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LETTER XLVII.: The Art of Printing: Revised Editions: Dr. Johnson's Pamphlet: The Earl of Chatham: Sir John Dalrymple. - 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 XLVII.

The Art of Printing: Revised Editions: Dr. Johnson's Pamphlet: The Earl of Chatham: Sir John Dalrymple.

Dear Sir

This will be deliver’d to you, along with a corrected Copy of my philosophical Pieces by Dr. Robertson. I remind you to send me six Copies, as usual. This is the last time I shall probably take the pains of correcting that work, which is now brought to as great a degree of accuracy as I can attain; and is probably much more labour’d1. (I know not with what degree of success) than any other production in our Language2. . This power, which Printing gives us, of continually improving and correcting our Works in successive Editions, appears to me the Chief Advantage of that Art. For as to the dispersing of Books, that Circumstance does perhaps as much harm as good3. : Since Nonsense flies with greater Celerity, and makes greater Impression than Reason; though indeed no particular Species of Nonsense is so durable. But the several Forms of Nonsense never cease succeeding one another; and Men are always under the Dominion of some one or other4. , though nothing was ever equal in Absurdity and Wickedness to our present Patriotism5. .

I long much for an Opportunity of bringing my History to the same degree of Accuracy. Since I was settled here, I have, from time, given Attention to that Object; though the Distance and Uncertainty of the new Edition threw a damp on my Industry: But I shall now apply seriously to the Task; and you may expect the Copy about August6. . I beseech you do not make this Edition too numerous, like the last. I have heard you frequently say, that no Bookseller woud find profit in making an Edition which woud take more than three Years in selling. Look back, therefore, and learn from Mr. Millar's Books what has been the Sale for the last six Years; and if you make the usual Allowance for a Diminution during the ensuing three, from the Number of Copies already sold, I am persuaded you will find 1500, a number large enough, if not too large7. : Be not over-sanguine. An Error on the one hand is more easily corrected than one on the other. I am perhaps the only Author you ever knew, who gratutiously (sic) employ’d great Industry in correcting a Work, of which he has fully alienated the Property; and it were hard to deny me an Opportunity of exercising my Talents; especially as this practice turns so much to the Advantage of the Bookseller.

I have another Proposal to make you in the same View. I have found by Experience that nothing excites an Author's Attention so much as the receiving the Proofs from the Press, as the Sheets are gradually thrown off. Now I have had an Opportunity of passing the last four Volumes of my History more than once through this Scrutiny, the most severe of any: The first four Volumes8. have only been once reviewd by me in this manner. I shall send you the whole Copy9. about the time above mention’d, and the last four Volumes you may throw off at your Leizure: But the Sheets of the first four, I shoud wish to receive by the Post five times a week. They will make about 250 Sheet and might be finishd in thirty weeks10. . For this Purpose I shall apply to Mr. Fraser, my former Collegue in the Secretary's Office, who will supply you with Franks, and such as are not confind to the usual Weight of two Ounces11. . The corrected Copies I shall send under his Cover; and you will only have to send for them to the Secretary's Office, the same as if I were in London. Mr. Fraser is as regular as an astronomical Clock, and will never dissappoint you. I am almost as regular; and you may give Orders to your People to be the same.

This Affair, therefore, being, I presume, settled to mutual Satisfaction, I come to give you thanks for the Perusal of Mr. Johnson's Pamphlet12. , which is a good one, and very diverting from the Peculiarity and Enormity of the Style13. . One sees he speaks from the Heart, and is movd with a cordial Indignation against these Ruffians. There is, however, one material Circumstance, which either he did not know, or did not think fit to mention; namely, that the French had regularly settled Falkland Island full three Years before us, and upon Remonstrances from the Court of Madrid, gave up their Right and Colony to the Spaniards, who never had abandond that Settlement14. . Their Right, therefore, was prior and preferable to ours. For as to our ridiculous Right from the first Discovery [sic], allowing the Facts to be true; will any one say, that a Sailor's seeing a Montain from the Top mast head15. , conveys a Title to a whole Territory, and a Title so durable, that even tho’ it be neglected for two Centuries, it still remains with the Nation. Our Ministry, therefore, have acted a Part most unjust, most insolent, and most imprudent; and which the Spaniards will deservedly remember long against us. But this Conduct proceeds entirely from the Timidity of our Ministry, who dread more the contemptible Populace of London16. than the whole House of Bourbon. I am curious to see how they will get out of the present Scrape17. ; though their past Measures prognosticate nothing good for the future. I say still, had they punishd Beckford18. , disfranchisd the City19. , and restord the Negative to the Court of Aldermen20. , they woud have prevented the present and many future Frays: But still it is not too late; though it may very soon become so.

When I blame the Insolence of our Ministry with regard to Spain, I must at the same time confess, that we do right to swagger and bounce and bully on the present Occasion: For we have not many Years to do so, before we fall into total Impotence and Languor21. . You see, that a much greater and more illustrious People, namely the French22. , seem to be totally annihilated in the midst of Europe23. ; and we, instead of regarding this Event as a great Calamity, are such Fools as to rejoice at it24. . We see not that the same Catastrophe or a much worse one is awaiting us at no distant Period. The monarchical Government of France (which must be replac’d25. ) will enable them to throw off their Debts26. ; ours must for ever hang on our Shoulders, and weigh us down like a Mill-stone27. .

