Note 30. An edition of Hume's History in 8 vols. 4to. was published by Cadell in 1770.

Note 31. An edition in 4 vols. small 8vo. was published by T. Cadell, London, and A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, Edinburgh, in 1770.

Note 32. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote from Minto on July 11, 1768, to Hume at London:—‘Farming, I find, is very expensive—day's wages now at a shilling.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 416. ‘In 1756,’ says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, ‘a labourer's wages were generally sixpence a day in summer.’ Scotland and Scotsmen , ii. 211.

Note 33. ‘April 25, 1768. Extract of a letter from Edinburgh:— “A number of apprentice boys, amounting to several hundreds, assembled here, and carried on their shoulders a figure which they called Mr. Wilkes. After parading the streets, and shouting Wilkes and Liberty , they carried him to the Grassmarket, where they chaired the mock hero on the stone where the common gallows is usually fixed at executions. After making a fire they committed the effigy to the flames.”’ Ann. Reg. 1768, i. 99. Burke, after mentioning how few Addresses in support of the Ministers were obtained in England in the summer of 1769, continues:—‘It was invidiously observed that Scotland was much more ready in expressing the most perfect satisfaction in the conduct and character of the Ministers. Addresses, which filled the Gazette for several weeks, came from every town and from almost every village in that part of the kingdom.’ Ib. 1770, i. 57.

Note 1. The Session opened on Jan. 9, 1770. ‘The debates,’ wrote Burke, ‘were carried on with a warmth and acrimony of expression before unknown in that assembly.’ Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 60. Strahan, who was a spectator in the House of Lords on the opening night, sent Hume a long report of the Debate. See Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume , p. 91.

Note 2. Horace Walpole, writing on Jan. 10 of the victory of the Ministers in both Houses, said:—‘Where so many caldrons full of passions are boiling, they are not extinguished by one wet sheet of votes.’ Letters , v. 214.

Note 3. ‘Burke on the Address had attacked the House itself, and hinted that the majority was so guilty that they did not dare to take notice of the insults offered to them, and the reproaches cast on them. On the Report he added that he was conscious he had deserved to be sent to the Tower for what he had said; but knew the House did not dare to send him thither. Sir George Saville used the same language. Lord North took notice of it, but said he supposed Sir George had spoken in warmth. “No,” replied Saville coolly, “I spoke what has been my constant opinion; I thought so last night, I thought the same this morning. I look on this House as sitting illegally after their illegal act [of voting Luttrell representative for Middlesex]. They have betrayed their trust. I will add no epithets,” continued he, “because epithets only weaken; therefore I will not say they have betrayed their country corruptly, flagitiously, and scandalously; but I do say they have betrayed their country; and I stand here to receive the punishment for having said so.” Mr. Conway, sensible of the weight of such an attack from a man so respectable, alarmed at the consequences that would probably attend the punishment of him … took up the matter with temper, wisdom, and art…. Had the Ministers dared to send Saville to the Tower, the Cavendishes and the most virtuous and respectable of his friends would have started up, would have avowed his language, and would have demanded to share his imprisonment. A dozen or twenty such confessors in the heat of a tumultuous capital would have been no indifferent spectacle; the great northern counties were devoted to them. Then, indeed, the moment was serious. Fortunately there were none but subordinate Ministers in the House of Commons, not one of whom chose to cast so decisive a die 1 The House sat silent under its ignominy—a punishment well suited to its demerits; and the sword was not called in to decide a contest in which Liberty and the Constitution would probably have been the victims.’ Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 38. Burke began his reply to Lord North by saying:—‘The noble lord who spoke last, after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length opened his mouth. I was all attention. After these portents I expected something still more awful and tremendous. I expected that the Tower would have been threatened in articulated thunder; but I have heard only a feeble remonstrance against violence and passion; when I expected the powers of destruction to “cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,” an overblown bladder has burst, and nobody has been hurt by the crack.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 720.

Lord North was there, as Chancellor of the Exchequer—in a month's time to be Prime Minister.

Note 4. Owen Ruffhead is best known by his Life of Pope. Johnson speaking of it said:—‘He knew nothing of Pope and nothing of poetry.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 166. In a letter to Strahan, dated Parade, Hot Wells, Aug. 24, 1769, Ruffhead writes:—‘As to the Pamphlet, I heartily wish you had corrected the inaccuracies you pointed out to me…. I think it would be advisable to advertise it as a second edition, but leave it wholly to you.’ Barker MSS. He had lately been appointed one of the Chief Secretaries to the Treasury. He died on Oct. 25, 1769. Gent. Mag. , 1769, p. 511.

Note 5. Horace Walpole, writing on Jan. 18 of the dismissal of the Ministers, says:—‘Nothing proves the badness of generals like an ill use of a great victory. Ours have not hurt their own success by neglecting to pursue it, but by pursuing it too far. Lord Huntingdon was turned out the next day, not for having joined the enemy, but merely for having absented himself.’ After recounting some of the dismissals or resignations, Walpole continues:—‘You may imagine how these events have raised the spirits and animosity of the Opposition.’ Letters , v. 216. Burke in the Ann. Reg. , 1770, i. 63, under the date of Jan. 17, says:—‘The whole of administration seemed to be falling to pieces. A violent panic prevailed.’ On the 28th the Duke of Grafton resigned, and was succeeded as First Minister by Lord North. ‘He is,’ wrote Walpole on Jan. 30, ‘much more able, more active, more assiduous, more resolute, and more fitted to deal with mankind.’ Letters , v. 223.

Note 6. Johnson on April 14, 1775, said to Boswell, speaking of Lord North's Ministry:—‘You must have observed, Sir, that administration is feeble and timid, and cannot act with that authority and resolution which is necessary. Were I in power I would turn out every man who dared to oppose me. Government has the distribution of offices that it may be enabled to maintain its authority.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 355.

Note 7. Hume wrote from Edinburgh on April 5, 1770:—‘I am sorry to inform you that all we statesmen in this town condemn loudly the conduct of you statesmen in London, especially in allowing those insolent rascals, the mayor and sheriffs, to escape with impunity. We were much disappointed not to find them impeached, and a bill of pains and penalties passed upon them. The tumults which might have ensued in London we thought rather an advantage; as it would give Government an opportunity of chastising that abominable rabble.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 435.

Note 8. ‘Praise enough

• To fill th’ ambition of a private man,
• That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
• And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
• Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
• The hope of such hereafter. They have fall’n
• Each in his field of glory; one in arms
• And one in council. Wolfe upon the lap
• Of smiling victory that moment won,
• And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame.’

Cowper's Poems , ed. 1786, ii. 57.

Burke in the Ann. Reg. for 1770, i. 66, speaking of this time, says:—‘The Earl of Chatham now seemed disposed to recover that almost boundless popularity which he once possessed, and which, in consequence of a subsequent conduct, he had in a great measure lost.’ See ante , p. 127, n. 15. In the debate on the Address Chatham had said:—‘The English people are loud in their complaints; they proclaim with one voice the injuries they have received; they demand redress, and depend upon it, my Lords, that one way or other they will have redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity until they are redressed; nor ought they.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 652. On Jan. 22 he went still further:—‘If the breach in the constitution be effectually repaired, the people will of themselves return to a state of tranquillity. If not—may discord prevail for ever!’ Ib. p. 748.

Note 1. On July 5, 1769, the City presented a petition to the King, ‘to which he made no answer, and immediately turned about to the Danish Minister, and delivered the petition to the Lord in Waiting.’ Ann. Reg. 1769, i. 113. On March 14, 1770, the City, indignant at receiving no answer, presented ‘a Remonstrance and Petition praying for the dissolution of Parliament and the removal of evil Ministers.’ Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 79, 80. Horace Walpole, writing to Mann the next day, says:—‘The manifesto on which all seems to turn is the Remonstrance from the City. You will have seen it in the public papers, and certainly never saw a bolder declaration both against King and Parliament. Sixteen aldermen have protested against it, but could not stop it. The King, after some delay, received it yesterday on his throne…. The crisis is now tremendous. Should the House of Commons, or both Houses, fall on the Remonstrance, as it in a manner dares them to do, it is much to be apprehended that not only the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs will uphold their act, but that many lords and members will avow them, and demand to be included in the same sentence. The Tower, crammed with such proud criminals, will be a formidable scene indeed. The petitioning counties will certainly turn remonstrants. An association among them is threatened, and a general refusal by the party of paying the land-tax. In short rebellion is in prospect and in everybody's mouth…. It is not yet, I hope, too late for wisdom and temper to step in. I sigh when I hear any other language. The English may be soothed—I never read that they were to be frightened.’ Letters , v. 229.

In a debate on May 4 Lord Chatham made a remarkable contribution to English history. ‘My Lords,’ he said, ‘when I mentioned the Livery of London, I thought I saw a smile of ridicule upon some faces…. The Livery of London, my Lords, were respectable at the time of Caesar's invasion.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 968.

Note 2. Horace Walpole wrote on March 20 ( Letters , v. 230, where the date March 16 is wrong):—'sir T. Clavering moved to address the King…. The House, you may imagine, was full of resentment, and at eleven at night the Address was carried by 271 to 108…. The great point is still in suspense—what to do with the offenders. The wisest, because the most temperate method that I have heard suggested is, to address the King to order a prosecution by the Attorney-General. Two others that have been mentioned are big with every mischief—the Tower or expulsion. Think of the three first magistrates of the City 1 in prison, or of a new election for London! I pray for temper, but what can one expect when such provocation is given? … March 23. Lord North's temper and prudence has prevailed over much rash counsel; and will, I hope, at last defeat the madness of both sides.’

The Lord Mayor and the two Sheriffs.

Note 3. Sir Gilbert Elliot, third Baronet and father of the first Earl of Minto, was Hume's correspondent for many years. He is described in Scotland and Scotsmen of the Eighteenth Century , i. 364. Boswell, when considering the English accent which a Scotch gentleman should aim at attaining, says:—‘I would give as an instance of what I mean to recommend to my countrymen the pronunciation of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 160.

In Elliot's MS. Journal for 1770 is the following entry:—‘Feb. 3, Went to Court…. Lord North made me the offer of the Treasurership of the Navy; said the King wished I might accept, as many persons were doubtful. Though hazardous, I did accept on the spot.’ Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 87, n. 1. By his appointment he vacated his seat for Roxburgh, but a new writ being ordered on March 8, he was re-elected. Parl. Hist. xvi. 452. No doubt Hume's Chronicle had been franked by Elliot. Till his re-election he lost his privilege, but I am surprised that he could not frank as a Minister.

Note 4. I am afraid that this cannot be the famous Poker Club, ‘of which Andrew Crosbie was chosen Assassin, in case any officer of that sort should be needed; but David Hume was added as his Assessor, without whose assent nothing should be done, so that between plus and minus there was likely to be no bloodshed.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 420. These ‘Poker men’ met, I think, only for conviviality.

Note 5. Dr. Armstrong's Miscellanies were published in 1770, in 2 vols. 12mo. His tragedy was The Forced Marriage. Churchill attacked him in the last lines that he wrote. Speaking of the Muses he says:—

• ‘Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of sense,
• Read musty lectures on Benevolence ,
• Or con the pages of his gaping Day ,
• Where all his former fame was thrown away,
• Where all but barren labour was forgot;
• And the vain stiffness of a Letter‘d Scott.’

Churchill's Poems , ed. 1766, ii. 329.

Note 6. See Boswell's Johnson , i. 75, n. 2, for the anger of ‘Mr. Hawkins, the Poetry Professor,’ against Garrick. A much better poet, W. J. Mickle, the author of the Ballad of Cumnor Hall , ‘inserted in the Lusiad an angry note against Garrick, who had rejected a tragedy o his.’ Shortly afterwards he saw him act for the first time. The play was Lear. ‘During the first three acts he said not a word. In a fine passage of the fourth he fetched a deep sigh, and turning to a friend, “I wish,” said he, “the note was out of my book.”’ Bishop Horne's Essays , ed. 1808, p. 38. See also Boswell's Johnson , v. 349, n. 1.

