and fatigue."[1] But Stuart was not content with persecution at home, he wished to add the weapons of others to his own, For this purpose he procured a worthy associate, Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, and author of the "Genuine History of the Britons." Stuart, a vague theorist in elegant and sonorous diction, who was weak enough to believe that his servile imitations of Montesquieu raised him to a parallel with that great man, associated himself in this work of charity with a minute and pugnacious antiquary, useful to literature from the sheer labour he had encountered, but eminently subject to the prejudices to which those who confine their laborious investigations to one narrow branch of knowledge, are exposed; a person who would expend many quarto pages in discussing a flint arrow-head or a tumulus of stones, occasionally attempting with a broken wing to follow the flights of Gibbon, but generally as flat and sterile as the plains in which he strove to trace Roman encampments; two more
uncongenial spirits hardly ever attempted to work in concert. It may easily be supposed that the minute antiquary looked with jealousy on the extended theories of his generalizing colleague; and the generalizer, though he took occasion to praise the petty investigations of the antiquary, probably regarded them in secret with a similar contempt. But Stuart found the natural malignity of Whitaker a useful commodity; and the calm good sense of Henry afforded them a common object of hatred. A few extracts will give the best display of the spirit of Stuart's communications to his friends during his machinations. "David Hume wants to review Henry: but that task is so precious, that I will undertake it myself. Moses, were he to ask it as a favour, should not have it; yea, not even the man after God's own heart. I wish I could transport myself to London to review him for the Monthly a fire there, and in the Critical, would perfectly annihilate him. Could you do nothing in the latter? To the former I suppose David Hume has transcribed the criticism he intended for us. It is precious, and would divert you. I keep a proof of it in my cabinet, for the amusement of friends. This great philosopher begins to dote.[2] To-morrow morning Henry sets off for London, with immense hopes of selling his history. I wish sincerely that I could enter Holborn the same hour with him. He should have a repeated fire to combat with. I entreat that you may be so kind as to let him feel some of your thunder. I shall never forget the favour. If Whitaker is in London, he could give a blow. Paterson will give him a knock. Strike by all means. The wretch will tremble, grow pale, and return with a consciousness of his debility. I have a thousand thanks to give you for your insertion of the paper in the London Chronicle, and for the part you propose to act in regard to Henry. I could wish that you knew for certain his being in London before you strike the first
- ↑ Edinburgh Review and Magazine, vol i. p. 266 270.
- ↑ D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, ii. 67. The author appends in a note "The critique on Henry, in the Monthly Review, was written by Hume, and because the philosopher was candid, he is here said to have doted." We suspect this is erroneous, and founded on mere presumption. We have carefully read the two critiques on Henry in the Monthly Review, which appeared previous to Hume's death. The elegance and profundity of Hume are wanting, and in giving an opinion of the work, which is moderate and tolerably just, the Reviewer compares it somewhat disparagingly with the works of Hume and Robertson, a piece of conceit and affectation which the great philosopher would not have condescended to perpetrate. That Hume prepared and published a Review of Henry's book we have no doubt. In the Edinburgh Magazine for 1791, and in the Gentleman's Magazine for the same year, a critique is quoted, the work "of one of the most eminent historians of the present age, whose history of the same periods justly possesses the highest reputation." Without the aid of such a statement, the style stamps the author, and we may have occasion to quote it in the text as the work of Hume. Where it made its first appearance, a search through the principal periodicals of the day has not enabled us to discover. It is in the first person singular, and may have been in the form of a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
