45
“HUME’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND,” The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines, vol. 1, series 2 (15 April 1824), p. 85.
Anonymous
The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines was published in Boston from April 1817 to March 1833. This weekly carried both reprinted and original material. When reprinting material from British sources the editorial policy was to select those items that would be of particular interest to its American audience. See Neal L. Edgar, A History and Bibliography of American Magazines, 1810–1820 (Metuchen, 1975), pp. 106–107; API, pp. 33–4; BAP, pp. 17–18.
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HUME’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
It is not generally known how much Hume revised his History. When living in Edinburgh, busy with that classical composition, he was intimate with an old Jesuit, who, like most of the order, was a scholar, and a man of taste; to his opinion, as the parts were finished, the manuscript work was submitted. Soon after the publication of Elizabeth’s reign, the priest happened to turn over the pages, and was astonished to find on the printed page sins of the Scottish queen that never sullied the written one; Mary’s character was directly the reverse of what he had read before. He sought the author, and asked the cause: “Why, (answered Hume,) the printer said he should lose 500l. by that story; indeed be [sic] almost refused to print it: so I was obliged to revise it as you saw.” It is needless to add, the Jesuit reviewed no more manuscripts.