Note 7. The ‘detestable edition’ was that of 1763 in 8 vols. 8vo. When it came out, Hume showed no dissatisfaction with it. On March 12, 1763, he wrote to Elliot:—‘In this new edition I have corrected several mistakes and oversights, which had chiefly proceeded from the plaguy prejudices of Whiggism, with which I was too much infected when I began this work.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 144. On Sept. 3, 1764, he wrote to Millar that he thought the edition very correct. Ib. p. 232. Six years later his tone was changed. On June 21, 1770, he wrote of it to Strahan:— ‘I suppose you will not find one book in the English language of that size and price so ill printed.’ Mr. Fortescue, of the British Museum, informs me, that ‘it is printed in a small worn-out-looking type on a yellow thin blotting-paper; it is bad, but not so strikingly bad as Hume's language implies.’ His discontent would not have shown itself—perhaps would not have been felt—had the edition been a small one or been rapidly sold. He was never weary of correcting his own writings. ‘I am,’ he wrote to Strahan ( post , Letter of March 25, 1771), ‘perhaps the only author you ever knew, who gratuitously employed great industry in correcting a work, of which he has fully alienated the property.’ His last corrections he made less than a fortnight before his death ( post , Letter of Aug. 12, 1776). Millar, whom Johnson praised as ‘the Maecenas of the age’ (Boswell's Johnson , i. 278, n. 1), in his ‘rapaciousness’ had printed so large a number of copies of this edition of 1763 that they were not all sold ten years later ( post , Letter of March 19, 1773). He deceived Hume not only as to the number printed, but also sold. In this concealment, though not apparently in any actual deception, he induced Cadell and Strahan to share ( post, ib. ). He overreached himself, for Hume would write no more. ‘That abominable edition,’ he writes ( post , Letter of Jan. 30, 1773), ‘has been one cause why I have thrown my pen aside for ever.’ Soon after it was brought out he had begun to prepare for its successor, but he grew angry in his impatience long before his publishers were willing to print an octavo edition. On April 24, 1764, Millar had written to him:—‘I have just reprinted the Tudors in small 4to., and I believe I shall the Stewarts in that size soon.’ M. S. R. S. E. To this Hume, replying in a letter dated ‘Paris, April [? May] 23, expressed his displeasure at the news:—‘You were in the wrong to make any edition without informing me; because I left in Scotland a copy very fully corrected, with a few alterations 1 , which ought to have been followed. I shall write to my sister to send it you, and I desire you may follow it in all future editions, if there be any such.’ He goes on to mention one important alteration, and adds:—‘I have some scruple of inserting it on your account, till the sale of the other editions be pretty considerably advanced.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 201. It must have been, I suppose, this same scruple which kept him from making all these corrections in the fine edition in 8 vols. quarto which was published in 1770. That some corrections were made is shown post in his Letter of June 21, 1770.

On Nov. 26, 1764, Millar wrote to him:—‘The sale of the Stewarts has been more than the others. They came out first, and the rest some years after, which was the cause; but there are above 2500 complete sets sold in 4to. of the lowest sale [?] vols. [?], but upwards of 3000 of the Stewarts; of the 8vo. history near 2000, and of the 8vo. Essays, 400. They were only published in May last. I was asked the question [how many editions had been published] at St. James's the other day, when I said I considered your Works as Classics; that I never numbered the editions as I did in books we wished to puff. This I said before many clergy.’ M. S. R. S. E. 2 Hume, who a year and a-half before had complained of ‘the languishing sale’ (Burton's Hume , ii. 148), was so much pleased with the news, false as it undoubtedly was, that he told Millar that he would write the continuation. On Oct. 19, 1767, he wrote to him:—‘I intend to give up all my leisure time to the correction of my History, and to contrive more leisure than I have possessed since I came into public office. I had run over four volumes; but I shall give them a second perusal, and employ the same, or greater accuracy, in correcting the other four.’ Ib. p. 409. On Feb. 21, 1770, he wrote to Elliot:—‘I am running over again the last edition of my History, in order to correct it still further. I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious Whig strokes, which had crept into it. I wish that my indignation at the present madness, encouraged by lies, calumnies, imposture, and every infamous act usual among popular leaders, may not throw me into the opposite extreme. I am however sensible that the first editions were too full of those foolish English prejudices, which all nations and all ages disavow.’ Ib. p. 434.

It must be allowed that Hume's expectations of the sale of a work in eight volumes octavo were by no means low. He wrote to Millar on Oct. 8, 1766:—‘I own that the quick sale of my Philosophy surprizes me as much as the slow sale of my History. You have scarce dispos’d of 2000 copies in three years.’ M. S. R. S. E. The population of England and Wales is about three and a-half times as large as it was when Hume wrote this. It is as if an historian of the present day should expect to sell 2,300 copies of an equally extensive work every year.

By ‘corrections’ he seems to mean changes in words , and by ‘alterations’ changes in statements. Millar does not seem to have made any use of this corrected volume. See ante , p. 85.

Dr. Blair, writing to Strahan on April 10, 1778, about his Sermons, says:— ‘ In some late publications you have a way of saying on the title-page, A New Edition ; but I would much prefer your going on with the succession of editions, which certainly tends to buoy up a volume of Sermons.’ Rosebery MSS.

Note 8. See post , Letters of March 15, 19, 24, 1773.

Note 1. Hume in his Autobiography says:—‘My father's family is a branch of the Earl of Home's or Hume's.’ The common ancestor ‘lived,’ he writes, ‘in the time of James the First and Second of Scotland.’ Burton's Hume , i. 3. A cousinship that is separated by a gulf of three hundred years is remote, but in Scotland counts for something, and, no doubt, had its influence on Hume. The Earl about whom he wrote is described in the peerage as the Rev. Alexander, ninth Earl. He was one of the witnesses to Hume's will.

Note 2. ‘A statute passed in 1545 limited the rate of interest to 10 per cent. per annum; in 1624 the rate was lowered to 8 per cent.; in 1660 to 6 per cent., and in 1713 to 5 per cent.’ Penny Cyclo. ed. 1838, xii. 506. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, says:—‘In a country such as Great Britain, where money is lent to government at three per cent., and to private people upon good security at four and four and a half, the present legal rent, five per cent., is perhaps as proper as any.’ Ed. 1811, ii. 121. This passage must have been written some time before publication, for in the spring of 1776 government could not have raised a loan on such easy terms, the Three per Cents. having fallen to 86. Gent. Mag. 1776, p. 96. By the spring of 1779, Lord North, according to Horace Walpole, ‘was happy to get money on the loan under eight per cent.’ Letters , vii. 181.

Note 3. They would become sureties with him.

Note 4. Writer to the Signet, who answers to the Attorney or Solicitor in England.

Note 5. See ante , p. 139.

Note 6. Parliament rose on May 19. Parl. Hist. xvi. 1028. Horace Walpole wrote to Mann on May 24:—‘Not only the session is at an end, but I think the Middlesex election too, which my Lord Chatham has heated and heated so often over that there is scarce a spark of fire left…. Thus has the winter, which set out with such big black clouds, concluded with a prospect of more serenity than we have seen for some time…. Disunion has appeared between all parts of the Opposition, and unless experience teaches them to unite more heartily during the summer, or the Court commits any extravagance, or Ireland or America furnishes new troubles, you may compose yourself to tranquillity in your representing ermine [Mann was the English representative at Florence], and take as good a nap as any monarch in Europe.’ Letters , v. 238.

Burke wrote on Aug. 15, 1770:—‘As to our affairs, they remain as they have been; the people in general dissatisfied; the government feeble, hated, and insulted; but a dread of pushing things to a dangerous extreme, while we are seeking for a remedy to distempers which all confess, brings many to the support, and most to a sort of illhumoured acquiescence in the present Court scheme of administration.’ Burke's Corres. i. 230.

Note 7. Horace Walpole, writing on March 23, 1770, about the City Remonstrance ( ante , p. 139, n. 1), says:—‘The House, you may be sure, resented the insult offered to them, and the majorities have been very great; yet has there been no personal punishment or censure, or dubbing of martyrs. The Country Gentlemen have even declared that they will support the Court in no violence. This is very happy at a time when the first overt act of violence on either side may entail long bloodshed upon us.’ Letters , v. 231. See also Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 107. On May 23, the day after the date of Hume's letter, ‘Beckford, the Lord Mayor, to the astonishment of the whole Court added a few words’ to an Address presented to the King by the City. Ib. p. 154.

Note 8. Junius, in his Letter to Lord Mansfield of Nov. 14, 1770, speaking of the debate on the Middlesex Election, says:—‘As a Lord of Parliament you were repeatedly called upon to condemn or defend the new law declared by the House of Commons. You affected to have scruples, and every expedient was attempted to remove them. The question was proposed and urged to you in a thousand different shapes. Your prudence still supplied you with evasion; your resolution was invincible. For my own part, I am not anxious to penetrate this solemn secret. I care not to whose wisdom it is entrusted, nor how soon you carry it with you to your grave.’ Horace Walpole says ‘that Lord Mansfield, being called upon for his opinion on Luttrell's case in the Middlesex election, declared his opinion should go to the grave with him, having never told it but to one of the Royal Family; and being afterwards asked to which of them, he named the Duke of Cumberland—a conduct and confidence so absurd and weak, that no wonder he was long afterwards taunted both with his reserve, and with his choice of such a bosom-friend.’ The Duke of Cumberland was the King's brother, Henry Frederick. Memoirs of George III , iv. 102. Walpole, describing on Aug. 31, 1770, the dearth of news, says:—‘We have lived these two months upon the poor Duke of Cumberland, whom the newspapers, in so many letters, call The Royal Idiot. ’ Letters , v. 254.

Note 9. Boswell, in his account of the dinner at the Messieurs Dilly's, where Johnson met Wilkes, says:—‘Amidst some patriotic groans, somebody said, “Poor old England is lost.” Johnson. “Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it.” Wilkes. “Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate Mortimer to him.”’ Boswell adds as a note to Johnson's saying:—‘It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed.’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 78. It was this finding of England, and the anger raised by it in the English, that made the King's cause a national cause to the Scotch. The Scotchman, John Stuart, Earl of Bute, was the head of the King's Friends. Burke, speaking in 1769 to Earl Temple about the union of parties, said that ‘he believed no union could be formed of any effect or credit, which was not compacted upon this great principle—“that the King's men should be utterly destroyed as a corps.”’ Burke's Corres. i. 216. ‘They are,’ he says in the Present Discontents , ‘only known to their Sovereign by kissing his hand for the offices, pensions, and grants, into which they have deceived his benignity. May no storm ever come which will put the firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midst of confusions and terrors and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal difference between a true and severe friend to the Monarchy, and a slippery sycophant of the Court! Quantum infido scurrae distabit amicus. ’ Payne's Burke's Select Works, i. 51. Lord Bute uses the designation ‘the King's friends’ in a letter to George Grenville, dated March 25, 1763. ‘I do not know,’ writes the editor of the Grenville Papers (ii. 33), ‘whether Lord Bute invented it, but this is the first time I find it used in this correspondence.’

Churchill, in his Prophecy of Famine , gives expression to the national feeling in England when he says:—

• ‘To that rare soil where virtues clust‘ring grow,
• What mighty blessings doth not England owe?
• What waggon-loads of courage, wealth, and sense
• Doth each revolving day import from thence?
• To us she gives, disinterested friend,
• Faith without fraud, and Stuarts without end.’

Churchill's Poems (ed. 1766), i. 102.

