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“2. The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius CÆSAR to the Abdication of James the Second, 1688, By DAVID HUME, Esq. A New Edition, with the Author’s Last Corrections and Improvements, and a Short Account of his Life, written by himself. Vols. I. and II. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1849. 12mo,” The North American Review, vol. 69, no. 145 (October 1849), pp. 527–8.
[Francis Bowen]
Francis Bowen (1811–90) was an author and philosopher. As editor of The North American Review from 1843 to 1853, Bowen wrote dozens of reviews on a wide range of subjects. A few years after this review was published, Bowen was appointed Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard. In his Lowell Lectures, on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science (Boston, 1849), Bowen was critical of Hume’s philosophical thought. Bowen’s authorship of this review is attributed in William Cushing, Index to the North American Review (Cambridge, 1878), p. 120. On Bowen see Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck, eds., Cyclopaedia of American Literature (reprinted Philadelphia, 1965), vol. 2, p. 483; R. Douglas Geivett, “Francis Bowen,” ANB, vol. 3, pp. 276–7.
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Boston Edition of Hume’s History
THE estimation in which Hume’s great work is held is rather remarkable. It is the fashion to abuse it; every year or two we have a fresh expression of its errors, its deficiencies, and its mis-statements. If we are to heed the critics, it is one of the most untrustworthy books ever published, almost every page betraying either the carelessness or the political bias of the writer. But with all its faults, the book is immortal; it has pushed its predecessors off the shelves of ordinary libraries, and has not given place, even for a time, to one of the numerous histories that have since appeared under the pretence of correcting its blunders and imperfections. And the best advice that can be given even now to the diligent student of English history is to read Hume first, and Henry, Lingard, Hallam, Brodie, Guizot, Aikin, and a host of others, afterwards. Any one of these later candidates for public favor may be omitted without material loss; Hume alone is indispensable. The secret and inimitable beauties of his style, his fascinating manner as a narrator, the consummate finish and vivacity of his sketches of character, the admirable distribution of his work, no part being overloaded and the proper historical perspective being always preserved, and the distinct and vivid impressions which are given of the course of events, are qualities that will secure him readers as long as the English language endures. He is also a philosophical writer, though he does not overlay his pages with vague speculation in the manner which is now so much in vogue. His general remarks on character and life, his observations on the peculiarities of an age or a race, and his indications of the causal connection of events, are always shrewd and entertaining, and most frequently just; yet they are insinuated without parade, and never interrupt the flow of the narrative.
But the greatest compliment that Hume’s work ever received is that which has just been paid to it perforce by the most brilliant and captivating of English writers of our own day. The all-accomplished Mr. Macaulay, who seems to have been born for the sole purpose of making English history as fascinating as one of Scott’s romances, durst not enter into competition with his great predecessor, but modestly begins his history almost at the point where Hume’s terminates. It is not that this later period which he has chosen offers a more tempting field for the historian, or that his previous studies had rendered him more familiar with it; on the contrary, the reigns of Elizabeth and of the first three Stuarts are far more varied in interest, open a wider range of characters and events, and are altogether a more suitable theme for the exercise of Mr. Macaulay’s talents than the period beginning with the accession of James the Second. Hume’s account of the last of the Stuarts is confessedly a mere sketch, thrown in at the end of a work which properly terminates at the death of Charles the Second, and is certainly executed with less care and finish than the body of the history. Yet here only does Macaulay venture to come in competition with him, and the progress of the former’s work will lead him far out of the track of his formidable rival. He evidently prefers to be a continuator of Hume rather than to wrestle with him on his own ground.
It is with great propriety, then, that the Boston publishers have put forth a very neat library edition of Hume, to match in every respect with their popular reprint of Macaulay. The size of the volumes is that which is most convenient to be held in the hands, and read without support either from table or desk; and their mechanical execution is quite elegant enough to satisfy the modest taste of those who are obliged to count the cost in their purchases of books. They are not rich enough to serve as ornaments to the drawing-room and centre-table, a use to which too many good books are now degraded; but they will not disgrace the corner of a book-shelf, and they can be read without peril to the eyesight. To multiply serviceable editions of standard works, being a greater service to literature in this country than to publish novelties which have nothing to recommend them but their novelty, we have thought it right to say thus much in commendation of the publishers’ enterprise.