I think that Mr Johnson is a great deal too favourable to Pitt, in comparing him to Cardinal Richelieu28. . The Cardinal had certainly great Talents besides his Audacity: The other is totally destitute of Literature, Sense, or the Knowledge of any one Branch of public Business. What other Talent indeed has he, but that of reciting with tolerable Action and great Impudence a long Discourse in which there is neither Argument, Order, Instruction, Propriety or even Grammar29. . Not to mention, that the Cardinal, with his inveterate Enmities30. , was also capable of Friendship: While our Cut-throat31. never felt either the one Sentiment or the other32. . The Event of both Administrations was suitable. France made a Figure during near a Century and a half upon the Foundations laid by the one33. : England—as above; if I be not much mistaken, as I wish to be34. .

I was pretty sure that Sir John Dalrymple was an Historian35. , with regard to the Price offerd him for his Book. So then, his Pride is interested in being esteem’d as good a Writer as Dr. Robertson! I am diverted with conjecturing what will be the Fate of this strange Book: Will it run a few Years? Or fall at once dead born from the Press36. ? I think the last Event more probable, notwithstanding the Precedent of Mrs. Macaulay37. , and notwithstanding the Antitheses and Rant and Whiggery of which it is full. After you have offerd him 750 pounds, my Pride, in case I shoud write another Volume, woud make me demand the Equivalent of a parliamentary Subsidy38. ; I think without Vanity, my Book will at least be equal in Value to Falkland Island39. .

But I have writ you a Letter as long as an Essay; and for fear of making it a Treatise, I shall conclude by telling you, that I am with great Sincerity

Dear Sir Your most obedient humble Servant

David Hume40. .

  • Edinburgh,

25 of March, 1771.

[1.]Note 1. Johnson describes Savage's Wanderer as ‘a poem diligently laboured and successfully finished.’ Works, viii. 131. ‘JOHNSON. “It appears to me that I labour when I say a good thing.” BOSWELL. “You are loud, Sir; but it is not an effort of mind.”’ Boswell's Johnson, v. 77.

[2.]Note 2. Pope surpassed even Hume in unwearying industry of revision. ‘He examined,’ says Johnson, ‘lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. . . . His declaration that his care for his works ceased at their publication was not strictly true. His parental attachment never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition he silently corrected in those that followed.’ Johnson's Works, viii. 323. Lord Lyttelton, too, was by no means inferior to Hume. So many corrections did he make in his History of Henry II that ‘his ambitious accuracy is known to have cost him at least a thousand pounds. He began to print in 1755. Three volumes appeared in 1764, and the conclusion in 1771.’ To the third edition ‘is appended, what the world had hardly seen before, a list of errors in nineteen pages.’ Ib. p. 492.

[3.]Note 3. ‘The mass of every people,’ said Johnson, ‘must be barbarous where there is no printing, and consequently knowledge is not generally diffused. Knowledge is diffused among our people by the newspapers.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 170.

[4.]Note 4. See post, Letter of Jan. 2, 1772, where Hume says:—’The people never tire of folly, but they tire of the same folly.’ Horace Walpole has the same thought. Thus he writies:—’Dec. 16, 1764. It is idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless we could cure it of being foolish.’ Letters, iv. 303. ‘Feb. 7, 1772. I begin to think that folly is matter, and cannot be annihilated. Destroy its form, it takes another. The Reformation was only a re-formation. It is happy when attempts to serve or enlighten mankind do not produce more prejudice to them. What are the consequences of the writings of the philosophers, and of the struggles of the Parliaments in France? Despotism! Lawyers have been found to support it, and priests will not be wanting. Methinks it would be a good text for the gallows, “upon this hang all the law and the prophets.”’ Ib. v. 374. ‘Sept. 9,1773. I have had another letter from you [Sir Horace Mann], with the total demolition of the Jesuits. . . . Well! but here is a large vacuum in the mass of folly,—what will replace it? I ask upon a maxim of mine, that it is idle to cure men of a folly, unless one could cure them of being foolish.’ Ib. p. 502.

Hume, speaking of the Lutherans, says:—’The quick and surprising progress of this bold sect may justly in part be ascribed to the late invention of printing and revival of learning. Not that reason bore any considerable share in opening men's eyes with regard to the impostures of the Romish Church; for of all branches of literature philosophy had as yet, and till long afterwards, made the most inconsiderable progress; neither is there any instance that argument has ever been able to free the people from that enormous load of absurdity with which superstition has everywhere overwhelmed them.’ History of England (ed. 1802), iv. 37.

[5.]Note 5. See ante, p. 132, n. 25.

[6.]Note 6. Strahan must have at last convinced Hume that ‘the detested edition’ would not last much longer. On July 23 he sent him word that ‘a new type was casting for the History.’ M.S.R.S.E.

