I might have been in some more active, but not more honourable or lucrative situation. This clamour we all know is merely artificial and occasional. It will in time give way to some other equally absurd and ill-founded, when you, if you will, may become a bishop and I a minister.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 240. In the same month Millar sent him the following extract from a letter which he had received from Adam Smith, who was at Paris:—’Though I am very happy here, I long passionately to rejoin my old friends, and if I had once got fairly to your side of the water, I think I should never cross it again. Recommend the same sober way of thinking to Hume. He is light-headed, tell him, when he talks of coming to spend the remainder of his days here or in France. Remember me to him most affectionately.’ M. S. R. S. E.

On Feb. 25 of the following year (1765) Millar wrote:—’You are totally mistaken about any prejudice against the Scots in general here. I find no difference of respect to particulars. The cry was raised and is continued only with a view to distress Lord Bute whom they heartily hate, and it would have been happy for his Country he had never been born; his particular friendship being placed on weak or designing men is a misfortune and the certain [?] affectation and manner is disgusting.’ Ib. John Crawfurd wrote to Hume on Jan. 20, 1767:—’What you say of your being detested as a Scotsman, and despised as a man of letters is melancholy nonsense.’ Ib. Boswell,‘a very universal man’ as he was, we find associating with Churchill only two or three months after that scurrilous but most vigorous writer had bitterly assailed Scotland in his Prophecy of Famine. It was by‘the witty sallies’ of him and of a libeller equally gross, John Wilkes, that the young Scotchman‘was enlivened’ on the morning on which he first called on Johnson. Boswell's Johnson, i. 395. On the other hand, Boswell's friend, George Dempster, a Member of Parliament well known in his day, writing to him in 1775 about Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands, shows how strong the English antipathy was. He says:—’I hope the book will induce many of Dr. Johnson's countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch; who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners.’ Ib. v. 408. Nevertheless the great popularity of the Scotch authors, Blair, Beattie, Robertson, and Hume himself; the‘extraordinary applause’ that was given to Beattie in the Theatre at Oxford, when on July 9, 1773 he received his degree of Doctor of Laws, show that, however strong may have been the general feeling against the race, it did not necessarily extend in all its force to individuals.

That the provocation was very great that Hume as a Scotchman received cannot be denied. That much of the attack was provoked, as I have said, by the favour shown to his countrymen by the King's Scotch favourite, is equally true. Johnson, who was disposed to think well of the Earl of Bute, from whom as Prime Minister he had received his pension, said of him:—’Lord Bute showed an undue partiality to Scotchmen. He turned out Dr. Nichols, a very eminent man, from being physician to the King, to make room for one of his countrymen, a man very low in his profession. He had Wedderburne and Home to go on errands for him. He had occasion for people to go on errands for him; but he should not have had Scotchmen; and certainly he should not have suffered them to have access to him before the first people in England.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 354. There was however another and a less worthy ground for the general ill-will of the English towards the North Britons. There was a jealousy of the success which the Scotch were fairly winning in almost every path of life. The knowledge which they had gained in their schools and universities,‘countenanced in general,’ to use Johnson's words,‘by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enabled them to find, or to make their way to employment, riches, and distinction.’ Johnson's Works, ix. 158.

The following anecdote, recorded by Jefferson in his Diary, illustrates this Scotch occupation of England:—’The confederation of the States, while on the carpet before the old Congress, was strenuously opposed by the smaller States, which feared being swallowed up by the larger ones. We were long engaged in the discussion; it produced great heats, much ill-humour, & intemperate declarations from some members. Dr. Franklin at length brought the debate to a close with one of his little apologues. He observed that “at the time of the Union of England and Scotland the Duke of Argyle was most violently opposed to that measure, and among other things predicted that, as the whale had swallowed Jonah, so Scotland would be swallowed by England. However (said the Doctor) when Lord Bute came into the Government, he soon brought into its administration so many of his countrymen, that it was found in the event that Jonah swallowed the whale.” This little story produced a general laugh, and restored good humour, and the article of difficulty was passed.’ Life of Franklin, ed. by J. Bigelow, 1879, iii. 299.

Having shown Hume's rage against the English, I will now give a few instances of‘the mad and wicked rage against the Scots.’ Wilkes, in the North Briton, No. xiii. (Aug. 28, 1762), in a passage which he says comes from Howell, writes:—

’As for fruit for their grandsire Adam's sake they [the Scotch] never planted any; and for other trees, had Christ been betrayed in this country (as doubtless he should, had he come as a stranger) Judas had sooner found the grace of repentance than a tree to hang himself on.’ This attack he follows up with such abuse as the following:—’Jany. 22, 1763. A Scot hath no more right to preferment in England than a Hanoverian or a Hottentot.’ Ib. No. 34.

