ence extending over half a century, in which this finds
serious or extravagant utterance. Even in the last decades of his
life, when he sees the France of the future arising, he writes to
Madame Du Deffand: "How trivial we are compared with the Greeks, the
Romans, and the English"; and to Helvetius, about the same period
(1765), he admits the profound debts which France and Europe owe to the
adventurous thought of England. He even forces Frederick the Great
into reluctant but definite acquiescence with his enthusiasm--"Yes, you
are right; you French have grace, the English have the depth, and we
Germans, we have caution."

[6] James Thomson, who distinguished himself from the author of the
_Seasons_, and defined his own literary aims by the initials B. V.,
_i.e._, Bysshe Vonalis (Novalis), though possessing neither the wide
scholarship nor the depth of thought of Leopardi, occasionally equals
the great Italian in felicity of phrase and in the poignant expression
of the world-sorrow. Several of the more violent pamphlets on
religious themes ascribed to him are of doubtful authenticity. He died
in 1882, the year after the death of Carlyle.

[7] Hume's disappointment at the reception accorded to the first quarto
of his _History of England_ must be measured by the standard of the
hopes he had formed. Conscious of genius, and not without ambition, he
had reached middle life nameless, and save in a narrow circle
unacknowledged. But the appearance of his _History_, two years later
than his _Political Discourses_, was synchronous with the darkest hours
in English annals since 1667. An English fleet had to quit the Channel
before the combined navies of France and Spain; Braddock was defeated
at Fort Duquesne; Minorca was lost. At this period the tide of
ill-feeling between the Scotch and the English ran bitter and high.
The taunts of individuals were but the explosions of a resentment
deep-seated and strong. London had not yet forgotten the panic which
the march of the Pretender had roused. To the Scottish nation the
massacre at Culloden seemed an act of revenge--savage, pre-meditated,
and impolitic. The ministry of Chatham changed all this. He raised an
army from the clans who ten years before had marched to the heart of
England; ended the privileges of the coterie of Whig families,
bestowing the posts of danger and power not upon the fearless but
frequently incapable sons of the great houses, but upon the talent b