HUME. 215 



of the Hanoverian succession distinguished by their 

 respect for religion, and the Jacobites chiefly giving in 

 to the fashionable deism, or the latitudinarian princi- 

 ples, of Catholic countries in modern times. 



A contempt of popular rights, a leaning towards 

 power, a proneness to find all institutions already 

 established worthy of support, a suspicion of all mea- 

 sures tending towards change, is thus to be seen pre- 

 vailing through Mr. Hume's reflections, and influencing 

 both his faith in historical evidence and his manner of 

 conducting the narration of facts. A bias of the like 

 kind is plainly perceptible in his remarks and in his 

 recital, wherever the Church, the sects are concerned, 

 and generally wherever religion forms the subject of 

 either. Independent of the testimony which he has un- 

 wittingly borne against himself, in respect of his Tory 

 partialities, the proofs of his perverting facts, especially 

 in the last two volumes of his work, have been multiplied 

 by the industry of succeeding historians, till the discre- 

 dit of the book, as a history, has become no longer a 

 matter of any doubt. It is of no avail that he himself 

 and his admirers cite the disrepute and even odium into 

 which his account of the Stuarts fell with the Jacobites, 

 as much as with the Whigs, from its first appearance. 

 That party's unreasonable demands upon our faith would 

 be satisfied with nothing short of absolutely acquitting 

 all the Stuarts of all guilt and of all indiscretion ; and 

 they probably felt more disappointed, because they were 

 certainly more injured, by the admissions of one mani- 

 festly ranged on their side, when he was compelled to 

 stop short of their pure and perfect creed. Afterwards 

 the Tudor history completed their discontent ; but it 



