is bitter disappointment, he says:--

"I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even
detestation: English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, Churchman
and Sectary, Freethinker 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;
and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was
still more mortifying, the book seemed to fall into oblivion. Mr.
Millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies
of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms,
considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book. I
must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These
dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be
discouraged."

It certainly is odd to think of David Hume being comforted in his
affliction by the independent and spontaneous sympathy of a pair of
archbishops. But the instincts of the dignified prelates guided them
rightly; for, as the great painter of English history in Whig pigments
has been careful to point out,[10] Hume's historical picture, though a
great work, drawn by a master hand, has all the lights Tory, and all the
shades Whig.

Hume's ecclesiastical enemies seem to have thought that their
opportunity had now arrived; and an attempt was made to get the General
Assembly of 1756 to appoint a committee to inquire into his writings.
But, after a keen debate, the proposal was rejected by fifty votes to
seventeen. Hume does not appear to have troubled himself about the
matter, and does not even think it worth mention in _My Own Life_.

In 1756 he tells Clephane that he is worth L1,600 sterling, and
consequently master of an income which must have been wealth to a man of
his frugal habits. In the same year, he published the second volume of
the _History_, which met with a much better reception than the first;
and, in 1757, one of his most remarkable works, the _Natural History of
Religion_, appeared. In the same year, he resigned his office of
librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, and he projected removal to
London, probably to superintend the publication of the additional volume
of the _History_.

"I shall certainly be in London next summer; and probably to remain