‘What a nation is Scotland,’ wrote Horace Walpole at the end of the Gordon Riots ( Letters , vii. 400), ‘in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the Kings that favour it the most.’ The burning of Wilkes's effigy by the Apprentices of Edinburgh is a strong sign of the popular feeling. The votes of the Scotch members in the House of Commons give no sure indication, for at this time ‘there were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.’ Cockburn's Life of Lord Jeffrey , i. 75. The borough members were elected by the town-councils. ‘By the constitution of all the Royal Burghs in Scotland (above 60 in number) each town-council elected its successor; which in practice meant that they all elected themselves. The system of self-election was universal.’ Cockburn's Memorials of His Time , p. 319. Cockburn believes that ‘the first example of popular election in Scotland’ was that of the Police Commissioners of Edinburgh. The date is not given, but it was in the early part of the present century. Ib. p. 199. ‘In 1816 a meeting was held to petition Parliament against the continuance of the property and income tax. This was the first respectable meeting held in Edinburgh, within the memory of man, for the avowed purpose of controlling Government on a political matter.’ Ib. p. 302. In 1826, Sir Walter Scott, writing to Sir R. Dundas, said:—‘The whole burgher class of Scotland are gradually preparing for radical reform—I mean the middling and respectable classes; and when a burgh reform comes, which perhaps cannot be long delayed, Ministers will not return a member for Scotland from the towns. The gentry will abide longer by sound principles; for they are needy and desire advancement for their sons, and appointments, and so on.’ Lockhart's Scott , ed. 1839, viii. 297.

Adam Smith, while asserting that ‘the spirit of party prevails less in Scotland than in England,’ finds the explanation in its ‘distance from the capital, from the principal seat of the great scramble of faction and ambition, which makes them enter less into the views of any of the contending parties, and renders them more indifferent and impartial spectators of the conduct of all.’ Wealth of Nations , ed. 1811, iii. 444. See ante , p. 61.

Note 10. Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, the second baronet, married for his fourth wife Mrs. Millar, widow of Andrew Millar, Esq., of London. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. She was the widow of the rich bookseller from whose ‘rapaciousness’ Hume complained that he was suffering. Dr. Alexander Carlyle had met her and Millar at Harrogate in 1773. He describes how ‘all the baronets and great squires’ there paid him civility, so as to get the loan of his newspapers. ‘Yet when he appeared in the morning in his old well-worn suit of clothes, they could not help calling him Peter Pamphlet; for the generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city wife and her niece, were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into good company. It was observed, however, that she did not allow him to go down to the well with her in the chariot in his morning dress, though she owned him at dinner-time, as he paid the extraordinaries.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Autobiography , p. 434. The ‘extraordinaries’ were the wine &c. not included in the ‘ordinary,’ which was only fixed at a shilling a head; though, says Carlyle, ‘we had two haunches of venison twice a week during the season. Breakfast cost gentlemen only twopence apiece for their muffins, as it was the fashion for ladies to furnish tea and sugar.’ She was not Lady Grant when Hume wrote, for she was not married till the next day ( Gent. Mag. 1770, p. 239). Sir Archibald Grant was born in 1696. From the letters which this aged bridegroom wrote to Strahan on his way home I get the following extracts:—

‘Barnaby Moor, Saturday, 26th May, 1770, 7 p.m.,

and to stay all night: 148 miles from London.

‘At 4 this afternoon we past the Trent. I promised to write from north side of it…. Weather hath been propitious. Roads and fields delightfull. Blossoms of fruit, hedges and whins, all which I introduced into the Hanbery (?), regalled the sight and smell…. Much improvement of the comons going forward; tho’ shamefull there is not more, when we want both money and wood—little of this last where we have past.’

‘Minto House, Edinburgh, 1st June, 1770.

‘Faction exists here with equal zeal, tho’ not equal importance or consequences.’

‘Monymusk [Aberdeenshire], 22nd June, 1770.

‘No notion here of factions.’ Barker MSS.

Note 11. The edition of 1770, in four volumes, was not in ‘twelves’ (duodecimo), but in small octavo.

Note 12. Grimm, on June 15, 1770, mentioning ‘l’immense Dictionnaire du Commerce promis par l’Abbé Morellet,’ adds, ‘qui ne se fera vraisemblablement jamais.’ The editor says in a note:—‘La conjecture de Grimm s‘est vérifiée. Il n’a paru du Dictionnaire du Commerce promis par Morellet que le prospectus, qui forme 1 vol. in 8°.’ Corres. Lit. vi. 492.

Note 1. See ante , p. 8, for Hume's distinction between enough and enow.

Note 2. See ante , p. 97, n. 17.

Note 3. See ante , p. 141, n. 7.

Note 4. Notable as applied to men was still struggling between the two meanings of remarkable, memorable, observable , and careful, bustling. ‘I expressed,’ writes Northcote, ‘to Sir Joshua my curiosity to see Dr. Goldsmith. Soon afterwards Goldsmith came to dine with him, and immediately on my entering the room, Sir Joshua, with a designed abruptness, said to me, “This is Dr. Goldsmith; pray why did you wish to see him?” I was much confused by the suddenness of the question, and answered in my hurry; “Because he is a notable man.” This, in one sense of the word, was so very contrary to the character and conduct of Goldsmith, that Sir Joshua burst into a hearty laugh, and said that Goldsmith should in future always be called the notable man. What I meant to say was, that he was a man of note or eminence.’ Northcote's Life of Reynolds , i. 249.

Gibbon describes his great-grandmother as ‘an active and notable woman.’ Misc. Works , i. 15. In The Spectator , No. 150, in the description of the men of business in Charles the Second's reign, we read:—’I have heard my father say, that a broad-brimmed hat, short hair, and unfolded handkerchief were in his time absolutely necessary to denote a N OTABLE M AN. ’ While in this meaning the word has dropped quite out of use, in the other also it was, I believe, uncommon, till it was brought into favour some thirty years ago by writers of the School of Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin.

Note 5. The Third Appendix—the Fourth according to Hume's subsequent arrangement—begins:—’Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians.’ Hume's Phil. Works , ed. 1854, iv. 382.

Note 6. Each sheet of a book is distinguished by a letter, or signature as it is technically called. J, V, and W are not used. When the end of the Alphabet is reached, the letters are doubled, and, if that does not suffice, are trebled. In a quarto, with only eight pages to each sheet, the Alphabet is soon run through. E. e. e. is found on p. 393.

Note 7. ‘Youthful dalliance.’ Paradise Lost , iv. 338.

Note 8. Johnson in his Journey to the Hebrides says:—’It may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree. Of this improvidence no other account can be given than that it probably began in times of tumult, and continued because it had begun.’ Works , ix. 8. Sir Archibald's country, being on the borders of the Aberdeenshire Highlands, would have remained insecure even longer than the district south of Edinburgh. ‘The love of planting,’ says Sir Walter Scott, ‘which has become almost a passion, is much to be ascribed to Johnson's sarcasms.’ Croker Corres. ii. 34. Sir Archibald had done his planting before Johnson visited Scotland. There were, however, earlier sarcasms than Johnson's. Wilkes, in 1762, in The North Briton , No. 13, had said that ‘in that country Judas had sooner found the grace of repentance than a tree to hang himself on’ ( ante , p. 61). Churchill, in 1763, in The Prophecy of Famine , describes how in Scotland,

• ‘Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen,
• Earth clad in russet scorned the lively green.’

Note 9. Addison, in The Spectator , No. 583, after recommending planting ‘to men of estates, not only as a pleasing amusement, but as it is a kind of virtuous employment,’ continues:—’I know when a man talks of posterity in matters of this nature, he is looked upon with an eye of ridicule by the cunning and selfish part of mankind. Most people are of the humour of an old fellow of a college, who, when he was pressed by the society to come into something that might redound to the good of their successors, grew very peevish. “We are always doing (says he) something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.”

Note 10. He had served on the Committee of the House of Commons which in 1729 examined into the state of the gaols. Hogarth's picture of the Examination of Bambridge was painted for him, and his portrait, no doubt, is given among the Committee men. Anecdotes of William Hogarth , ed. 1833, p. 350.

Note 11. Very likely the debt for the Chronicle ( ante , p. 138).

Note 12. Horace Walpole wrote to Mann ten days later:—’This is a slight summer letter, but you will not be sorry it is so short, when the dearth of events is the cause. Last year I did not know but we might have a Battle of Edgehill by this time. At present, my Lord Chatham could as soon raise money as raise the people; and Wilkes will not much longer have more power of doing either. . . . You could not have a better opportunity for taking a trip to England.’ Letters , v. 242.

Note 1. Gavin Hamilton had been a partner in the firm of Hamilton, Balfour and Neill which in 1754 brought out the first volume of Hume's History. Hamilton wrote to Strahan on Aug. 26, 1762, to say that he had ‘parted business with Mr. Balfour. I am not to concern myself any further in bookselling, but the paper mill is become my sole property. I have likewise gone out of the printing house; but whether Mr. Balfour will continue with Mr. Neill or not I cannot guess. . . . It is agreed betwixt us that the matter be kept a secret for some time, and my name is to continue in trade.’ Barker MSS.

Note 2. See ante , p. 141, n. 7.

Note 3. The edition of 1770 in 4 vols. 8vo. is a beautiful piece of printing.

Note 1. See ante , p. 15, n. 2.

Note 2. Hume is speaking only of the Scotch.

Note 3. Among these Histories were Robertson's History of America and Henry's History of Great Britain , and probably Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland , Monboddo's Origin and Progress of Language , and Kames's Sketches of the History of Man. Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland may have been begun by this time (see Boswell's Johnson , ii. 278), and also Adam Ferguson's History of the Roman Republic (see Gibbon's Misc. Works , ii. 163) and Watson's History of Philip II. Burke, speaking of this last book in a debate on Nov. 6, 1776, said:—’I have been reading a work given us by a country that is perpetually employed in productions of merit.’ Parl. Hist. xviii. 1443.

Boswell writing of the spring of 1768 says:—’Dr. Johnson's prejudice against Scotland appeared remarkably strong at this time. When I talked of our advancement in literature, “Sir,” said he, “you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written History, had not Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire.” Bos WELL. “But, Sir, we have Lord Kames.” J OHNSON. “You have Lord Kames. Keep him; ha, ha, ha! We don’t envy you him. Do you ever see Dr. Robertson?” B OSWELL. “Yes, Sir.” J OHNSON. “Does the dog talk of me?” B OSWELL. “Indeed, Sir, he does, and loves you.” Thinking that I now had him in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of my country, I pressed him for his opinion on the merit of Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland. But to my surprise he escaped.—”Sir, I love Robertson, and I won’t talk of his book.”’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 53. The Life of Christ was perhaps The History of Christ , by Thomas Brown, published in London in 1777.

Note 4. ‘I have heard,’ said Dr. Johnson on April 29, 1778, ‘Henry's History of Britain well spoken of. I am told it is carried on in separate divisions, as the civil, the military, the religious history. I wish much to have one branch well done, and that is the history of manners, of common life.’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 333.

Note 5. Boswell writing to Temple on June 19, 1770, says that he has just received the Prospectus of the History. ‘Mr. Henry,’ he continues, ‘argues strongly for his extensive plan; but will it not be too much like the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences in an historical form? Mr. Hume, when I spoke to him of it, before I saw the plan, seemed to think it would be much of the nature of a book published a few years ago, Anderson's History of Commerce. . . . I am to consider the plan at leisure, and give Mr. Henry my opinion.’ Letters of Boswell , p. 166.

Note 6. Henry was injured by Gilbert Stuart, the malignant editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and Review , who ‘had vowed that he would crush his work,’ and refused to insert a review of it by Hume, because it was laudatory. Had he rejected it for its hypocrisy; he might have had some justification. Hume, joining Robertson with Henry, and pointing out that they were both ministers of religion, continues:—’These illustrious examples, if any thing, must make the infidel abashed of his vain cavils, and put a stop to that torrent of vice, profaneness and immorality, by which the age is so unhappily distinguished. . . . One in particular [Blair], with the same hand by which he turns over the sublime pages of Homer and Virgil, Demosthenes and Cicero, is not ashamed to open with reverence the sacred volumes; and with the same voice by which, from the pulpit, he strikes vice with consternation, he deigns to dictate to his pupils the most useful lessons of rhetoric, poetry, and polite literature.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 470–1.

