decay of taste; and though nobody be more capable than you to revive them, you will probably find a struggle in your first advances. "I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. You are certainly right in so doing. It is indeed strange that any men of sense could have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, along with numberless historical facts, could have been preserved by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest perhaps of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices. You are therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation. "I must inform you that we are all very anxious to hear that you have fully collected the materials for your second volume, and that you are even considerably advanced in the composition of it. I speak this more in the name of my friends than in my own, as I cannot expect to live so long as to see the publication of it. Your ensuing volume will be more delicate than the preceding, but I trust in your prudence for extricating you from the difficulties: and, in all events, you have courage to despise the clamour of bigots. I am, with great regard, Your most obedient and most humble servant, DAVID HUME." Some weeks afterwards I had the melancholy pleasure of seeing Mr Hume in his passage through London; his body feeble, his mind firm. On the 25th VOL. I. T of August of the same year (1776) he died at Eḍinburgh the death of a philosopher. My second excursion to Paris was determined by the pressing invitation of M. and madame Necker, who had visited England in the preceding summer. On my arrival I found M. Necker director-general of the finances, in the first bloom of power and popularity. His private fortune enabled him to support a liberal establishment; and his wife, whose talents and virtues I had long admired, was admirably qualified to preside in the conversation of her table and drawingroom. As their friend, I was introduced to the best company of both sexes, to the foreign ministers of all nations, and to the first names and characters of France, who distinguished me by such marks of civility and kindness as gratitude will not suffer me to forget, and modesty will not allow me to enumerate. The fashionable suppers often broke into the morning hours; yet I occasionally consulted the royal library, and that of the abbey of St Germain ; and in the free use of their books at home I had always reason to praise the liberality of those institutions. The society of men of letters I neither courted nor declined; but I was happy in the acquaintance or M. de Buffon, who united with a sublime genius the most amiable simplicity of mind and manners. At the table of my old friend, M. de Forcemagne, I was involved in a dispute with the abbé de Mably; and his jealous irascible spirit revenged itself on a work which he was incapable of reading in the original. As I might be partial in my own cause, I shall transcribe the words of an unknown critic, observing only that this dispute had been preceded by another on the English constitution, at the house of the countess de Froulay, an old Jansenist lady. ◄ "Vous étiez chez M. de Forcemagne, mon cher Théodon, le jour que M. l'abbé de Mably et M. Gibbon y dinèrent en grande compagnie. La con versation roula presque entierement sur l'histoire. L'abbé, étant un profound politique, la tourna sur l'administration, quand on fut au dessert; et comme par caractére, par humeur, par l'habitude d'admirer Tite Live, il ne prise que le systême républicain, il se mit à vanter l'excellence des républiques; bien persuadé que le savant Anglois l'approuveroit en tout, et admireroit la profondeur de génie qui avoit fait deviner tous ces avantages à un François. Mais M. Gibbon, instruit par l'expérience des inconvéniens d'un gouvernement populaire, ne fut point du tout de son avis, et il prit généreusement la défense du gouvernement monarchique. L'abbé voulut le convaincre par Tite Live, et par quelques argumens tirés de Plutarque en faveur des Spartiates. M. Gibbon, doué de la mémoire la plus heureuse, et ayant tous les faits présens à la pensée, domina bientôt la conversation; l'abbé se fâcha, il s'emporta, il dit des choses dures; l'Anglois, conservant le phlegme de son pays, prenoit ses avantages, et pressoit l'abbé avec d'autant plus de succès que la colère le troubloit de plus en plus. La conversation s'échauffoit, et M. de Forcemagne la rompit en se levant de table, et en passant dans le salon, où personne ne fut tenté de la renouer." Supplément de la Manière d'écrire l'Histoire, p. 125. &c.* Nearly two years had elapsed between the publica * Of the voluminous writings of the abbé de Mably, (see his Eloge by the abbé Brizard,) the Principes du droit public de l'Europe,' and the first part of the 'Observations sur l'Histoire de France,' may be deservedly praised; and even the Manière d'écrire l'Histoire' contains several useful precepts and judicious remarks. Mably was a lover of virtue and freedom; but his virtue was austere, and his freedom was impatient of an equal. Kings, magistrates, nobles, and successful writers, were the objects of his contempt, or hatred, or envy; but his illiberal abuse of Voltaire, Hume, Buffon, the abbé Reynal, Dr Robertson, and tutti quanti, can be injurious only to himself. tion of my first and the commencement of my second volume; and the causes must be assigned of this long delay. 1. After a short holiday, I indulged my curiosity in some studies of a very different nature; a course of anatomy, which was demonstrated by Dr Hunter, and some lessons of chemistry, which were delivered by Mr Higgins. The principles of these sciences, and a taste for books of natural history, contributed to multiply my ideas and images; and the anatomist and chemist may sometimes track me in their own snow. 2. I dived, perhaps too deeply, into the mud of the Arian controversy; and many days of reading, thinking, and writing, were consumed in the pursuit of a phantom. 3. It is difficult to arrange, with order and perspicuity, the various transactions of the age of Constantine; and so much was I displeased with the first essay, that I committed to the flames above fifty sheets. 4. The six months of Paris and pleasure must be deducted from the account. But when I resumed my task I felt my improvement; I was now master of my style and subject, and while the measure of my daily performance was enlarged, I discovered less reason to cancel or correct. It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work. Shall I add that I never found my mind more vigorous, nor my composition more happy, than in the winter hurry of society and parliament ? "Est il rien de plus fastidieux (says the polite censor) qu'un M. Gibbon, qui dans son éternelle Histoire des Empereurs Romains, suspend à chaque instant son insipide et lente narration, pour vous expliquer la cause des faits que vous allez lire ?" (Manière d'écrire l'Histoire, p. 184 See another passage, p. 280) Yet I am indebted to the abbé de Mably for two such advocates as the anonymous French critic and my friend Mr Hayley. (Hayley's works, Svo Edit. Vol. ii. p. 261-263.) Had I believed that the majority of English readers were so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of Christianity; had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might perhaps have softened the two invidious chapters which would create many enemies, and conciliate few friends. But the shaft was shot, the alarm was sounded, and I could only rejoice that if the voice of our priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands were disarmed from the powers of persecution. I adhered to the wise resolution of trusting myself and my writings to the candour of the public, till Mr Davies of Oxford presumed to attack, not the faith, but the fidelity, of the historian. My Vindication, expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy and idle metropolis; and the most rational part of the laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of my innocence and accuracy. I would not print this Vindication in quarto, lest it should be bound and preserved with the history itself. At the distance of twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davies, Chelsum, &c. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They, however, were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was indeed neglected; and I dare not boast the making Dr Watson a bishop; he is a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit: but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal pension to Mr Davies, and of collating Dr Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. Their success encouraged the zeal of Taylor the Arian,* and Milner *The stupendous title, "Thoughts on the Causes of the grand Apostacy," at first agitated my nerves, till I discovered that it was the apostacy of the whole church, since the Council of Nice, from Mr Taylor's private religion. His book is a thorough mixture of high enthusiasm and low buffoonery, and the Millennium is a fundamental article of his creed. |