216 HUME. 



affords no proof whatever of his impartiality. He had, 

 of course, far too much sense and too penetrating a saga- 

 city to doubt the guilt of Queen Mary during the Scot- 

 tish portion of her life, admitted as the greater part of the 

 charges against her were, by her own conduct in the 

 open profligacy of her connexion with her husband's 

 murderer ; and the prejudice which this unavoidable 

 conviction raised in his mind, extended itself to the 

 more doubtful question of her accession to Babing- 

 ton's conspiracy, a question which he appears to 

 have examined with much less patience of research, 

 though it belonged to his own subject, than he had 

 applied to the Scottish transactions of the queen, which, 

 in their detail at least, had far less connexion with his 

 work. 



If patient investigation of the subject be a merit 

 and next to fidelity it is the chief merit of history 

 Mr. Hume's work is here most defective. The time 

 taken to compose it sufficiently proves this, as has 

 already been shown ; but there is continual proof that 

 he took what he found set down in former works 

 without weighing the relative value of conflicting au- 

 thorities, and generally resorted to the most acces- 

 sible sources of information. There have been in- 

 stances without number adduced of his inaccuracy in 

 citing even the authorities to which he confined his 

 researches. 



Nor can we acquit him on another charge not rarely 

 brought against him, and partaking of the two former 

 neglect or carelessness about the truth, and infidelity 

 in relating it. He loved effect in his narrative, and 

 studied it. Unmindful of the ancient critic's golden 