Note 7. ‘Dr. Robertson said, “Henry erred in not selling his first volume at a moderate price to the booksellers, that they might have pushed him on till he had got reputation. I sold my History of Scotland at a moderate price, as a work by which the booksellers might either gain or not; and Cadell has told me that Millar and he have got six thousand pounds by it. I afterwards received a much higher price for my writings. An author should sell his first work for what the booksellers will give, till it shall appear whether he is an author of merit, or, which is the same thing as to purchase money, an author who pleases the public.”’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 333. I have seen a MS. letter from Robertson to Strahan, dated May 27, 1768, in which he says:—’I do agree to accept from Mr. Millar, Bookseller in Pall Mall, or, in case of his declining it, from yourself, of the sum of £3400 for the copyright of my History of Charles V. in three volumes quarto, and of your engagement to pay me £400 more in case of a second edition. The terms of payment to be afterwards settled.’ Barker MSS. It is of this History that Southey is speaking when he mentions ‘the thousand and one omissions for which Robertson ought to be called rogue, as long as his volumes last.’ Life and Correspondence of Southey , ii. 318.

Note 8. Lord Cockburn in his Memorials , p. 51, gives an interesting account of Dr. Henry's peaceful death. ‘He wrote to Sir H. Moncreiff that he was dying, and thus invited him for the last time—“Come out here directly. I have got something to do this week, I have got to die.”

Note 9. The History was published by Cadell. The first volume appeared in 1771, and the fifth, which brought the narrative to the accession of Henry VII, in 1785. The author died in 1790, leaving a sixth volume (down to the accession of Edward VI) almost completed. It was published in 1793. The work went through many editions, and was translated into French. Knight's Cyclo. of Biog. and Lowndes’ Bibl. Manual.

Note 10. See post , Letter of March 24, 1773.

Note 1. Copies, no doubt, of his Essays and Treatises of the edition of 1770.

Note 1. The Earl of Hertford at this time was Lord Chamberlain.

Note 2. Hume, in one of his French letters, says:—’Je vous adresse cette lettre à cachet volant, sous l’enveloppe de M. de Montigny.’ Hume's Private Corres. p. 223. Littré defines cachet volant as cachet qui n’adhère qu’au pli supérieur d’une lettre sans la fermer. ’ Hume's enclosed letter had his seal fixed on the upper side. After Strahan had read the letter he would close it by dropping some wax on the lower side, and bringing the two sides together with the seal uppermost. Envelopes were not generally used in England till the introduction of Penny Postage in 1840.

Note 3. Strahan replied on March 1:—’I was favoured with yours, inclosing your very genteel letter to Lord Hertford, which I delivered to his Lordship. He received me very politely; and I found no difficulty in impressing him with a just notion of the importance of the subject I wanted to talk to him about. He was as fond of it, or rather more so, than I was, and for his own sake will do what lies in his power to forward it. The project is no less than the forming a new government upon the Ohio. The country is by much the best and mildest in all our portion of America, and being situated at no great distance from any of our Colonies, will, when once settled, fill very fast from the overflowings of them all. The land carriage is by no means so great an obstacle as you seem to imagine, it being already, by means of other rivers in different parts of the country, so much shortened as to be considerably lower already than it is in the internal provinces of England.—The policy, however, of such a settlement respecting the Mother Country, is not yet decided; and the affair is still under consideration. I expect it will soon be determined one way or other, and I have some reason to think it will end as we wish it to do, as every objection that hath yet been offered to the scheme can be most satisfactorily answered. Meanwhile, it is not proper to say anything about it; but if it succeeds, I shall give you a very particular detail of the whole matter, and how I came to have any concern in it.—Lord Hertford is very fond of the idea of having a large tract of country in America, and is otherwise very attentive to the improvement of his fortune, having, I am well assured, profited greatly by the late increase of the price of stocks.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Smollett gives the following account of an earlier attempt to form a company for settling this country:—’The tract of country lying along the Ohio is so fertile, pleasant, and inviting, and the Indians, called Twightees, who inhabit those delightful plains were so well-disposed towards a close alliance with the English, that as far back as the year 1716 Mr. Spottiswood, Governor of Virginia, proposed a plan for erecting a company to settle such lands upon this river as should be ceded to them by treaty with the natives.’ The scheme dropped through, but ‘it was revived immediately after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle [1748] when certain merchants of London, who traded to Maryland and Virginia, petitioned the Government on this subject, and were indulged not only with a grant of a great tract of ground to the southward of Pennsylvania, which they promised to settle, but also with an exclusive privilege of trading with the Indians on the banks of the River Ohio.’ The French, who had pushed their posts down the river, began to harass the English traders. George Washington, then holding the rank of Major, was sent with a letter to the Commander of one of the French forts, ordering him ‘to depart in peace.’ The summons was not complied with. A border warfare went on, which was only brought to an end by the expulsion of the French from all the northern part of the American Continent. History of England , ed. 1800, iii. 375–8. Johnson's description of the conquered country is curious:—’Large tracts of America were added by the last war to the British dominions. . . . They, at best, are only the barren parts of the continent, the refuse of the earlier adventurers, which the French, who came last, had taken only as better than nothing.’ Works , vi. 202. In writing this, he was thinking no doubt chiefly of Canada, which elsewhere he had described as ‘a region of desolate sterility.’ Ib. p. 129.

After the peace a fresh company was formed, of which I have obtained much information from the kindness of Dr. Israel W. Andrews, President of Marietta College, Ohio. In 1769, Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin and others petitioned the King for the right to purchase 2,400,000 acres (a district about as big as Kent, Surrey and Sussex) between the Ohio River and the Alleghany Mountains. Walpole was a London banker, and the Company and the grant were often called by his name. The Company called itself the Grant Company, and the colony was to be called Vandalia. The Privy Council referred the petition to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, who two years after sent in an adverse report by their President, Lord Hillsborough. Franklin made an elaborate reply, which was read in Council on July 1, 1772. The petition was at once granted, and Lord Hillsborough resigned. Horace Walpole wrote on July 23, 1772:—’We have had the only perfect summer I ever remember; hot, fine, and still very warm without a drop of rain. . . . Not a cloud even in the political sky, except a caprice of Lord Hillsborough, who is to quit his American Seals, because he will not reconcile himself to a plan of settlement on the Ohio, which all the world approves.’ Letters , v. 401. Franklin, writing to his son on Aug. 17, says:—’You will hear it said among you, I suppose, that the interest of the Ohio planters has ousted Lord Hillsborough; but the truth is, what I wrote you long since, that all his brother-ministers disliked him extremely, and wished for a fair occasion of tripping up his heels; so seeing that he made a point of defeating our scheme, they made another of supporting it, on purpose to mortify him, which they knew his pride could not bear.’ Memoirs of Franklin , ed. 1833, iii. 320. It took time to arrange the details, but at length the price of the land was agreed upon, the plan of government marked out, and the patent made ready for the seals, when the Revolution broke out, and the whole project came to an end. In the Journal of the Continental Congress for May 1, 1782, there is the report of a Committee on a petition of some of the members of the Company. The Committee recommended that in case these lands should be ceded to the United States—they were claimed by Virginia—and the purchasers who remained loyal to the States should relinquish all claims to them, Congress should reimburse them for their outlay. These lands however never became a part of the public domain, but remained in the possession of Virginia. There is nothing to show that any remuneration was made even to those who became American citizens. The English shareholders undoubtedly lost whatever they had expended.

Note 4. Hume, no doubt, compared the sale of his History with that of Robertson's Scotland , which went through six editions in twelve years. His constant discontent is contemptible when we call to mind his boast, when speaking of his History , that the copy-money given him by the booksellers much exceeded anything formerly known in England ( ante, Autobiography ). They of course would not have paid him so well, had not his works had a great sale. For the two volumes of his History from Julius Caesar to Henry VII he was to receive £1400. For the Lives of the Poets Johnson by his contract was paid £200, though another hundred was added by the book-sellers.

Note 5. Strahan wrote to Hume on March 1 of this year:—’The price Dr. Henry expected for his History was in my estimation so much beyond its value that I carefully avoided making him any offer at all.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Note 6. Boswell says of it:—’The language will not, as far as I think, be so flowing and elegant as that of some writers to whom our taste is habituated; but it seems to be distinct, and sufficiently expressive.’ Letters of Boswell , p. 166.

Note 7. The first volume of Dr. Henry's History begins with the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar and ends with the arrival of the Saxons; the second volume ends with the landing of William the Conqueror. Hume more than once shows his disgust at having to write the wars of the Saxons. ‘What instruction or entertainment can it give the reader,’ he asks, ‘to hear a long beadroll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald, Aldulf, Elfwold, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively murdered, expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled the throne of that kingdom [East Anglia]?’ History of England , ed. 1802, i. 47. Nevertheless he said that ‘the Life of Harold was the portion of his History which he thought the best; and on the style of which he had bestowed most pains.’ Caldwell Papers , i. 39.

Note 8. ‘The Ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave thanks.’ Such is Johnson's pious entry in his Journal, when nearly twelve years later Lord North's Ministry came to an end. Boswell's Johnson , iv. 139. It lasted from Feb. 10, 1770 to March 20, 1782.

Note 9. There was only a threat of war. In 1765 Commodore Byron had taken formal possession of Falkland's Islands in the name of his Britannic Majesty. A settlement was made at Port Egmont in West Falkland in Jan. 1766. The French in Feb. 1764 had established themselves on East Falkland. Two years later they ceded their settlement to the Spanish. In Nov. 1769 Captain Hunt of the Tamar frigate warned off the coast a Spanish schooner which was taking a survey of the islands. The Governor of the Spanish settlement gave a like warning to the English captain. In Feb. 1770 two Spanish frigates with troops on board arrived, and warnings were again interchanged by the commanders. Captain Hunt at once sailed with the news for England, where he arrived on June 3. Only a few days later, five Spanish frigates, carrying a train of artillery, appeared before Port Egmont. The English had only a sloop of 16 guns. A few shots were fired, but resistance was seen to be impossible: a flag of truce was hung out, and articles of capitulation signed. The English were to depart with drums beating and colours flying, and to carry off all their stores; but their departure by the terms of the capitulation was delayed a few weeks. ‘The most degrading of all the circumstances attending this transaction, and particularly a new, and to all appearance, wanton insult to the British flag was, that for the better security of this limitation the sloop was deprived of her rudder.’ The news of this reached London on Sept. 24. Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 4–12; Gent. Mag. 1770, p. 439; Johnson's Works , vi. 185–192.

Horace Walpole wrote to Mann on Oct. 4, 1770:—'seeing such accounts of press-gangs in the papers, and such falling of Stocks, you will wonder that in my last I did not drop a military syllable. . . . England that lives in the north of Europe, and Spain that dwells in the south, are vehemently angry with one another about a morsel of rock that lies somewhere at the very bottom of America—for modern nations are too neighbourly to quarrel about anything that lies so near them as in the same quarter of the globe. Pray, mind; we dethrone Nabobs in the most north-east corner of the Indies; the Czarina sends a fleet from the Pole to besiege Constantinople; and Spain huffs and we arm for one of the extremities of the southern hemisphere. It takes a twelvemonth for any one of us to arrive at our object, and almost another twelvemonth before we can learn what we have been about. Your patriarchs, who lived eight or nine hundred years, could afford to wait eighteen or twenty months for the post coming in, but it is too ridiculous in our post-diluvian circumstances. By next century, I suppose, we shall fight for the Dog Star and the Great Bear. The Stocks begin to recover a little from their panic. . . . Oct. 6. I still know nothing of the war. Vast preparations everywhere go on, yet nobody thinks it will ripen. . . . Seamen flock in apace; the first squadron will consist of sixteen ships of the line.’ Walpole's Letters , v. 259–261.