’April 2, 1763. The restless and turbulent disposition of the Scottish nation before the Union, with their constant attachment to France and declared enmity to England, their repeated perfidies and rebellions since that period, with their servile behaviour in times of need and overbearing insolence in power, have justly rendered the very name Scot hateful to every true Englishman.’ Wilkes goes on to attack Lord Bute for‘his gross partiality to his own beggarly countrymen1.’ Ib. No. 44.

Churchill's Prophecy of Famine, published in 1763, is full of scurrilous passages such as:—

’Oft have I heard thee mourn the wretched lot Of the poor, mean, despis’d, insulted Scot.’

’If fashionable grown, and fond of pow’r With hum’rous Scots let them disport their hour; Let them dance fairy-like, round Ossian's tomb; Let them forge lies and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very Prince of verse, Make something like a tragedy in Erse.’

'sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest? Judas, though dead, though damned, we still detest.’

The‘rage’ continued for years after Bute's retirement from office, for the secret‘influence’ was still suspected. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 509) says that in 1769 Garrick, who was bringing out a new play by John Home,‘justly alarmed at the jealousy and dislike which prevailed at that time against Lord Bute and the Scotch, had advised the author to change the title of Rivine into that of The Fatal Discovery, and had provided a student of Oxford who appeared at the rehearsals as the author, and wished Home of all things to remain concealed till the play had its run. But John, whose vanity was too sanguine to admit of any fear or caution, and whose appetite for praise rebelled against the counsel that would deprive him for a moment of his fame, too soon discovered the secret, and though the play survived its nine nights, yet the house evidently slackened after the town heard that John was the author.’ Murphy, in his Life of Garrick, p. 295, says of Home's play:—’The names of the persons of the piece are grating to an English ear. Kastreel, Dunton, Connon, and the like are exotics beneath the dignity of tragedy. The play might as well be written in Erse.’ Dr. Blair, on the other hand, as became the champion of Ossian, writing to Hume on March 11, 1769, says:—’I have this morning received The Fatal Discovery by post. I sit down to read it with great greediness. What made Home give it such a foolish Novel kind of name? Rivine ought to have been the name of the play.’ M. S. R. S. E. We may pause a moment to reflect on the vast change in sentiment that has been wrought since the days when a Highland name was thought sufficient to damn a play. Now, not only Lowlanders, but even Englishmen, when they go to‘the mountains of the North’ are proud to disguise themselves in a dress which their forefathers in Edinburgh or in London, in the days of David Hume and John Home, would have looked on with a feeling of scorn not altogether unmingled with fear. Perhaps by the end of the twentieth century the descendants of the Orangemen of Belfast and Londonderry, and people of rank and fortune from England, when they go to shoot and fish in the wilds of Kerry or Connemara, will hope in their long frieze coats, their knee breeches, and their worsted stockings, to be taken for the children of the soil. Johnson, when he was surrounded by the M’Craas with their‘very savage wildness of aspect and manner,’ and felt that‘it was much the same as being with a tribe of Indians,’ if any one had told him that in another hundred years English gentlemen would be proud to be mistaken for Highlanders, in all probability would have replied:—'sir, you lie, and you know that you lie.’ It was less than twenty years before the date of Hume's letter that Ray, in his History of the Rebellion of 1745 (p. vii), describes the Young Pretender's army as‘the barbarians that over-run the country.’