[7.]Note 7. Gibbon, writing of his Decline and Fall, says:—'so moderate were our hopes that the original impression had been stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste to Mr. Strahan. The first impression was exhausted in a few days.’ Misc. Works, i. 222. Each of the ten editions of the Rambler published in Johnson's lifetime consisted, according to Hawkins, of 1250 copies. Boswell's Johnson, i. 213, n. 1.

[8.]Note 8. See ante, p. 150.

[9.]Note 9. Copy is generally used of manuscript for printing, but here it is used of the corrected printed edition.

[10.]Note 10. An octavo sheet consists of sixteen pages. He wished to receive rather more than eight sheets (128 pages) a week. There were at this time five posts a week between London and Edinburgh, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, To Oxford there was a post every day but Sunday; to Brighton, on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday; to France, on Tuesday and Friday; to Flanders, on Tuesday and Friday; to Spain and Portugal, on Tuesday. Court and City Register for 1765, pp. 130–2. ‘Within my recollection,’ writes Sir Walter Scott, ‘the London post was brought north in a small mail-cart; and men are yet alive [in 1824], who recollect when it came down with only one single letter for Edinburgh, addressed to the Manager of the British Linen Company.’ Scott's Works, ed. 1860, xxxvi. 77. In 1710 there were posts from London to Scotland every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Chamberlayne's Present State of Great Britain, p. 280.

[11.]Note 11. Mason asked Horace Walpole on Sept 9, 1772, to forward to him some letters of Gray. ‘Send them to Mr. Fraser at Lord Suffolk's office [Lord Suffolk was a Secretary of State] to be forwarded to me; you may be assured of their coming safe, for Fraser is punctuality and care itself.’ Letters, v. 406. On Nov. 23, 1773, he wrote:—’Any pacquet how large soever will be sent me from Fraser.’ Ib. vi. 14. Hume found Fraser much less obliging than he had expected (post, Letter of Jan. 2, 1772). I have seen a letter franked by Hume, when he was Under-Secretary; ‘Free, Da: Hume,’ being inscribed on the outside.

In the Gent. Mag. for April 1764, p. 182, are given Heads of the Act for preventing frauds in franking. Before a Parliamentary Committee it had appeared that the postage of freed letters amounted, one year with another, to £170,000, and that the clerks in the Office of the Secretaries of State had made from £800 to £1200 a year each,—one in particular had made £1700 by franking newspapers, etc. By the new Act the privilege of Members of either House was confined to the Session and to forty days before and after it. The weight of the packet was not to exceed two ounces, the whole of the address was to be in the member's writing, and to be attested by his signature.

Before this regulation was made the signature only was required, as is shown in Hume's letter of Feb. 15, 1757 (ante, p. 17), where he tells Strahan to send covers already directed to certain members to be franked. In the signature which people of importance and important people still write on the envelopes of their letters, we have, I believe, a trace of the old privilege of franking.

A member of Parliament not only sent, but also received his letters free of postage. Hume at one time used to address letters to the Admiralty, to be forwarded thence to Strahan. Strahan wrote back:—’When you write, you may as well send it by the mail, for the porters at Lord Sandwich's office require as much for bringing a letter to me from thence as the postage comes to.’ M.S.R.S.E.

Later on the maximum weight was reduced to one ounce, at which it remained till 1840, when franking was abolished. It was stated that the official franks ‘had been used to free a great coat, a bundle of baby-linen and a piano-forte.’ Life of Sir Rowland Hill, i. 241. How troublesome to an unhappy Under-Secretary of State this privilege of unlimited franking might become, is shown in the following curious extract from a letter which I had the honour to receive from Mr. Justice Stephen soon after the publication of my Life of Sir Rowland Hill.

’Judges’ Lodgings, Lancaster Assizes, Northern Circuit, Jan. 17, 1881 ’. . . I may tell you as a small point which may interest you that my father used to look upon the penny postage as an unspeakable deliverance. He had (as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies) the curse of an unlimited power of franking. As he was good-natured all his friends and all his most distant acquaintances sent him endless letters to frank. As he was also extremely conscientious he always wrote the whole address with his own hand and signed his name in the corner according to law. He once told me that he had made a calculation that at about the busiest time of a most laborious life he spent as much time in addressing letters in this way as would have kept him at work six hours a day for the whole month of February in every year. I well remember as a child seeing him sit down to direct a great pile of 20 or 30 letters with which he had as much to do as you or I.’

[12.]Note 12. Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands.

[13.]Note 13. ‘The conversation now turned upon Mr. David Hume's style. JOHNSON: “Why, Sir, his style is not English; the structure of his sentences is French. Now the French structure and the English structure may, in the nature of things, be equally good. But if you allow that the English language is established, he is wrong. My name might originally have been Nicholson as well as Johnson; but were you to call me Nicholson now, you would call me very absurdly.”’ Boswell's Johnson, i. 439.

[14.]Note 14. See ante, p. 165, n. 9.

[15.]Note 15. ‘In the fatal voyage of Cavendish (1592) Captain Davis . . . as he was driven by violence of weather about the Straits of Magellan, is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called Falkland's Islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any observation.’ Johnson's Works, vi. 181.

