HUME. 211 



difference which appears between the pains bestowed 

 upon this celebrated work and those which the rival 

 historian was wont to bestow upon his writings. Dr. 

 Robertson's ' Scotland,' consisting of about a volume 

 and a half (for the rest of the second volume is com- 

 posed of original documents printed as an appendix), 

 occupied his almost undivided attention for above six 

 years.* Hume's first volume could not have been the 

 work of above a year or fifteen months ; for it was 

 begun when he went to the Advocates' Library early 

 in 1752, and it was published in 1754. The second 

 volume succeeded in 1756, but he had written half 

 of it when the first was published ; and in 1755 there 

 appeared also his ' Natural History of Religion.' Con- 

 sequently we are positively certain that he wrote more 

 of his 'History' in less than two years than Dr. 

 Robertson wrote of his in above six ; and that his whole 

 ' History of the Stuarts ' could not have taken above 

 three years to prepare and to write. It is impossible 

 to doubt that this mode of writing history must leave 

 no room for a full investigation of facts and weighing 

 of authorities. He had no right to number "care" 

 among the items of superiority to his predecessors, 

 upon which he had plumed himself in his letter to 

 Dr. Clephane. The transactions of James's time com- 

 prised perhaps the most important period of our 

 constitutional history, because the struggle between 



* Though by his letter to Lord Hailes he seems only to have 

 begun it in 1742, yet I have heard his eldest sister often say that 

 he had a whole room full of books to read or consult for some time 

 before at Gladsmuir, where she lived with him. 



