208 HUME. 



upon his performance : " As there is no happiness," 

 he says, " without occupation, I have begun a work 

 which will employ me several years, and which yields 

 me much satisfaction. Tis a history of Britain, from 

 the union of the crowns to the present time. I have 

 already printed the reign of King James. My friends 

 flatter me (by this I mean that they do not flatter me) 

 that I have succeeded. You know that there is no 

 path of honour on the English Parnassus more vacant 

 than that of history. Style, judgment, impartiality, 

 ease, every thing is wanting to our historians ; 

 and even Rapin, during his latter period, is ex- 

 tremely deficient. I make my work very concise, 

 after the manner of the ancients. It divides into 

 three very moderate volumes one to end with the 

 death of Charles I., the second at the Revolution, the 

 third at the Accession, 1714; for I dare come no 

 nearer the present times. The work will neither 

 please the Duke of Bedford nor James Frazer, but I 

 hope it will please you and posterity." " I was, I 

 own," he says in his account of his life, " sanguine in 

 my expectations of the success of this work. I thought 

 I was the only historian that had at once neglected 

 present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of 

 popular prejudices ; and as the subject was suited to 

 my capacity, I expected proportionate success." 



But whatever might be the want of such a work, 

 and how much soever he relied on his superior qualifi- 

 cations for the task, he was doomed to a bitter dis- 

 appointment. " I was assaulted," says he, " by one 

 cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. 

 English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, church- 