[16.]Note 16. Lord North, two days after the date of Hume's letter, was in great danger from this populace. Horace Walpole wrote on March 30, 1771:—’A prodigious mob came from the City with the Lord Mayor on Wednesday. . . . The two Foxes [Charles Fox was at this time a Junior Lord of the Admiralty] were assaulted and dragged out of their chariot, and escaped with difficulty. Lord North was attacked with still more inveteracy; his chariot was torn to pieces, and several spectators say there was a moment in which they thought he must be destroyed. . . . The Ministers are more moderate than their party who demand extremities. Young Charles Fox, the meteor of these days and barely twenty-two, is at the head of these strong measures. . . . The King was excessively hissed yesterday as he went to the House.’ Letters, v. 292. Mr. Calcraft, describing to Lord Chatham the debate that followed, said:—’Lord North disclaimed going out [of office], though he wished much for ease and retirement. He added, that nothing but the King or the mob, who were near destroying him to-day, could remove him; he would weather out the storm; but his pathetic manner and tears rather confirmed than removed my suspicions of his very anxious, perplexed situation.’ Chatham Corresp. iv. 138.

[17.]Note 17. ‘The present scrape’ was ‘a ridiculous contest with a set of printers’ (to use Burke's words, Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 62) into which the Government and the House of Commons had recklessly plunged. Burke, in writing the history of this affair, begins by remarking on the licentiousness of the periodical publications at this time. Both political parties were equally guilty of ‘the most gross, the most shameful, and the most scandalous abuse. . . .Distinction of character seemed at an end; and that powerful incentive to all public and private virtue, of establishing a fair fame and of gaining popular applause, which to noble minds is the highest of all rewards, seemed now to be totally cut off, and no longer to be hoped for.’ Ib. p. 60. He agrees with Horace Walpole, who finds the chief source of this evil in ‘the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press. His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.’ Memoirs of George III, iv. 167. ‘While an evil so destructive to all virtue was either over-looked or encouraged’ (Ann. Reg. p. 60), the House of Commons suddenly made an attempt to enforce their standing order against the publication of their debates.

On Feb. 22 Horace Walpole had written to Mann:—’For eight months to come I should think we shall have little to talk of, you and I, but distant wars and distant majesties’ (ante, p. 171, n. 21). On March 22, just one month later, he writes:—’I was in too great a hurry when I announced peaceable times, and half took leave of you as a correspondent. The horizon is overcast again already; the wind is got to the north-east and by Wilkes; and without a figure the House of Commons and the City of London are at open war. It is more surprising that Wilkes is not the aggressor—at least Folly put new crackers into his hand. Two cousins, both George Onslow by name, the son and nephew of the old Speaker, took offence at seeing the debates and speeches of the House printed, and the more as they had both been much abused. They complain, and the House issues warrants for seizing the printers, and addresses the King to issue a proclamation for apprehending them. Out comes a Proclamation, and no great seal to it. The City declares no man shall be apprehended contrary to law within their jurisdiction. The printers are seized; Wilkes, as sitting Alderman, releases one; the Lord Mayor, Wilkes, and another Alderman deliver another, and commit the messenger of the House of Commons to prison. The House summons the Lord Mayor to appear before them and answer for his conduct, but as he is laid up with the gout allow him to come on Monday last, or to-day, Friday. He gets out of bed and goes on Monday. Thousands of handbills are dispersed to invite the mob to escort him, but not an hundred attend. . . . He is too ill to stay, and is allowed to retire. Wilkes is summoned too; writes a refusal to the Speaker, unless he is admitted to his seat. The Speaker will not receive his letter, nor the House hear it, though read, and again order him to attend.’ Walpole's Letters, v. 286. ‘March 26. The die is cast. The army of the House of Commons has marched into the City, and made a prisoner; but as yet no blood is spilt; though I own I expected to hear there was this morning when I waked. Last night, when I went to bed at half an hour after twelve, I had just been told that all the avenues to the House were blockaded, and had beaten back the peace-officers, who had been summoned, for it was toute autre chose yesterday, when the Lord Mayor went to the House from what it had been the first day. He was now escorted by a prodigious multitude, who hissed and insulted the members of both Houses. . . . Well! what think you now? When so many men have ambition to be martyrs, will the storm easily subside? Oh! Sir Robert, my father, would this have happened in your days? I can remember when on the Convention [with Spain, in 1739] Sir William Windham, no fool for that time, laboured to be sent to the Tower, and my father told him in plain terms he knew his meaning and would not indulge it. . . . My father's maxim, Quieta non movere, was very well in those ignorant days. The science of government is better understood now—so, to be sure, whatever is, is right.’ Ib. pp. 291–2.

Lord Chatham wrote on March 21, 1771:—’The storm thickens admirably well, and these wretches called Ministers will be sick enough of their folly (not forgetting iniquity) before the whole business is over. If I mistake not it will prove very pregnant, and one distress generate another; for they have brought themselves and their Master where ordinary inability never arrives, and nothing but first rate geniuses in incapacity can reach; I mean a situation where-in there is nothing they can do which is not a fault.’ Chatham Corresp. iv. 119. Mr. Calcraft wrote to Chatham on March 24:—’The Ministers avow Wilkes too dangerous to meddle with. He is to do what he pleases; we are to submit. So his Majesty orders; he will have “nothing more to do with that devil Wilkes.”’ Ib. p. 122. The difficulty was evaded in the most ignominious manner. The House ordered Wilkes to appear on April 8, and then ‘adjourned itself to the ninth.’ Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 70.

