heological criticism
colourless even to the point of vapidity, but that did not save him or
his _Review_; it perhaps only exposed them the more to the attacks of
zealots. His notice of the sermons of Ebenezer Erskine, the Secession
leader, provoked a sharp pamphlet from Erskine's son, in which the
reviewers were accused of teaching unsound theological views, of
putting the creature before the Creator by allowing the lawfulness of
a lie in certain situations, of throwing ridicule on the Bible and the
Westminster _Confession of Faith_, and of having David Hume, an
atheist, among their number.

This last thrust was a mere controversial guess, and, strangely
enough, it guessed wrong. A new literary review is started in
Edinburgh by a few of Hume's younger friends, and Hume himself--the
only one of them who had yet made any name in literature, and the most
distinguished man of letters then in Scotland--is neither asked to
contribute to the periodical, nor even admitted to the secret of its
origination. When the first number appeared he went about among his
acquaintances expressing the greatest surprise that so promising a
literary adventure should be started by Edinburgh men of letters
without a whisper of it ever reaching his ears. More than that, his
very name and writings were strangely and studiously ignored in its
pages. His _History of the Stewarts_ was one of the last new books,
having been published in the end of 1754, and was unquestionably much
the most important work that had recently come from any Scotch pen,
yet in a periodical instituted for the very purpose of devoting
attention to the productions of Scotch authors, this work of his
remained absolutely unnoticed.

Why this complete boycott of Hume by his own household? Henry
Mackenzie "thinks he has heard" two reasons given for it: first, that
Hume was considered too good-natured for a critic, and certain to have
insisted on softening remarks his colleagues believed to be called
for; and second, that they determined to keep him out of the secret
entirely, because he could not keep a secret.[92] But this explanation
does not hold together. If Hume was so good-natured, he would be less
difficult rather than more difficult to manage; and as for not being
able to keep a secret, that, as Mr. Burton observes, is a very
singular judgment to pass on one who had been Secretary of Legation
already and was soon to be Secretary of Legation again, and Under
Secretary of