II LATER YEARS 39 



But he liked applause as well as fame, and, to his 

 bitter disappointment, he says : 



"I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and 

 even detestation : English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, 

 Churchman and Sectary, Freethinker and Religionist, Patriot 

 and Courtier, united in their rage against the man who had 

 presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. 

 and the Earl of Strafford ; and after the first ebullitions of their 

 fury were over, what was still more mortifying, the book 

 seemed to fall into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that in a 

 twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, 

 indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable 

 for rank or letters, that could endure the book. I must only 

 except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate of 

 Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These 

 dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be 

 discouraged." 



It certainly is odd to think of David Hume 

 being comforted in his affliction by the inde- 

 pendent and spontaneous sympathy of a pair of 

 archbishops. But the instincts of the dignified 

 prelates guided them rightly ; for, as the great 

 painter of English history in Whig pigments has 

 been careful to point out, 1 Hume's historical 

 picture, though a great work, drawn by a master 

 hand, has all the lights Tory, and all the shades 

 Whig. 



Hume's ecclesiastical enemies seem to have 

 thought that their opportunity had now arrived ; 

 and an attempt was made to get the General 



1 Lord Macaulay, Article on History, Edinburgh Review, vol. 

 Ixvii. 



