HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
"Miserable," he adds, "was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
of Strafford." How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
were sold.

However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
was received with more favor, and "helped to buoy up its unfortunate
brother." Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
yet received.

The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.

He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
his materials--taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.

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