The Lord Mayor and Alderman Oliver were sent to the Tower, where they remained till the prorogation of Parliament on May 8. On their release ‘the City was grandly illuminated.’ Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 104. A Committee of the House had meanwhile inquired into the obstructions to the execution of the orders. It recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering that Miller, the printer of the Evening Post, should be taken into custody. The report was received with a roar of laughter. Parl. Hist. xvii. 202, 211. Nothing was done, and the freedom of the newspaper press was secured. The Post had been Squire Western's paper. ‘“Sister,” cries the Squire, “I have often warned you not to talk the Court gibberish to me. I tell you, I don’t understand the lingo; but I can read a Journal or the London Evening Post. Perhaps indeed there may be now and tan a verse which I can’t make much of, because half the letters are left out; yet I know very well what is meant by that, and that our affairs don’t go so well as they should do, because of bribery and corruption.’ Tom Jones, Bk. VI. ch. 2. Burke notices the abandonment of this half-disguise in his account of the licentiousness of the press. The attacks were made without ‘the usual cautions of drawing characters, and leaving it to the sagacity of the reader to trace out the resemblance.’ Ann. Reg., 1771, i. 60.

[18.]Note 18. See ante, p. 138.

[19.]Note 19. I cannot find that any one went so far as to propose to disfranchise the City. General Conway in the Debate on March 15, 1770, said:—’If the Livery of London are daring enough to censure this House, shall it be said that a British House of Commons has been afraid to censure the Livery of London?’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 891.

[20.]Note 20. ‘Had the negative been restored the Remonstrance to the King in March 1770 would never have been voted; for at the Court of Common Council 3 Aldermen and 109 Commoners voted for it, and 15 Aldermen and 61 Commoners against it.’ Gent. Mag. 1770, p. 109.

[21.]Note 21. Hume twenty-five years earlier, in 1746, had written:—’I think the present times are so calamitous, and our future prospect so dismal, that it is a misfortune to have any concern in public affairs which one cannot redress, and where it is difficult to arrive at a proper degree of insensibility or philosophy, as long as one is in the scene. You know my sentiments were always a little gloomy on that head. . . . I shall not be much disappointed if this prove the last Parliament worthy the name we shall ever have in Britain.’ Burton's Hume, i. 224. He had more reason for his gloominess now. Lord Chatham, writing on March 24, 1771, one day earlier than the date of Hume's letter, said:—’The scene is unexampled, and England devoted to ruin; Bengal news calamitous.’ Chatham Corresp. iv. 125. Eleven years later, a few weeks before the fall of Lord North's Ministry, the City of London in an Address to the King ‘used these stunning and memorable words:—“Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost.”’ Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 483. A few months later (Aug. 4, 1782) Johnson wrote:—’Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking.’ Boswell's Johnson, iv. 139, n. 4. Horace Walpole, writing on May 13, 1780, says (Letters, vii. 364), ‘It is my opinion that the vigour of this country is worn out and is not likely to revive. I think it is pretty much the same case with Europe. . . . Is not the universal inactivity of all religions a symptom of decrepitude?’

[22.]Note 22. See ante, p. 50, n. 3, and p. 56, n. 8, for Hume's preference of the French. ‘What I gained by being in France,’ said Johnson, ‘was learning to be better satisfied with my own country.’ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 352.

[23.]Note 23. See ante, p. 169, n. 15, for the hopeless confusion of the French finances.

[24.]Note 24. Hume, in a remarkable passage in his History, describes the hatred which existed between the English and French. ‘The fatal pretensions of Edward III, ‘he says, ‘left the seeds of great animosity in both countries, especially among the English. For it is remarkable that this latter nation, though they were commonly the aggressors, and by their success and situation were enabled to commit the most cruel injuries on the other, have always retained a stronger tincture of national antipathy; nor is their hatred retaliated on them to an equal degree by the French. That country lies in the middle of Europe, has been successively engaged in hostilities with all its neighbours, the popular prejudices have been diverted into many channels, and among a people of softer manners they never rose to a great height against any particular nation.’ History of England, ed. 1802, ii. 398.

Horace Walpole, on his return from France in Sept. 1771, describing the state of things under the new Chancellor, Maupeou, says:—’For the misery of his people, and for the danger of his successors (if he escapes himself) the King, I think, will triumph over his country. . . . The Chancellor is very able, very enterprising, and after being the most servile flatterer proves the most inhuman tyrant. Everybody is pillaged, and numbers ruined. The army is much reduced, and if corruption does not prevent it, their finances will soon be in good order. The besotted old Bien-aimé [Lewis XV] neither desires this increase of power, nor feels for the sufferings it occasions; but shudders for his own life, and yet lets Abigail [Mme. Dubarry], who has still less sense than himself, plunge him into all these difficulties and shame. This street-walker has just received the homage of Europe. The holy Nuncio; and every Ambassador but he of Spain, have waited on her, and brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. . . . This prospect is by no means unfavourable to us. France and Spain on cool terms; the army no longer the favourite object,—perhaps disgusted—certainly dispirited; . . . the Vive le Roi certainly extinguished for the present; . . . a government dissolved and not resettled; and to crown all, a divided and rival Ministry.’ Letters, v. 332–334.

