26 HUME i 



have some fortune and education, and the meanest slaving 

 poor ; without any considerable number of that middling 

 rank of men, which abound more in England, both in 

 cities and in the country, than in any other part of the 

 world. The slaving poor are incapable of any principles ; 

 gentlemen may be converted to true principles, by time 

 and experience. The middling rank of men have curiosity 

 and knowledge enough to form principles, but not enough 

 to form true ones, or correct any prejudices that they may 

 have imbibed. And it is among the middling rank of peo- 

 ple that Tory principles do at present prevail most in Eng- 

 land." (HI. 80, note.) 



Considering that the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 

 broke out only four years after this essay was 

 published, the assertion that the Jacobite party 

 had " almost entirely vanished in 1741 " sounds 

 strange enough: and the passage which contains 

 it is omitted in the third edition of the " Essays/' 

 published in 1748. Nevertheless, Hume was 

 probably right, as the outbreak of '45 was little 

 better than a Highland raid, and the Pretender 

 obtained no important following in the Lowlands. 



No less curious, in comparison with what would 

 be said nowadays, is Hume's remark in the essay 

 on the " Rise of the Arts and Sciences " that 

 "The English are become sensible of the scandalous 

 licentiousness of their stage from the example of the French 

 decency and morals." (III. 135.) 



And it is perhaps as surprising to be told, by a 

 man of Hume's literary power, that the first polite 

 prose in the English language was written by 

 Swift. Locke and Temple (with whom Sprat is 