To return from this digression to the main subject of this note. Smollett in Humphry Clinker, published in 1771, (Letter of July 13), describes how‘from Doncaster northwards all the windows of all the inns are scrawled with doggrel rhymes in abuse of the Scottish nation.’ Lord Shelburne wrote:—’I can scarce conceive a Scotchman capable of liberality, and capable of impartiality.’ Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, iii. 441. Of Lord Mansfield he wrote that‘like the generality of Scotch he had no regard to truth whatever.’ Ib. i. 89. Horace Walpole was, in his old age, as violent against the Scotch as Hume against the English.‘June 14, 1780. What a nation is Scotland; in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the Kings that favour it the most! National prejudices, I know, are very vulgar; but, if there are national characteristics, can one but dislike the soils and climates that concur to produce them?’ Letters, vii. 400.‘Feb. 5, 1781. Pray look into the last Critical Review but one; there you will find that David Hume in a saucy blockheadly note calls Locke, Algernon Sidney, and Bishop Hoadly despicable writers. I believe that ere long the Scotch will call the English lousy! and that Goody Hunter will broach the assertion in an Anatomic lecture. Not content with debasing and disgracing us as a nation by losing America, destroying our Empire, and making us the scorn and prey of Europe, the Scotch would annihilate our patriots, martyrs, heroes and geniuses. Algernon Sidney, Lord Russell, King William, the Duke of Marlborough, Locke, are to be traduced and levelled, and with the aid of their fellow-labourer Johnson, who spits at them while he tugs at the same oar, Milton, Addison, Prior and Gray are to make way for the dull forgeries of Ossian, and such wights as Davy and Johnny Home, Lord Kames, Lord Monboddo, and Adam Smith!—Oh! if you [Mason the Poet] have a drop of English ink in your veins, rouse and revenge your country! Do not let us be run down and brazened out of all our virtue, genius, sense and taste by Laplanders and Bœotians, who never produced one original writer in verse or prose.’ Ib. p. 511.

A curious contrast to the violence of Walpole's attack is afforded by a passage in a letter written in the spring of 1759, in which Hume informs Robertson of the great popularity of the History of Scotland.‘Mr. Walpole,’ he says,‘triumphs in the success of his favourites, the Scotch.’ Stewart's Life of Robertson, p. 180. A justification for Hume's statement is found in Walpole's own letters; for on March 25 of this year he wrote to Sir David Dalrymple:—’I could not help smiling, Sir, at being taxed with insincerity for my encomiums on Scotland. They were given in a manner a little too serious to admit of irony, and (as partialities cannot be supposed entirely ceased) with too much risk of disapprobation in this part of the world, not to flow from my heart. My friends have long known my opinion on this point, and it is too much formed on fact for me to retract it, if I were so disposed.’ Letters, iii. 217. This was written, be it observed, while George II was King, and the Earl of Bute nothing more than the favourite of the Princess Dowager of Wales.

See post, Letters of Oct. 25, 1769; March 5, 1772; Jan. 30, 1773.

1By native country he means Great Britain, as distinguished from France.

2His correspondent, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, had written to him:—’Love the French as much as you will; but above all continue still an Englishman.’ Ib. p. 235.

1He had intended to take Hume to Ireland as his Secretary, in his post of Lord Lieutenant.

2The Rockingham Ministry.

1Johnson in 1754 had said that Bolingbroke‘left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death.’ Boswell's Johnson, i.268.

’You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction.—You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People,—Look upon your Hands!—They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! You and I were long friends.—You are now my Enemy,—and

[1.]Note 1. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote to Hume on March 25, 1765:—’Our business here draws to a close. To-morrow Mr. Grenville opens∗ the budget, as it is usually called.’ M. S. R. S. E. So quiet indeed was the Session that it closed as early as May 25. The King in his speech on that day said:—’The dispatch which you have given with so much zeal and wisdom to the public business enables me now to put a period to this Session of Parliament…. I have seen with the most perfect approbation that you have employed this season of tranquillity in promoting those objects which I have recommended to your attention; and in framing such regulations as may best enforce the just authority of the legislature, and at the same time secure and extend the commerce, and unite the interests of every part of my dominions.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 78. It was in this quiet Session that the American Stamp Act was carried. Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation, in 1774, answering the statement that the opposition shown to it in Parliament had encouraged the Americans, said:—’As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger in your gallery when the Act was under consideration. Far from anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the Act, and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one division in the whole progress of the Bill; and the minority did not reach to more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect that there was any debate or division at all.’ Payne's Select Works of Burke, i. 140.

[2.]Note 2. Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann on March 26 of this year:—’I don’t remember the day when I was reduced to complain in winter and Parliament-tide of having nothing to say. Yet it is this kind of nothing that has occasioned my long silence. There has not been an event, from a debate to a wedding, capable of making a paragraph. Such calms often forerun storms.’ Letters, iv. 337. Though he was in Parliament at the time, yet he only once mentions the debates on the Stamp Act. On Feb. 12, he wrote:—’There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day on the American taxes.’ Ib. p. 322.