When Parliament met, 40,000 seamen were voted and a large addition to the army, while the land-tax was raised to four shillings in the pound. Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 40–1. By the end of November all hope of avoiding a war was nearly given up, and our ambassador at Madrid was ordered to withdraw. Ib. p. 45. Happily for peace, the navies both of England and of Spain were in a wretched condition (Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 204–5); while France was almost powerless through want of money ( Ib. p. 213). ‘Desolation and confusion reign all over France,’ wrote Walpole on Dec. 29. ‘They are almost bankrupts, and quite famished.’ Letters , v. 275. It was the overthrow of the French ministry, as was commonly believed, which secured peace. On Jan. 1, 1771, Walpole describes its fall in terms that almost startle the reader. ‘The general persuasion is that the French Revolution will produce peace—I mean in Europe—not amongst themselves.’ Ib. p. 276. ‘What effect,’ writes Johnson, ‘the revolution of the French Court had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul had always professed pacific dispositions; nor is it certain, however it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different parties.’ Works , vi. 194. Burke says that ‘Choiseul hurried on war,’ and that it was thought that the tottering state of his power led to peace. Ann. Reg. 1771, p. 45. Walpole believed that it was only as a last desperate resource that he urged war. ‘He had found that his disgrace was determined; he had no support but the King of Spain. . . . Despair decided. Could he obtain his master's consent to declare war, he himself might be necessary. . . . He marched forty thousand men to the coast opposite to England, and by that rash step brought on his own fall.’ Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 243. Writing to Mann on the evening of Jan. 22, 1771, the day after the date of Hume's letter. Walpole says:—’I had sealed my letter, as you will perceive; and break it open again in a great hurry, to tell you the Peace was signed last night, and declared in the House of Commons to-day.’ Letters , v. 281. On Feb. 22 he wrote:—’This treaty is an epoch; and puts a total end to all our preceding histories. Long quiet is never probable, nor shall I guess who will disturb it; but whatever happens must be thoroughly new matter; though some of the actors perhaps may not be so. Both Lord Chatham and Wilkes are at the end of their reckoning, and the Opposition can do nothing without fresh fuel.’ Ib. p. 282.

Johnson's Falkland's Islands was written at the request of the Ministry to justify the peace. He ridiculed the notion of going to war for ‘a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter and barren in summer; an island which not the southern savages have dignified with habitation.’ Johnson's Works , vi. 198. One of his finest pieces of writing is the passage in which he describes the horrors of war. Ib. p. 199, and Boswell's Johnson , ii. 134.

Note 10. ‘Dec. 29, 1770. It is now said that on the very morning of the Duke's disgrace the King reproached him, and said, “Monsieur, je vous avais dit que je ne voulais pas la guerre.” Horace Walpole to Mann. Letters , v. 275.

Note 11. ‘King Carlos,’ writes Horace Walpole on Nov. 18, 1771, ‘hates us ever since Naples.’ Letters , v. 349. When he was King of the two Sicilies, an English fleet, in the year 1742, had threatened Naples with bombardment, unless within an hour the King signed a treaty of neutrality in the War of the Succession to the House of Austria. Œuvres de Voltaire , xix. 80. In the summer of 1770 a satire was published on him in London, so ‘ludicrous and ironic’ that some Spaniards resolved to murder the printer, and were with difficulty prevented by their Ambassador, who told them they would infallibly be hanged. They said they could not die in a better cause. The Ambassador was inexpressibly hurt, and told our Ministers he did not know how to write the account to his Court; but wished the insult might not cause a war.’ Walpole's Memoirs of George III , iv. 169. The King is described in this satire as an idiot, who, when the weather stopped his hunting, was amused by winding up three or four dozen watches, till his mental faculties were fatigued by the operation. He then took to lashing a horse that was worked on the tapestry of the room till he fell on the ground worn out with the effort. Ib. p. 372.

Note 12. Burke wrote to the Marquis of Rockingham on Sept. 8, 1770:—’They [the Court party] are well acquainted with the difference between the Bill of Rights ( post , p. 171, n. 20) and your Lordship's friends, and they are very insolently rejoiced at it. They respect and fear that wretched knot beyond anything you can readily imagine, and far more than any part, or than all the other parts of the Opposition. The reason is plain; there is a vast resemblance of character between them. They feel that if they had equal spirit and industry they would in the same situation act the very same part. It is their idea of a perfect Opposition.’ Burke's Corres. i. 237. Johnson a few months later wrote:—’To fancy that our government can be subverted by the rabble whom its lenity has pampered into impudence is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowings of its kennels.’ Works , vi. 213. Later on he more than once accused Lord North's Ministry of cowardice. In March, 1776, when talking to Boswell about the bill for a Scotch militia, ‘he said:—“I am glad that Parliament has had the spirit to throw it out. You wanted to take advantage of the timidity of our scoundrels” (meaning, I suppose, the Ministry).’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 1. At another time he described them as ‘a bunch of imbecility.’ Ib. iv. 139. See also ib. iv. 200.

Note 13. See ante , p. 139, n. 1, for the Remonstrance of the City of London presented by Lord Mayor Beckford and Sheriffs on March 14, 1770, and p. 147, n. 7, for the unwillingness of Parliament to support Government in any personal punishment of the Remonstrants. On May 23 ( ante , ib. ) the City had presented a second Address to the King. The answer which they received was a repetition of the King's dissatisfaction with the former Address. Whereupon Beckford, ‘to the amazement of the Court, and with a boldness and freedom perhaps peculiar to himself, made an immediate and spirited reply, which he concluded in the following words:—“Whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the City of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence to, and regard for, your people, is an enemy to your Majesty's person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution as it was established at the glorious and necessary Revolution.”’ Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 203; 1771, i. 15. In a note on Boswell's Johnson , iii. 201, I have examined the statement by Horne Tooke that ‘Beckford got so confused that he scarcely knew what he had said,’ and that Tooke thereupon wrote and sent to the newspapers the speech which was published. I had not noticed the following passage in the Ann. Reg. for 1771, i. 15, which, written as it no doubt was by Burke, no friendly witness, conclusively proves that Tooke lied. ‘This answer was variously judged. Those who paid a high regard to the decorums of the Court declared it indecent and unprecedented to reply to any answer of the King. But in the City his spirit was infinitely applauded. Both parties concurred in admiring the manner in which he delivered himself.’ Lord Chatham wrote to Beckford on May 25:—’In the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks; and the overflowing of mine gives motion to a weak hand, to tell you how truly I respect and love the spirit which your Lordship displayed on Wednesday. The spirit of Old England spoke that never-to-be-forgotten day. . . . Adieu then for the present (to call you by the most honourable of titles) true Lord Mayor of London ; that is, first magistrate of the first city of the world! I mean to tell you only a plain truth, when I say, your Lordship's mayoralty will be revered till the constitution is destroyed and forgotten.’ Chatham Corres. iii. 462. Beckford died a month later—on June 21. Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 119. Horace Walpole wrote on July 26:—’Instead of Wilkes having been so, it looks as if Beckford had been the firebrand of politics, for the flame has gone out entirely since his death,

both country gentlemen and farmers are thinking of their harvest, not of politics and remonstrances.’ Letters , v. 252. ‘“Where,” asked Johnson, “did Beckford and Trecothick learn English? . . . That Beckford could speak it with a spirit of honest resolution even to his Majesty, as ‘his faithful Lord-Mayor of London,’ is commemorated by the noble monument erected to him in Guildhall.”’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 201.

Note 14. ‘There was perhaps never much danger of war or of refusal, but what danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations, unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots, of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined that such a government had little leisure for Falkland's Islands; they supposed that the English when they returned ejected from Port Egmont, would find Wilkes invested with the protectorate; or see the mayor of London, what the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander of the army and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the Bill of Rights.’ Falkland's Island. Johnson's Works , vi. 213. Horace Walpole wrote on March 23, 1771:—’France luckily has little leisure to join with King Carlos or King Brass Crosby [the Lord Mayor]—their confusions and King Lewis's weakness seem to increase every day.’ Letters , v. 287.

Note 15. Wilkes had written to Earl Temple from Paris so early as Aug. 29, 1763:—’The distress in the provinces is risen to a great height. Paris is as gay as usual. The five last years the Government have been at the expense of several public shows in the city, &c. for the people. The most sensible men here think that this country is on the eve of a great revolution.’ Grenville Papers , ii. 100. Strahan wrote to Hume on March 1, 1771:—’Luckily for this nation, the situation of France is such, that we may reasonably hope to be able to avoid a war for some time to come. Indeed, if we are not much misinformed, the popular discontents there are becoming very serious. Perhaps they may come exaggerated to us; but this I am certain of, that their finances are in such disorder that it requires not only the utmost sagacity and ability, but some very bold political stroke, to put them upon a tolerable footing.’ M. S. R. S. E.

On June 20, Horace Walpole writing about France says ( Letters , v. 307):—’Their politics, some way or other, must end seriously, either in despotism, a civil war, or assassination. Methinks it is playing deep for the power of tyranny. Charles Fox is more moderate; he only games for an hundred thousand pounds that he has not.’ On July 30 he wrote from Paris ( ib. pp. 317–319):—’The distress here is incredible, especially at Court. The King's tradesmen are ruined, his servants starving, and even angels and archangels cannot get their pensions and salaries, but sing, “Woe! woe! woe!” instead of Hosannas. . . . The Comptroller-General dispenses bankruptcy by retail, and will fall, because he cannot even by these means be useful enough. They are striking off nine millions from la caisse militaire , five from the marine, and one from the affaires étrangères ; yet all this will not extricate them. You never saw a great nation in so disgraceful a position. Their next prospect is not better; it rests on an imbécile [Lewis XVI] both in mind and body.’

Note 16. Hume, I think, has in his mind the French idiom faire banqueroute.

Note 17. Hume in October 1769 had hoped to live to see a public bankruptcy in England. He should have become more cheerful as it seemed so close at hand, but he is as discontented as ever. Burke describes the causes which the year before ‘concurred, notwithstanding the vast weight of our debts and taxes, to make a war in general not wholly unacceptable.’ Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 14. The Three per Cent. Consols, which at the beginning of 1770 had been at 86, by the end of the year had fallen to 78. Gent. Mag. 1770, pp. 48, 592. On Jan. 28, 1771, they had risen to 84 ( ib. 1771, p. 48), and on March 1 to nearly 89 ( ib. p. 144, where Feb. 1 is evidently a misprint for March 1).

Note 18. Strahan replying to Hume on March 1, said:—’You seem much out of humour with the Ministry. Upon my word, as far as I am able to judge, they have acted pretty well of late; though I must own their timidity regarding our domestic incendiaries is altogether inexcusable. However, bating this great fault (and great I allow it is), Lord North in particular has acted his part very well; he speaks with courage and firmness in the House, and with temper too. In short, I think he gains ground in the public opinion every day. I firmly believe he means well. And I wish the present Ministry to stand their ground, purely because they are the present Ministry ; for, as I told your friend Lord Hertford when I had the honour to wait upon him, the King has changed his Ministers so very often since his Accession, that another change would be almost equal to a dethronement.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Note 19. George III told Lord Eldon that at a Levee ‘he asked Wilkes after his friend Serjeant Glynne. “My friend, Sir!” says Wilkes to the King; “he is no friend of mine.” “Why,” said the King, “he was your friend and your counsel in all your trials.” “Sir,” rejoined Wilkes, “he was my counsel —one must have a counsel; but he was no friend ; he loves sedition and licentiousness which I never delighted in. In fact, Sir, he was a Wilkite, which I never was.” The King said the confidence and humour of the man made him forget at the moment his impudence.’ Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon , ed. 1844, ii. 356.