[25.]Note 25. Through the weakness of Lewis XV the monarchical government existed little more than in form. The Roi was almost as much extinguished as the Vive le Roi. But with ‘a Dauphin more unpromising1 ’ to follow, Hume's must was rather an article of faith than of reason. Dr. John Moore, who visited Paris in 1772, was struck by the loyalty of the French. ‘Roi,’ he says, ‘is a word which conveys to the minds of Frenchmen the ideas of benevolence, gratitude, and love; as well as those of power, grandeur and happiness. They flock to Versailles every Sunday, behold him with unsated curiosity, and gaze on him with as much satisfaction the twentieth time as the first. . . . They repeat with fond applause every saying of his which seems to indicate the smallest approach to wit, or even bears the mark of ordinary sagacity. . . . When they hear of the freedom of debate in Parliament, of the liberties taken in writing or speaking of the conduct of the King, or measures of government, and the forms to be observed before those who venture on the most daring abuse of either can be brought to punishment, they seem filled with indignation, and say with an air of triumph, “C’est bien autrement chez nous. Si le Roi de France avait affaire à ces Messieurs-là, il leur apprendrait à vivre.”’ View of Society in France, i. 36, 37, 43.

[26.]Note 26. One method of throwing off their debts is described by Horace Walpole in his letter of Sept. 7 of this year:—’The worst part is that by the most horrid oppression and injustice their finances will very soon be in good order—unless some bankrupt turns Ravaillac [the murderer of Henry IV of France], which will not surprise me.’ Letters, v. 330.

[27.]Note 27. Walpole wrote on Feb. 25, 1779:—’It was but yesterday Lord North could tell the House he had got the money on the loan, and is happy to get it under eight per cent.’ Letters, vii. 181. The poor-rate also was beginning to weigh the country down like another mill-stone. An able writer in the Gent. Mag. for Aug. 1769 (p. 373), in a paper entitled A College of Labour, says:—’It is a melancholy truth, that notwithstanding the heavy load of other taxes the poor's rate within half a century past has increased throughout the kingdom in a quadruple ratio to what it was ever formerly known to increase in the same period of time; and that it now equals, if it does not surpass, the whole revenue upon land.’

[28.]Note 28. ‘This surely is a sufficient answer to the feudal gabble of a man, who is every day lessening that splendour of character which once illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and for whom it will be happy if the nation shall at last dismiss him to nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of blame and praise which Corneille allows to Richelieu, a man who, I think, had much of his merit and many of his faults:—

  • “Chacun parle à son gré de ce grand Cardinal;
  • Mais, pour moi, je n’en dirai rien:
  • Il m’a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal;
  • Il m’a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien.”’

Johnson's Works, vi. 197.Corneille's lines are well rendered by the saying of ‘Old Andrew Fairservice, that there were many things ower bad for blessing, and ower bad for banning like Rob Roy.’ Scott's Works, ed. 1860, viii. 380.

[29.]Note 29. Burke, writing on July 9, 1769, about a visit of Lord Chatham to St. James's, says:—’It is not yet known whether he was sent for, or went of his own mere motion. . . . If he was not sent for, it was only humbly to lay a reprimand at the feet of his most gracious master, and to talk some significant, pompous, creeping, explanatory, ambiguous matter in the true Chathamic style, and that's all.’ Burke's Corresp. i. 173.

Boswell, writing on June 19, 1775, says:—’On Wednesday last I dined at Sir Alexander Dick's. Mr. Hume was there. He said Mr. Pitt was an instance that in this country eloquence alone, without any other talents or fortune, will raise a man to the highest office.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 203. Much of Hume's violence against Chatham was, I suspect, due to wounded vanity. Lord Charlemont says in his Memoirs, i. 236:—’Nothing ever gave Hume more real vexation than the strictures made upon his History in the House of Lords by the great Lord Chatham. Soon after that speech I met Hume, and ironically wished him joy of the high honour that had been done him. “Zounds, man,” said he, with more peevishness than I had ever seen him express; “he's a Goth! he's a Vandal!”’ I have not found any other mention of Chatham's speech.

[30.]Note 30. ‘Richelieu, grand, sublime, implacable ennemi.’ Voltaire, La Henriade, vii. 340.

[31.]Note 31. When Hume writes of Chatham as ‘our cut-throat,’ we recall the splendid passage in which Burke has enshrined his memory. ‘Another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham—a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly called,

  • Clarum et venerabile nomen
  • Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.1

Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of mankind; and more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct.’ Burke, On American Taxation, April 19, 1774. Payne's Burke, i. 144. Yet in a note which Burke made more than eighteen years later he calls Chatham ‘that grand artificer of fraud,’ and continues:—’It is pleasant to hear him talk of the great extensive public, who never conversed but with a parcel of low toad-eaters. Alas! alas! how different the real from the ostensible public man! Must all this theatrical stuffing and raised heels be necessary for the character of a great man? Oh! but this does not derogate from his great splendid side. God forbid!’ Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 195.

