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HUME, 



GREATLY distinguished as the people of Great Britain 

 had ever been for their achievements in all the other 

 walks of literature and science, it is certain that there 

 never had appeared among them any historian of emi- 

 nence before the middle of the eighteenth century. The 

 country of Bacon, of Newton, of Locke, of Napier 

 the country of Milton, of Shakspeare, and Buchanan 

 of Dryden, Swift, Bolingbroke had as yet nothing 

 more to produce as the rival of ancient historical fame 

 than the crude and partial annals of Buchanan, 

 great only as a poet, and the far more classical and less 

 prejudiced political Memoirs rather than ' History ' of 

 Clarendon. While Italy had her Davila and 

 Guicciardini, and France her Thuanus (Du Thou), 

 this island was nearly unknown for any native annals, 

 and a Frenchman (Rapin de Thoyras) had provided 

 the only ' History of England ' which any one could 

 find readable, nor in reading that could he affect to 

 find pleasure. It was reserved for two natives of 

 Scotland to remove such an unhappy peculiarity, and 

 to place our fame in this important walk of literature 

 upon a level with our eminence in all its other depart- 

 ments. Mr. Hume first entered the field ; and though 

 his is by no means .the work on which the historical 



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