Note 20. The Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights met for the first time at the London Tavern on Feb. 20, 1769. Its objects were ‘to raise an effectual barrier against such oppression [as Mr. Wilkes had suffered], to rescue him from his present incumbrances, and to render him easy and independent.’ By the end of the following year ‘the accounts of the Society stood thus:—

When this result was obtained ‘a considerable party in the Society thought the object of its institution was accomplished. Mr. Wilkes and his friends thought otherwise. The Society had not, they said, made him easy and independent , according to the original engagement. . . . Many seceded, and at length the Society dissolved.’ Almon's Memoirs of Wilkes , iv. 7–14. Burke wrote on Aug. 15, 1770:—’I am glad that you find some entertainment in the Thoughts [on the Cause of the Present Discontents ]. They have had in general (I flatter myself) the approbation of the most thinking part of the people. . . . The party which is most displeased is a rotten subdivision of a faction amongst ourselves, who have done us infinite mischief by the violence, rashness, and often wickedness of their measures. I mean the Bill of Rights people.’ Burke's Corres. i. 229.

Note 21. ‘Jan. 15, 1771. Wilkes and Parson Horne [afterwards Horne Tooke] write against each other; Alderman Sawbridge is dying [this is a mistake, as he was Lord Mayor in 1775–6]; and in short Lord Chatham, like Widdrington in Chevy Chace, is left almost alone to fight it out upon his stumps.’ Walpole's Letters , v. 278. ‘Feb. 22. Both Lord Chatham and Wilkes are at the end of their reckoning, and the Opposition can do nothing without fresh fuel. . . . For eight months to come, I should think we shall have little to talk of, you and I, but distant wars and distant majesties. For my part, I reckon the volume quite shut in which I took any interest. The succeeding world is young, new, and half unknown to me.’ Ib. pp. 282, 4.

Note 22. On Oct. 2, 1770, Hume had written:—’I am engaged in the building a house, which is the second great operation of human life; for the taking a wife is the first, which I hope will come in time.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 436.

Note 23. Hume wrote to Millar on Oct. 21, 1766:—’I hope to be often merry with you and Mrs. Millar in your House in Pall Mall.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Note 24. St. Andrew's Square.

Note 25. When Boswell was taking Johnson to his father's house, ‘I was very anxious,’ he writes, ‘that all should be well; and begged of my friend to avoid three topics, as to which they differed very widely; Whiggism, Presbyterianism, and—Sir John Pringle. He said courteously, “I shall certainly not talk on subjects which I am told are disagreeable to a gentleman under whose roof I am; especially I shall not do so to your father. ”’ Boswell's Johnson , v. 376. A quarrel nevertheless took place. ‘In the course of their altercation Whiggism and Presbyterianism, Toryism and Episcopacy were terribly buffeted. My worthy hereditary friend Sir John Pringle never having been mentioned happily escaped without a bruise.’ Ib. p. 384. See also ib. iii. 65, and post , Letter of May 2, 1776.

Note 1. See ante , p. 94, n. 8.

Note 2. The Penny Post was not so extensive as it had once been. In 1710, for instance, ‘any letter, or parcel not exceeding one pound weight or ten pounds value, was conveyed for one penny to and from all parts within the Bills of Mortality, to most towns within ten, and to some within twenty miles round London, not conveniently served by the General Post.’ Chamberlayne's Present State of Great Britain , 1710, p. 281. In 1765 ‘the port of every letter or packet [weight not mentioned] within the Cities of London or Westminster, the Borough of Southwark and their Suburbs, was one penny upon putting in the same; and a second penny upon the delivery of such as are directed to any place beyond the said Cities, Borough and Suburbs, and within the district of the Penny-Post Delivery.’ Court and City Register , 1765, p. 133. In 1801 the postage was raised to twopence, and from that time we find mention of the Twopenny Post. The term ‘Suburbs’ had a very limited signification; for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. Ninth Report of the Commissioners of the Post Office , 1837, p. 4.

The general postage of the country was gradually raised. In 1710 a letter of a single sheet was conveyed 80 miles for twopence; an ounce weight of letters for eightpence. Above 80 miles for three-pence, and an ounce for one shilling. In every 24 hours the post went 120 miles. Chamberlayne's Present State , p. 281. By a scale established in 1764 these charges of twopence and threepence were raised to threepence and fourpence. To Edinburgh and Dublin the charge was sixpence; to New York, one shilling; to the West Indies, eighteen-pence. Court and City Register for 1765, pp. 131–133. The postage was still further raised in 1784, 1797, 1801, 1805, and 1812, when it reached its maximum. From that year a letter carried over 80 miles was charged ninepence; over 300 miles, thirteen-pence. Penny Cyclo. xviii. 455.

Note 3. Strahan in his letter of March 1 had in vain said:—’The octavo edition of your History must undoubtedly soon be cleared; of which I shall be sure to give you timely notice.’ Hume refused to be convinced, or even comforted.

Note 4. In the proceedings in the House of Lords on the question of Literary Property, Lord Camden, on Feb. 22, 1774, arguing against a perpetuity, in fact almost against any copyright whatever, said:—’It was not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke instructed and delighted the world; it would be unworthy such men to traffic with a dirty bookseller for so much a sheet of a letter-press . . . Knowledge and science are not things to be bound in such cobweb chains; when once the bird is out of the cage . . . volat irrevocabile —Ireland, Scotland, America, will afford her shelter.’ Parl. Hist. xvii. 1000. How Scotland afforded her shelter I do not understand, for that country must have come under the Copyright Act of the eighth of Queen Anne. In fact in it provision is made for a Court of Arbitration composed of Englishmen and Scotchmen ( post , Letter lxxiii). Ireland, I believe, was not included till the Act of 41 Geo. III. c. 107, in which protection is granted for books printed ‘in any part of the United Kingdom, or British European dominions.’ Provision is made at the same time for the delivery ‘of two copies of all books entered at Stationers’ Hall, for the use of the libraries of Trinity College and the King's Inns, Dublin.’ Statutes at Large , xliii. 316, 320. Up to that time an Irish bookseller could reprint for the Irish market a book published in Great Britain. In one respect he was at a disadvantage. Dean Swift writing to B. Motte, a London bookseller, on May 25, 1736, said:—’One thing I know, that the cruel oppressions of this kingdom by England are not to be borne. You send what books you please hither, and the booksellers here can send nothing to you that is written here. As this is absolute oppression, if I were a bookseller in this town, I would use all the safe means to reprint London books, and run them to any town in England that I could, because whoever offends not the laws of God, or the country he lives in, commits no sin.’ Swift's Works (ed. 1803), xx. 17 1. .

Gibbon, writing of the first volume of the Decline and Fall , published in 1776, says:—’The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin.’ Misc. Works , i. 223.

Hume having sold the copyright of his History to London booksellers could not publish a rival edition in Great Britain. In Ireland however he was outside the reach of the Act. There he could reprint his work with such great improvements, that ‘it would discredit the present edition.’ It would be smuggled into England to the great injury of Strahan and Cadell. The following undated letter to William Mure, most likely written in 1756 on the publication of the second volume of the History of Great Britain under the Stuarts , shows that Hume and his publishers were intending at that time to bring out a Dublin edition:—’The first Quality of an Historian is to be true and impartial; the next to be interesting. If you do not say that I have done both Parties justice, and if Mrs. Mure be not sorry for poor King Charles, I shall burn all my Papers, and return to Philosophy. . . . We shall make a Dublin Edition; and it were a Pity to put the Irish farther wrong than they are already. I shall also be so sanguine as to hope for a second Edition, when I may cor[rect] 1. 1 You know my Docility.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Mr. Justice Willes, in the case of Millar v. Taylor ( post , Letter lxxiii, n. 1), said:—’In the case of Motte v. Falkner, 28th November, 1735, an injunction was granted for printing Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies. Many of these pieces were published in 1701, 1702, 1708.’ Burrow's Reports , iv. 2325.

The MS. is here imperfect.

Note 5. Strahan had written:—’One word of politics more, and I have done. You seem to think we are in a much worse way than we really are. I admit the inexcusable timidity of the Ministry, in suffering so many and so great insults which no Government ought to overlook. But notwithstanding all our follies and all our misconduct the nation in general is actually in a thriving condition. The Opposition is melting away to nothing, and every day falling more and more into contempt. Wilkes is hardly ever heard of but in a way very little to his credit. The boldest of his adherents are either tired out and have deserted him, or they are no more. In short a steady, able, honest Minister (and such I hope Lord North may prove to be) may yet support this country long in honour and credit. Wealth pours in upon us from a thousand channels, particularly the East Indies, which adds perhaps too much to our luxury, and that may at length prove fatal. But this is a poison which operates slowly, and many events may occur to check its progress, without endangering the general welfare and security of the State.’ M. S. R. S. E.

On Oct. 27, 1775, Hume writing of the disturbances in America, said:—’Tell him [Lord Home] that Lord North, though in appearance a worthy gentleman, has not a head for these great operations.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 479. Gibbon, in describing the eight sessions in which he sat in Parliament, says:—’The cause of government was ably vindicated by Lord North, a statesman of spotless integrity, a consummate master of debate, who could wield with equal dexterity the arms of reason and of ridicule.’ Misc. Works , i. 221. Johnson described his Ministry as ‘neither stable nor grateful to their friends,’ and as ‘feeble and timid.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 348, 355.

Note 6. In the latter half of January, 1770, the Lord Chancellor Camden had been dismissed, the new Lord Chancellor Yorke had died suddenly—by his own hand it was commonly believed—the Speaker of the House of Commons had died two days later, the popular Commander in Chief Lord Granby had resigned, and his resignation had been followed by many others; and at last the Prime Minister himself, the Duke of Grafton, ‘in a very extraordinary moment indeed, in the midst of his own measures, in the midst of a session and undefeated,’ resigned also. ‘It was impossible,’ wrote Horace Walpole, ‘to choose a more distressful moment than he selected for quitting; and had the scale turned on Wednesday [Jan. 31, when the Opposition had flattered themselves with victory in a division], I do not know where we should have been. The House of Commons contradicting itself, a reversal of the Middlesex election, a dissolution of Parliament, or the King driven to refuse it in the face of a majority! I protest I think some fatal event must have happened. . . . The people are perfectly quiet, and seem to have delegated all their anger to their representatives— a proof that their representatives had instructed their constituents to be angry. . . . Yet I am far from thinking this Administration solidly seated. Any violence, or new provocation, may dislodge it at once. When they could reduce a majority of an hundred and sixteen to forty in three weeks, their hold seems to be very slippery.’ Letters , v. 223, 225. See ante , p. 136, n. 5.

Note 7. In the Debate of March 15, 1770, on the Remonstrance of the City, ‘Lord North spoke in a very high style. . . . Speaking of the Lord Mayor, he called him “that worthy magistrate, if I may still call him worthy after this action of his.”’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 876. General Conway made a strong speech ‘against lenity’ ( ib. p. 888); but ‘the danger of still increasing the public ill-humour and discontent by taking violent measures against so respectable a body as the Corporation and Citizens of London’ ( Ann. Reg. 1770, i. 81) deterred the Ministers. See ante , p. 147, n. 7, and p. 185.

Note 8. See ante , p. 165, n. 9.

Note 9. The Spanish Ambassador ‘owned that he had from Madrid received intelligence that the English had been forcibly expelled from Falkland's Islands by Buccarelli, the Governor of Buenos Ayres, without any particular orders from the King of Spain. But being asked whether in his Master's name he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to answer without direction.’ Johnson's Works , vi. 192.

Note 10. Captain Hunt of the Tamar ( ante , p. 165, n. 9). The Spanish Ambassador ‘proposed a convention for the accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning given to the Spaniards by Hunt should be disavowed on one side, and the violence used by Buccarelli on the other. This offer was considered as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi [the Spanish Minister at Madrid] was told that injury required reparation.’ Ib. p. 193.