[3.]Note 3. Hume wrote to Blair on April 6 of this year:—’There is a very remarkable difference between London and Paris, of which I gave warning to Helvétius when he went over lately to England, and of which he told me on his return he was fully sensible. If a man have the misfortune in the former place to attach himself to letters, even if he succeeds, I know not with whom he is to live, nor how he is to pass his time in a suitable society. The little company there that is worth conversing with are cold and unsociable; or are warmed only by faction and cabal; so that a man who plays no part in public affairs becomes altogether insignificant; and if he is not rich he becomes even contemptible. Hence that nation are relapsing fast into the deepest stupidity and ignorance. But in Paris a man that distinguishes himself in letters meets immediately with regard and attention.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 268. When he was in London in 1767, while thanking Dr. Blair for offering to introduce him to Dr. Percy, he says:—’It would be impracticable for me to cultivate his friendship, as men of letters here have no place of rendezvous; and are indeed sunk and forgot in the general torrent of the world.’ Ib. p. 385.

[4.]Note 4. See ante, p. 43, n. 2, for an explanation of this.

[5.]Note 5. Mme. Riccoboni's novel.

[6.]Note 6. Hume's History closes with the Revolution. The following extracts from his letters show that a continuation of it was for some years in his thoughts.

[7.]Note 7. Dr. J. H. Burton, writing of the years 1765–6, says:—’Allusion has occasionally been made to the difficulty of satisfying Hume with any amount of literary success. His correspondence with Millar is a long grumble about the prejudices he has had to encounter, and their influence on the circulation of his works; while the bookseller, by the most glowing pictures of their popularity, is only able to elicit a partial gleam of content.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 263. It is shown hereafter (Letter of March 13, 1770) that Millar's pictures were more glowing than correct. Nevertheless, Hume's success as a writer was so great that‘Millar offered him any price’ for the continuation of his History. At the close of his life he wrote in his Autobiography:—’I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre.’

[8.]Note 8. The violence of Hume's feelings towards the English is not seen in his earlier correspondence. He had even at one time thought of settling in London. On Jan. 25, 1759, he wrote:—’I used every expedient to evade this journey to London; yet it is now uncertain whether I shall ever leave it.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 50. On July 28 in the same year he wrote:—’I am in doubt whether I shall stay here and execute the work; or return to Scotland, and only come up here to consult the manuscripts. I have several inducements on both sides. Scotland suits my fortune best, and is the seat of my principal friendships; but it is too narrow a place for me.’ Ib. p. 61. (Boswell in like manner‘complained to Johnson that he felt himself discontented in Scotland, as too narrow a sphere.’ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 176.)

[9.]Note 9. In 1756 Johnson‘accepted of a guinea for writing the introduction to The London Chronicle, an evening newspaper…. This Chronicle still subsists,’ continues Boswell,‘and from what I observed, when I was abroad, has a more extensive circulation upon the Continent than any of the English newspapers. It was constantly read by Johnson himself.’ Boswell's Johnson, i. 317. Boswell wrote to Johnson on March 12, 1778:—’The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours; for I found it contradicted in The London Chronicle, which I could depend upon as authentic concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it.’ Ib. iii. 221.

[10.]Note 10.‘An Essay on the Constitution of England, price 1s. 6d. T. Becket and P. de Hondt, London’: London Chronicle, Jan. 5, 1765. In the number for Jan. 10 three columns of extracts are given.

[11.]Note 11. Franklin had met Hume when he visited Edinburgh in 1759. Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 395. Later on he stayed in his house in James's Court for several weeks. Ib. p. 437. Dr. Carlyle does not mention the year of his second visit, but I have little doubt that it was in 1771. See post, Letter of Nov. 12, 1771. Franklin's friendship with his brother-printer Strahan, which had been long and close, was broken by the American War. Strahan, who was a strong supporter of Lord North's ministry, received from his old friend the following letter:—

[1.]Note 1. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote to Hume on March 25, 1765:—’Our business here draws to a close. To-morrow Mr. Grenville opens∗ the budget, as it is usually called.’ M. S. R. S. E. So quiet indeed was the Session that it closed as early as May 25. The King in his speech on that day said:—’The dispatch which you have given with so much zeal and wisdom to the public business enables me now to put a period to this Session of Parliament…. I have seen with the most perfect approbation that you have employed this season of tranquillity in promoting those objects which I have recommended to your attention; and in framing such regulations as may best enforce the just authority of the legislature, and at the same time secure and extend the commerce, and unite the interests of every part of my dominions.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 78. It was in this quiet Session that the American Stamp Act was carried. Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation, in 1774, answering the statement that the opposition shown to it in Parliament had encouraged the Americans, said:—’As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger in your gallery when the Act was under consideration. Far from anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the Act, and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one division in the whole progress of the Bill; and the minority did not reach to more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect that there was any debate or division at all.’ Payne's Select Works of Burke, i. 140.

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