2»a S. IX. June 30. '60.) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



499 



ssepe OdiO religiortis veros legum sensus detorquent, sed 

 graviores ac prudentiores a Magistate Vestra eligendi 

 cognoscerent." * 



This looks very much as if it was known that 

 the executions at the summer assizes had been the 

 work of the judges. It is quite in accordance 

 with James's character that he should have for- 

 gotten or neglected to give those positive orders 

 to avoid bloodshed, which we know that he did 

 give in the following year, even when he was 

 urging on the judges to put in force the penal 

 laws. In default of such instructions, those of the 

 judges who were peculiarly bitter against the 

 Roman Catholics might think themselves justified 

 in putting the statutes in force as they stood. One 

 of the judges at Manchester was Serjeant Phillips, 

 the Speaker of the House of Commons, and con- 

 sequently fresh from the debates on the act under 

 which he pronounced sentence upon the priests. 



On the 5th September, a commission was ap- 

 pointed to preside over the banishment of the 

 priests, but they do not seem to have been very 

 active, if a list of twenty-one priests and three 

 laymen which has come down to us contains the 

 whole result of their labours.")" Before their de- 

 parture they addressed a dignified and respectful 

 letter to the Council, complaining of the injustice 

 of their treatment, and intimating that they did 

 not consider themselves to be bound to remain 

 abroad by any feeling of gratitude to the govern- 

 ment which had released them from their prison. 



S. R. Gardiner. 



LORD BROUGHAM, DAVID HUME, AND 

 PHILARETE CHASLES. 



" It is not to be forgotten that injury to the cause of 

 truth has been done by a very eminent person in whose 

 great capacity and celebrity this city takes a just pride, 

 how much soever his talents may have been misapplied ; 

 and it well becomes the instructors of youth strenuously 

 to counteract the influence of David Hume, both on ac- 

 count of the incalculable importance of the subject on 

 which he was misled, and also in respect of a far less 

 material circumstance — the disposition of ignorant per- 

 sons in other countries to represent him as having founded 

 an infidel school or sect in Scotland." — Lord Brougham's 

 Speech at his Installation as Cliancellor of the University 

 of Edinburgh. 



The speech from which the preceding extract 

 is taken has been universally read and admired ; 

 and greatly would any one be surprised, as I 

 was, on happening to look into Philarcte Chasles's 

 Etudes sur les Ilommes et les Mcenrs tie VAngle- 

 tcrre.au XIX e Steele, Paris, 1849, and finding that 

 the author, in his chapter on the history and the 

 historians of England, has written as follows re- 

 specting Hume and Lord Brougham : — 



" II (Hume) mourut honore, estime", et regrette"; 1'Eu- 



• S. Y. 0., Spanish Correspondence, " g ' ' , 1004. 



Sep. 10 



t Tiernev's Dodd, iv. 41., note, and App. No. xiii. 



rope hit son panegyrique dans quelques aimables pages 

 d'Adam Smith. Entre 1^89 et 1810, sagloire d'emvain 

 et de philosophe toucha le point culminant. Le mouve- 

 ment de re'action qui se fitbientot sentir partit de l'Ecosse 

 meme, quand l'e'cole de Dugald- Steward et de Reid es- 

 saya de retablir les principes de la certitude. Leuis ide'es 

 gagnerent du terrain, l'esprit humain, comme l'atmo- 

 sphere, ne conservant sa puissance vitale que sous la 

 condition d'une eternelle mobilite. Naguere on avait 

 soutenu que tout est probable et possible, mais que rien 

 n'est certain : on se mit k penser que notre conscience est 

 •chose certaine ; on s'avanca ensuite jusqu'a soutenir que 

 toutes les opinions sont un fragment de verite incomplete 

 melee d'erreurs qui la defigurent. La renommee d'Hume 

 se trouva compromise par ce triomphe de l'eclectisme :»et 

 Lord Brougham, dans ces derniers temps, lorsqu'iLessaya 

 de rajeunir et de renouveler avec son audace hOTituelle 

 la gloire du sceptique Ecossais, se fit I'avocat d'une 

 cause qui semblait perdue. Ces variations de l'opinion 

 ne s'arreteront jamais.'' 



Being ignorant of the fact, left now to be in- 

 ferred, that Lord Brougham had ever put forth 

 to the world views respecting Hume's scepticism 

 different from those so earnestly inculcated in his 

 lordship's speech at Edinburgh, I would respect- 

 fully ask your Paris correspondent, M. Philarete 

 Chasles, to state his authority for the glorification 

 of Hume ascribed to Lord B. in the above ex- 

 tract. I cannot discover, in his Lordship's brief 

 Memoir of Hume, any warrant for such a sweep- 

 ing accusation, which, if well founded, would 

 establish a striking contrast between Lord B.'s 

 present and former opinions regarding Hume's 

 sceptical speculations. Should M. Chasles, on 

 farther inquiry, discover that he has been led into 

 error, he will no doubt be glad to rectify if, which 

 is of the more importance, since his works are 

 much read both on the Continent and in Eng- 

 land. J. Ma CRAY. 



Oxford. 



" VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD." 



I am under the impression that some years ago a 

 Query was made in "N. & Q." asking for the origin 

 or the author of the above phrase. I am writing 

 this where I cannot refer to your Index, and am 

 therefore unable to satisfy myself on this point, but, 

 if I remember rightly, the sentiment expressed in 

 the above passage was said to have been a rule of 

 the Stoics ; and I think the words, or something 

 very like them, Pretium .mi est Virtus, were quoted 

 as being somewhere in Seneca. A day or two ago 

 I happened to be looking through Silius Italicus, 

 and in the 13th book of his Punic epic I came 

 upon a line which may have been the original of 

 the wise saw in general modern use. It occurs in 

 the course of the description of the descent of the 

 young Scipio to visit the shades of his father and 

 uncle (Cneius and Publius Scipio) in Tartarus. 

 The visitor bewails the calamity which had befal- 

 len them in Spain ; but the sire commences an ad- 

 mirable speech with the three following lines, the 