[32.]Note 32. Burke, describing on May 25, 1779, ‘the very blind submission’ which Lord Chatham had always expected, continues:—’It is true that he very often rewarded such submission in a very splendid manner, but with very little marks of respect or regard to the objects of his favour; and as he put confidence in no man, he had very few feelings of resentment against those who the most bitterly opposed, or most basely betrayed him.’ Burke's Corresp. ii. 277.

[33.]Note 33. Hume in his History of England, ed. 1802, vi. 233, thus sums up the results of Richelieu's administration:—’The people, while they lost their liberties, acquired by means of his administration, learning, order, discipline, and renown. That confused and inaccurate genius of government of which France partook in common with other European Kingdoms, he changed into a simple monarchy.’

[34.]Note 34. ‘All Mr. Pitt's sentiments were liberal and elevated. His ruling passion was an unbounded ambition, which, when supported by great abilities and crowned with great success, make (sic) what the world calls “a great man.” He was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and over-bearing; qualities which too often accompany, but always clog, great ones. . . . His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and stern dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.’ Character of Mr. Pitt by Lord Chesterfield. Chesterfield's Works. Appendix to vol. iv. p. 64.

’No man was ever better fitted than Mr. Pitt to be the minister in a great and powerful nation, or better qualified to carry that power and greatness to their utmost limits. There was in all his designs a magnitude, and even a vastness, which was not easily comprehended by every mind, and which nothing but success could have made to appear reasonable. . . . Under him for the first time administration and popularity were seen united. Under him Great Britain carried on the most important war in which she ever was engaged, alone and unassisted, with greater splendour and with more success than she had ever enjoyed at the head of the most powerful alliances. Alone this island seemed to balance the rest of Europe.’ Burke in the Ann. Reg. for 1761, i. 47.

Horace Walpole wrote on May 11, 1778, the day of Chatham's death:—’Well! with all his defects Lord Chatham will be a capital historic figure, France dreaded his crutch to this very moment.’ Letters, vii. 60. The House of Lords, by a majority of one, decided not to attend his funeral. Parl. Hist. xix. 1233. In the 66 volumes of Voltaire's Works, his name, I believe, is not once mentioned. In the copious Index I find only ‘Pitt (André): quaker retiré dans les environs de Londres, auquel l’auteur alla rendre visite.’

[35.]Note 35. Horace Walpole offered one day to read to Sir Robert in his retirement, ‘finding that time hung heavy on his hands. “What,” said he, “will you read, child?” Mr. Walpole considering that his father had long been engaged in public business, proposed to read some history. “No,” said he, “don’t read history to me; that can’t be true.”’ Prior's Life of Malone, p. 387. Dalrymple boasted (ante, p. 174) that he had been offered £2000 for his History. This letter shows that the amount was only £750.

[36.]Note 36. ‘All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press.’

Pope Epil. to Sat. ii. 226.Hume in his Autobiography tells how his Treatise of Human Nature ‘fell dead-born from the press.’

Dalrymple's book passed through several editions.

[37.]Note 37. ‘Dec. 29, 1763. Have you read Mrs. Macaulay? I am glad again to have Mr. Gray's opinion to corroborate mine, that it is the most sensible, unaffected, and best history of England that we have had yet.’ Horace Walpole to Mason, Letters, iv. 157. It was of her that Johnson said, on hearing that she had begun ‘to sit hours together at her toilet and even put on rouge:—“It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks than blackening other people's characters.”’ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 46. See ib. i. 447, for Johnson's proposal that that ‘sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen; her footman’ should sit down and dine with them.

[38.]Note 38. Hume, while he was engaged on his History of the Stuarts, wrote to a friend in the Government for information about ‘the old English subsidies.’ ‘I cannot,’ he continues, ‘satisfy myself on that head; but I find that all historians and antiquarians are as much at a loss.’ Burton's Hume, i. 380. In his History (ed. 1802, vi. 174) he says:—’In the eighth of Elizabeth a subsidy amounted to £120,000. In the fortieth, it was not above £78,000. It afterwards fell to £70,000, and was continually decreasing.’

[39.]Note 39. See ante, p. 165, n. 9, for Johnson's account of the worthlessness of Falkland's Islands.

[40.]Note 40. To this letter Strahan sent the following reply:—

London, May 25, 1771.