Note 11. See ante , p. 167, n. 10.

Note 12. Lewis XV.

Note 13. In 1736 the debt of England amounted to about 50 millions; in 1748, at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to 78 millions; in 1756, to 75 millions; in 1763, at the Peace of Paris, to 139 millions. In the next twelve years it was reduced by somewhat more than 10 millions. In Lord North's administration it rose from 129 to 268 millions. Penny Cyclo. xvi. 100. See ante , p. 130, n. 20.

Note 14. Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords on Nov. 22, 1770, said:—’My Lords, while I had the honour of serving his Majesty I never ventured to look at the Treasury but at a distance; it is a business I am unfit for, and to which I never could have submitted.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 1106.

Note 15. Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation on April 19, 1774, said:—’Do you forget that, in the very last year, you stood on the precipice of general bankruptcy? . . . The monopoly of the most lucrative trades, and the possession of imperial revenues, had brought you to the verge of beggary and ruin.’ Payne's Burke , i. 103. In a note which Hume, shortly before his death, added to the third Appendix in his History (v. 475), he says:—’It is curious to observe that the minister in the war begun in the year 1754 was in some periods allowed to lavish in two months as great a sum as was granted by Parliament to Queen Elizabeth in forty-five years. The extreme frivolous object of the late war, and the great importance of hers, set this matter in still a stronger light. Money too we may observe was in most particulars of the same value in both periods. She paid eightpence a day to every foot soldier. But our late delusions have much exceeded anything known in history, not even excepting those of the Crusades. For I suppose there is no mathematical, still less an arithmetical demonstration, that the road to the Holy Land was not the road to Paradise, as there is that the endless increase of national debts is the direct road to national ruin. But having now completely reached that goal, it is needless at present to reflect on the past. It will be found in the present year, 1776, that all the revenues of this island north of Trent and west of Reading are mortgaged or anticipated for ever. Could the small remainder be in a worse condition, were those provinces seized by Austria and Prussia? There is only this difference, that some event might happen in Europe which would oblige these great monarchs to disgorge their acquisitions. But no imagination can figure a situation which will induce our creditors to relinquish their claims, or the public to seize their revenues. So egregious indeed has been our folly, that we have even lost all title to compassion in the numberless calamities that are awaiting us.’ ‘The late war’ with ‘its extreme frivolous objects’ of the great Tory historian, was the war by which, according to the great Whig historian, ‘the first Englishman of his time had made England the first country in the world.’ Macaulay's Essays , ed. 1874, ii. 195.

Note 16. See post , Letter of Aug. 19, 1771.

Note 17. The Annual Register for this year under the title of Useful Projects has six entries about agriculture. Arthur Young's first work, A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties , was published in 1768. At this time he and Burke were corresponding about growing carrots, fattening pigs, etc. Burke's Corres. i. 248, 257, 262.

Note 18. A passage in Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America , spoken on March 22, 1775, shows that even by that date few people saw what was clear to Hume now. After considering three ways of dealing with ‘the stubborn spirit’ of the Colonists, Burke continues:—’Another has indeed been started, that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so slight a reception, that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger; like the frowardness of peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take nothing.’ Payne's Burke , i. 187.

Note 19. The ‘mob of London’ with Hume means the large majority of the Common Council and of the citizens in general.

Note 20. See ante , p. 155.

Note 21. Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland ; the first volume of which was published in 1771, the second in 1773, and the third, under the title of Vol. ii. parts 3 and 4, in 1788.

Note 22. ‘“This Dalrymple,” said Dr. Johnson, “seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy. Great He! but greater She! and such stuff.”’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 210. At another time he attacked ‘the foppery of Dalrymple.’ Ib. p. 237. See also ib. v. 402–404 for Johnson's unceremonious treatment of the Baronet and imitation of his style.

Note 23. Hume judged the work more kindly when it was attacked by the Whigs. ‘Have you seen Sir John Dalrymple?’ he wrote on April 10, 1773. ‘It is strange what a rage is against him on account of the most commendable action in his life. His collection is curious; but introduces no new light into the civil, whatever it may into the biographical and anecdotical history of the times.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 467. Horace Walpole, who was angry with Dalrymple for his attack on Algernon Sidney, wrote on March 2, 1773:—’Need I tell you that Sir John Dalrymple, the accuser of bribery, was turned out of his place of Solicitor of the Customs for taking bribes from brewers?’ Letters , v. 441. On May 15 he wrote:—’There are two answers to Sir John Dalrymple, but not very good. The best answer is what he made himself to George Onslow, whom he told on warning [sic] him for traducing the immortal Sidney, that he had other papers which would have washed him as white as snow. With this Sir John has been publicly reproached in print and has not gainsaid it.’ Ib. p. 462.

Note 24. See ante , p. 14, n. 1.

Note 25. Sir Andrew Mitchell, the English Minister at Berlin, died in that town on Jan. 28, 1771. Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 176. Boswell, when on his travels, writing to him on Dec. 26, 1764, says:—’My most intimate friend, the friend of my youth, and the comfort of my being, is a Mr. Temple [the grandfather of the present Bishop of London].’ After asking Mitchell to get Temple employment he continues:—'sir, I beg and entreat of you to give me your interest. You are the only man in Britain, except my Sovereign, whom I would ask a favour of. . . . If you can aid me, you will most truly oblige a worthy fellow, for such I am.’ Letters of Boswell , p. 56. Voltaire, writing from Lausanne on Jan. 5, 1758, says:—’Le roi de Prusse, en parlant à M. Mitchel, ministre d’Angleterre, de la belle entreprise de la flotte anglaise sur nos côtes, lui dit:—“Eh bien! que faites-vous à présent?” “Nous laissons faire Dieu,” répondit Mitchel, “Je ne vous connaissais pas cet allié,” dit le roi. “C’est le seul à qui nous ne payons pas de subsides,” répliqua Mitchel. “Aussi,” dit le roi, “c’est le seul qui ne vous assiste pas.”’ Œuvres de Voltaire , L. I. ‘La belle entreprise’ was the disastrous expedition against Rochefort in September, 1757. Smollett's History of England , ed. 1800, iv. 88.

Note 26. What ‘the epithet’ was is seen in the following extract from Strahan's letter:—’Poor Sir Andrew Mitchel!—my last Letter which was a very long one and in which I pressed his coming home very earnestly, was written the day after he died—Alas! little did I then think I was addressing myself to his Shade. I wish most heartily he had come to Britain, and enjoyed himself a few Years; for I have reason to think he was not very happy at Berlin for some years past. You know the Character of the Hero of that Country who perhaps has not his Equal in Europe—mayhap there never existed a greater Scoundrel.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Mitchell, a little more than a year before his death, makes the following complaint of a slight put on him by the King:—

’Happening last Thursday morning, at the public levee, to stand near the French minister, the King of Prussia passed by me without speaking to me, which I the more particularly take notice of, as it is the first, and indeed the only time that this Monarch, during my very long mission at this Court, has behaved to me in this manner.’ Bisset's Memoirs of Sir A. Mitchell , ii. 389. A year later he writes:—’Dec. 29, 1770. Last Wednesday the King of Prussia, at his public levee, after kindly enquiring concerning the state of my health, asked me abruptly, Shall we have peace or war?’ Ib. p. 391. This was Mitchell's last despatch. Mr. Carlyle, writing of the year 1756, says:—’One wise thing the English have done: sent an Excellency Mitchell, a man of loyalty, of sense and honesty, to be their Resident at Berlin. This is the noteworthy, not yet much noted, Sir Andrew Mitchell; by far the best Excellency England ever had in that Court. An Aberdeen Scotchman, creditable to his Country: hard-headed, sagacious; sceptical of shows; but capable of recognising substances withal, and of standing loyal to them, stubbornly if needful; who grew to a great mutual regard with Friedrich, and well deserved to do so; constantly about him, during the next seven years; and whose Letters are among the perennially valuable Documents on Friedrich's History.’ History of Friedrich II , ed. 1864, iv. 537.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Note 8. See ante , p. 150.

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

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.

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.

’. . . 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.’

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

Note 13. ‘The conversation now turned upon Mr. David Hume's style. J OHNSON : “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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Note 18. See ante , p. 138.

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.

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.

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?’

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.

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

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.

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 unpromising 1 ’ 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.

Walpole's Letters , v. 333.

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.

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.’

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.”’

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.

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.

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

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.

Lucan, ix. 202.

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.

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.’

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.’

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.

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

Hume in his Autobiography tells how his Treatise of Human Nature ‘fell dead-born from the press.’

Dalrymple's book passed through several editions.

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.

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.’

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

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

Note 1. Strahan had written to Hume on May 25:—’I hope to make a beautiful edition, as we have got an excellent paper for it, much better than is generally used, being bespoke on purpose for the work.’ M. S. R. S. E. Even with this edition Hume was not satisfied. In the last year of his life he writes:—’I am as anxious of correctness as if I were writing to Greeks or French; and besides frequent revisals which I have given my History since the last edition, I shall again run over it very carefully.’ Post , Letter of Nov. 13, 1775.

Note 2. See post , Letters of Sept. 18, 1771, and Nov. 13, 1775, where Hume repeats this saying.

Note 3. Hume wrote to Sir Gilbert Elliot on Feb. 21, 1770:—’I am running over again the last edition of my History , in order to correct it still further. I either soften or expunge many villanous, seditious Whig strokes, which had crept into it. I wish that my indignation at the present madness, encouraged by lies, calumnies, imposture, and every infamous act usual among popular leaders, may not throw me into the opposite extreme. I am, however, sensible that the first editions were too full of those foolish English prejudices, which all nations and all ages disavow.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 434. Such a passage as this may be illustrated by the following extract from Mackintosh's brief Character of Hume:—

'some remains perhaps of a love of singularity, some taint of sceptical theory affecting his practical sentiments, much tranquillity of temper and love of order, with the absence of ardent sensibility, contributed to give Mr. Hume a prejudice against most of the predominant prejudices of his age and country; combined with a residence in France they led him to prefer the faultless elegance of our neighbours to the unequal grandeur of English genius, and produced the singular phenomenon of a History of England adverse to our peculiar national feelings, and calculated, not so much to preserve the vigour, as to repress the excesses of that love of liberty which distinguishes the history of England from that of the other nations of Europe.’ Life of Mackintosh , ii. 169.

Note 4. See ante , p. 188, n. 11. The covers were the pieces of paper in which the proofs were to be inclosed. Each cover would bear Hume's address in Fraser's handwriting, attested by his signature.

Note 5. Hume in his list of Scotticisms gives ‘Friends and acquaintances’; the English form being ‘Friends and acquaintance.’ Ante , p. 9. Johnson, I think, never uses the plural form acquaintances , though he gives it in his Dictionary. It is used by Bacon in Essay xviii. ed. 1629, i. 100:—’What acquaintances they are to seeke.’ In the same Essay we find ‘those of his acquaintance which are of most worth.’

Note 6. Viscount Beauchamp was the eldest son of the Earl of Hertford, late Ambassador to France ( ante , p. 40, n. 1), and now Lord Chamberlain, Hume, on his going to Paris as Lord Hertford's Secretary in 1763, wrote:—’I find that one view of Lord Hertford in engaging me to go along with him is, that he thinks I may be useful to Lord Beauchamp in his studies.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 161.

Note 7. Alexander Wedderburne (afterwards Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn), having deserted his party, had been made Solicitor General on Jan. 23 of this year.

Note 8. Mr. William Pulteney, the second son of Sir James Johnstone, Baronet, was member for Cromartie and Nairn. Parl. Hist. xvi. 451. He had been Secretary of the Poker Club, and so was well known to Hume. Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 420, and ante , p. 141, n. 4. Horace Walpole, writing on Oct. 29, 1767, of the death of General Pulteney, brother of the famous William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, says:—’General Pulteney is dead, having owned himself worth a million, the fruits of his brother's virtues!’ After mentioning some bequests Walpole continues:—’All the vast rest, except a few very trifling legacies, he leaves to his cousin Mrs. Pulteney, a very worthy woman, who had risked all by marrying one Johnstone, the third son of a poor Scot, but who is an orator at the India House, and likely to make a figure now in what house he pleases.’ Letters , v. 70. Hume, in a letter to Suard dated Brewer Street, March 10, 1769, shows that ‘the poor Scot's third son’ could make a generous use of his wealth. He writes:—’Poor Stuart has lost his cause which he had laboured with such assiduity, such integrity, and such capacity. (See post , p. 239, n. 9.) Never was any sentence more unjust: but the cause had become so complicate, that it had gone beyond the comprehension of almost all our Peers; and it was in the power of Lord Mansfield, who had shown a violent partiality from the beginning, to twist and turn it as he pleased and to command the plurality of votes. If the event was in one respect disastrous and extraordinary for Stuart, it was in another as fortunate and extraordinary. On rising next morning he found on his table a bond of annuity for 400 pounds a year, sent him by a friend, a man of sense, who had no interest in the cause, but who chose this opportunity to express his esteem and affection for Stuart. The person who has done this noble action is Pulteney; you may have seen him at Paris with Stuart; he then bore the name of Johnstone.’ Morrison Autographs , ii. 318.

Note 9. Robert Adam, Architect to the Board of Works, and Member for Kinross and Clackmannan. Parl. Hist. xvi. 451. The Adelphi in the Strand, which by its affected name commemorates the fact that it was built by brothers, was a vast speculation shared between him and some of his brothers. Hume, writing of the great crash in the commercial world in 1772, says:—’Of all the sufferers I am the most concerned for the Adams. But their undertakings were so vast that nothing could support them. . . . To me the scheme of the Adelphi always appeared so imprudent, that my wonder is how they could have gone on so long.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 460.

Note 10. Mr. Stewart had been of service to Hume in his search for lodgings for Rousseau. A Concise Account, etc. p. 9. He must have held some post which gave the right to use the official frank. There is mention of a John Stewart, Esq., in the Chatham Corresp. i. 214–5.

Note 11. ‘Aug. 23, 1773. Dr. Gerard told us that an eminent printer was very intimate with Warburton. J OHNSON. “Why, Sir, he has printed some of his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is such as one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is repairing the College.” “But,” said Gerard, “I saw a letter from him to this printer, in which he says that the one half of the clergy of the Church of Scotland are fanatics and the other half infidels.” J OHNSON. “Warburton has accustomed himself to write letters just as he speaks, without thinking any more of what he throws out.” . . . He told me, when we were by ourselves, that he thought it very wrong in the printer to show Warburton's letter, as it was raising a body of enemies against him. He thought it foolish in Warburton to write so to the printer; and added, “Sir, the worst way of being intimate is by scribbling.”’ Boswell's Johnson , v. 92.

Note 12. Horace Walpole, writing on Jan. 22, 1764, about Churchill's ‘new satire called The Duellist ,’ speaks of the ‘charming abuse on that scurrilous mortal, Bishop Warburton.’ Letters , iv. 171. Churchill describes the Bishop as a man,

• ’Who was so proud that should he meet
• The twelve Apostles in the street,
• He’d turn his nose up at them all,
• And shove his Saviour from the wall;
• Who was so mean (meanness and pride
• Still go together side by side)
• That he would cringe, and creep, be civil,
• And hold a stirrup for the Devil,
• If in a journey to his mind,
• He’d let him mount and ride behind.’

Johnson, speaking to George III of the controversy between Lowth and Warburton, said:—’Warburton has most general, most scholastic learning; Lowth is the more correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names best.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 37. On another occasion Johnson said:—’When I read Warburton first, and observed his force, and his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that was not the case; for Warburton by extending his abuse rendered it ineffectual.’ Ib. v. 93. Gibbon wrote of him: ‘The learning and the abilities of the author [of the Divine Legation of Moses ] had raised him to a just eminence; but he reigned the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature. The real merit of Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with which he pronounced his infallible decrees; in his polemic writings he lashed his antagonists without mercy or moderation, and his servile flatterers (see the base and malignant Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship [by Hurd]) exalting the master critic far above Aristotle and Longinus, assaulted every modest dissenter who refused to consult the oracle and to adore the idol.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works , i. 209. See ante , p. 21, n. 1.

Note 13. This letter was most likely written in Hume's house in James's Court. Two years later on, Johnson, in the same house though not in the same flat, after scoffing at Hume's scepticism, ‘“added something much too rough” both as to his head and heart which,’ continues Boswell, ‘I suppress.’ Boswell's Johnson , v. 30. Johnson in one or two passages falls not far short of the Warburtonian School. Thus, in his attack on Wilkes, he says:—’The character of the man. . . . I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him of whom no man speaks well. It is sufficient that he is expelled the House of Commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition and impiety.’ Works , vi. 156. Of Junius he writes:—“What,” says Pope, “must be the priest where a monkey is the god?” What must be the drudge of a party of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?’ Ib. p. 206.

Note 14. Boswell has thus recorded this anecdote in his Boswelliana , on the authority of ‘Mr. David Hume’:—’Warburton was a prodigious flatterer of Lord Mansfield, and consequently a favourite. David Hume was one day speaking violently against him to his Lordship, who said:—“Upon my word, Mr. Hume, he is quite a different man in conversation from what he is in his books.” “Then, my Lord,” said Hume, “he must be the most agreeable man in the world.” Boswelliana , p. 268. Strahan, replying to Hume on July 23, said:—’What his [Warburton's] reasons may be I know not, but I have heard much of his launching out in your praise for some time past, sometimes indeed in my hearing, and with much more seeming cordiality and heartiness than I ever heard him bestow on any other writer. . . . As a companion he is certainly one of the most tractable men I ever saw. So far from being insolent or overbearing, you can hardly get him to contradict you in anything.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Note 15. By the Opposition Lord North was charged not with insolence to the House of Bourbon but with timidity towards it. Lord Chatham, writing on Jan. 22, 1771, looks upon the Convention with Spain asthe most abject and dangerous sacrifice of the rights of England that ever was submitted to.’ The following day he writes:—’I still fear that England will prove itself a nation of slaves, in the present consummation of insult and ignominy, heaped upon them by an abandoned and flagitious Court.’ Chatham Corresp. iv. 77, 82. Burke, in the Ann. Reg. for 1771, i. 51, stating the views of the Opposition, says:—’The whole transaction was described as a standing monument of reproach, disgrace, and dishonour, which, after an expense of some millions, settled no contest, asserted no right, exacted no reparation, and afforded no security.’ Junius, in his Letter of Jan. 30, 1771, asks,Where will the humiliation of this country end?’ and goes on to attackthe treachery of the Kingservants, particularly of Lord North.’ Johnson FalklandIslands is a defence of the Ministry for not havingsnatched with eagerness the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when they were able to obtain by quiet negotiation all the real good that victory could have brought us.’ Works , vi. 200. ‘The honour of the public,’ he adds,is, indeed, of high importance; but we must remember that we have had to transact with a mighty King and a powerful nation, who have unluckily been taught to think that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as ourselves.’ Ib. p. 208.

Note 16. On April 14, 1775, Dr. Johnson said:—ir, the great misfortune now is that government has too little power. . . . Our several ministries in this reign have outbid each other in concessions to the people. Lord Bute, though a very honourable man,—a man who meant well,—a man who had his blood full of prerogative,—was a theoretical statesman,—a book-minister,—and thought this country could be governed by the influence of the Crown alone, Then, Sir, he gave up a great deal. He advised the King to agree that the Judges should hold their places for life, instead of losing them at the accession of a new King. Lord Bute, I suppose, thought to make the King popular by this concession, but the people never minded it; and it was a most impolitic measure. There is no reason why a Judge should hold his office for life, more than any other person in public trust. A Judge may be partial otherwise than to the Crown; we have seen Judges partial to the populace. A Judge may become corrupt, and yet there may not be legal evidence against him. A Judge may become froward from age. A Judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibility of being delivered from him by a new King. That is now gone by an Act of Parliament ex gratia of the Crown. Lord Bute advised the King to give up a very large sum of money, for which nobody thanked him. It was of consequence to the King, but nothing to the public among whom it was divided.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 352.

Note 17.At the commencement of the reign of George III the independence of the Judges was still further secured. Although the Statute 12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2, s. 3, enacted that their commission should be no longer “Durante bene placito,” but “Quamdiu se bene gesserint,” yet, by a most extraordinary interpretation, it was decided at the accession of Queen Anne that their patents terminated at the demise of the Crown; and the practice had been adopted in the two following reigns. The inconvenience arising from this decision, which necessitated a renewal of the patents of all the judges as the first act of a reign in order to prevent a total failure of justice, had been partially remedied by the statute 6 Anne, c. 7, s. 8, which enacted that all officers, including the Judges, should act upon their former patents for the space of six months after any demise of the Crown, unless sooner removed by the next successor. Now, however, by the express recommendation of George III, full effect was given to the statute of William by an Act of Parliament passed in the first year of his reign, chapter 23, continuing the Judges in their office, notwithstanding the demise of the Crown.’ Foss Judges of England , ed. 1864, viii. 198. The Earl of Hardwicke, in his speech on this measure, stated that on the Accession of Anne two Judges were left out; on the Accession of George I, three Judges; and on that of George II, one Judge. Parl. Hist. xv. 1009. Horace Walpole describes the measure asone of Lord Butestrokes of pedantry. The tenure of the Judges had formerly been a popular topic; and had been secured as far as was necessary. He thought this trifling addition would be popular now, when nobody thought or cared about it.’ Memoirs of George III , i. 41.

Note 18. On April 30, 1763, Wilkes, as author of The North Briton , No. 45, had been arrested on ‘a general warrant directed to four messengers to take up any persons without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to bring them, together with their papers.’ Such a warrant as this Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden) declared to beunconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void.’If it be good,’ he said,a Secretary of State can delegate and depute any one of the messengers, or any one even from the lowest of the people, to take examinations, to commit or release, and, in fine, to do every act which the highest judicial officers the law knows can do or order.’ Ann. Reg. 1763, i. 145.Johnson would not admit the importance of the question concerning the legality of general warrants. “Such a power,” he observed, “must be vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such indifference, a matter about which the people care so very little, that were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at a halfpenny a piece, very few would purchase it.” This was a specimen of that laxity of talking which I have heard him fairly acknowledge.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 72.

Note 19. Hume is speaking, no doubt, of expulsion from the House of Commons. Yet Wilkes had been expelled on Feb. 3, 1769 ( Parl. Hist. xvi. 545), and on Feb. 17 he had been declared ‘incapable of being elected a member to serve in the present Parliament.’ Ib. p. 577. He was elected four times, once in March 1768 at the General Election; and three times after his expulsion, on Feb. 16, March 16, and April 13, 1769 (Almon Memoirs of Wilkes , iv. 4); but his seat was given to Colonel Luttrell, who had only received 296 votes against 1143. The power of expulsion therefore did not seem lost, even if the right were. Hume perhaps saw that such a storm had been raised by the Middlesex election, that no Ministry would ever dare to follow the bad precedent that had been set. He may have been struck too by the fact that Lord Chancellor Camden had declared in the House of Lords his belief, thatthe incapacitating vote was a direct attack upon the first principles of the constitution,’ and had gone on to saythat if, in giving his decision as a Judge, he was to pay any regard to that vote, or any other vote of the House of Commons in opposition to the known and established laws of the land, he should look upon himself as a traitor to his trust.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 644. It is true that this speech was followed by his dismissal from office, but he was supported in his statement of the law by the strongly-worded Protest of forty-two dissentient Lords.