Dear Sir,

’. . . The proofs for the first four volumes shall be regularly transmitted to you as you desire; but this had better be done by common franks than by Secretary Fraser. We shall never want above two ounces at a time; and if they are returned to his office, it will be troublesome to him, as well as to me, to send so great a distance for them. It will be very easy for either you or I to procure a number of covers, half directed—To David Hume, Esqre. Edinbr.—and half to Will. Strahan, King's Printer, London.—These are neither of them long addresses, and we either of us know a score of members that will readily oblige us. If I am not mistaken this book will be wanted before this edition is finished. But if it is, so much the better, that the Public may know that it is out of print. The impression is to be 1500 and no more, which is of all others the most proper number; nor is it the interest of the proprietors to print more at a time. . . . The offer of £750 to Sir J[ohn] D[alrymple] turns out to have been more than the real value of it, as the sale of it seems to be already over here. Not above 1000 are yet sold, which was the number first printed, 220 of which arrived here after the second edition was finished. So that will probably stick on hand for a great while to come. If you write another volume, which the best judges of writing are daily enquiring after, you may demand what you please for it. It shall be granted. We cannot indeed afford a sum equal to a Parliamentary subsidy, but you shall not be offered so little as the value of Falkland Islands, which in my mind is a mere trifle. I heartily wish you would seriously think of setting about it. It is the only thing wanting to fill up the measure of your glory as the Great Historian and Philosopher of the Eighteenth Century. But you certainly do not see this matter in the same light I do, otherwise you would not hesitate one moment in continuing a Work, which (imperfect as it is in point of time) will remain for ever the Standard History of this country. I am afraid too, that when you are universally known to have given up all thoughts of this yourself, we shall be pestered with continuations from some of our hackney writers, who will be fond of building upon your foundation, and adding their names to one that is like to be as immortal as the language he writes in, or the country he has made the subject of his pen. . . .

’The circumstance you mention about the prior settlement of Falkland Island by the French is not at all known here, as far as I can find, to this moment. However, that matter is now at an end; at least for the present; nor do I see the smallest reason to fear our being threatened with a war either with France or Spain soon. If we are weak, so are they; if we are divided among ourselves, so are the French; if we are poor, and in debt, so are the French; with this difference, that we have still some credit left, they have none. You know the condition and character of their present King; the Dauphin [afterwards Lewis XVI] is not much better than a driveller. Put all these circumstances together, and I leave it to you to determine whether or not we are not upon a fair comparison, in a much better situation than our most formidable enemies. Add to all this that our trade is really in a flourishing state, that our Colonies are growing very considerable without the smallest fear of a separation from us; and that from all Quarters of the Globe, wealth is daily pouring into this country, of which you see the most convincing proofs, not only in this Capital, but over the whole Kingdom, in some degree or another . . . If the folly and absurdity of the canaille of London doth not receive a check (and a very little matter would effectually do it) it is impossible to say where it may terminate. But, in truth, it is more contemptible than people at a distance can possibly conceive or believe. The bustle is chiefly, almost solely, in the newspapers. Our rascally leaders of sedition are cutting one another's throats. Wilkes and Horne now entertain the Town with bespattering one another, and probably before next session they may be totally extinguished.—Time, steadiness and perseverance in those in power may of itself do wonders. In short I look upon the condition of this country, considering things in an enlarged point of view, and comparing our affairs with those of all the other principal Powers of Europe, contemplating the resources we actually possess in cases of extremity, the state of agriculture, which is daily advancing in a variety of ways, our numerous and most extensive manufactures, which are by no means on the decline; I say, considering all these things, I will venture to pronounce the British Empire, still on the increase in power, riches and consideration.

’I wish you saw things in the same light, and am, whether you do so or not, with the utmost esteem and attachment

Dear Sir your faithful and Obt Sert,

’William Strahan.’ M. S. R. S. E.

[25.]Note 25. Through the weakness of Lewis XV the monarchical government existed little more than in form. The Roi was almost as much extinguished as the Vive le Roi. But with ‘a Dauphin more unpromising1 ’ to follow, Hume's must was rather an article of faith than of reason. Dr. John Moore, who visited Paris in 1772, was struck by the loyalty of the French. ‘Roi,’ he says, ‘is a word which conveys to the minds of Frenchmen the ideas of benevolence, gratitude, and love; as well as those of power, grandeur and happiness. They flock to Versailles every Sunday, behold him with unsated curiosity, and gaze on him with as much satisfaction the twentieth time as the first. . . . They repeat with fond applause every saying of his which seems to indicate the smallest approach to wit, or even bears the mark of ordinary sagacity. . . . When they hear of the freedom of debate in Parliament, of the liberties taken in writing or speaking of the conduct of the King, or measures of government, and the forms to be observed before those who venture on the most daring abuse of either can be brought to punishment, they seem filled with indignation, and say with an air of triumph, “C’est bien autrement chez nous. Si le Roi de France avait affaire à ces Messieurs-là, il leur apprendrait à vivre.”’ View of Society in France, i. 36, 37, 43.

[31.]Note 31. When Hume writes of Chatham as ‘our cut-throat,’ we recall the splendid passage in which Burke has enshrined his memory. ‘Another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham—a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly called,

  • Clarum et venerabile nomen
  • Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.1

Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of mankind; and more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct.’ Burke, On American Taxation, April 19, 1774. Payne's Burke, i. 144. Yet in a note which Burke made more than eighteen years later he calls Chatham ‘that grand artificer of fraud,’ and continues:—’It is pleasant to hear him talk of the great extensive public, who never conversed but with a parcel of low toad-eaters. Alas! alas! how different the real from the ostensible public man! Must all this theatrical stuffing and raised heels be necessary for the character of a great man? Oh! but this does not derogate from his great splendid side. God forbid!’ Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 195.

[1]Walpole's Letters, v. 333.

[1]Lucan, ix. 202.