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“Critical Remarks on some of the most eminent Historians of England. [From Gardenstone’s Miscellanies.],” The New York Magazine, or Literary Repository, (June 1797), pp. 295–300.
[Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone]
Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone (1721–93), a Scottish jurist, was Judge on the Scottish Courts of Session and Justiciary. “Critical Remarks on some of the most eminent Historians of England,” provided an excerpt from Garden’s Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; Including Remarks on English Plays, Operas, and Farces, And on a Variety of Other Modern Publications (Edinburgh, 1791). For another modern reprinting of this piece, and much else of value related to Hume’s History, see James Fieser, ed. Early Responses to Hume’s “History of England” (2002; revised edition, Bristol, 2005), pp. 188–92; which is vol. 8 in his 10-volume set, Early Responses to Hume. On The New York Magazine, see selection #97.
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Critical Remarks on some of the most eminent Historians of England. [From Gardenstone’s Miscellanies.]
THOUGH we are now in the close of the eighteenth century, the history of this island has never been studied with proper attention. That portion of it, in particular, which precedes the reformation, seems, at present, buried in profound neglect. For this misfortune, sufficient reasons may be assigned; an hundred and fifty years were wasted in theological frenzy, or in defeating the tyranny of the house of Stuart, and a modern compiler of general history is strongly tempted to rush with precipitation over the remoter periods, and to reserve his abilities and research for those later scenes, in which a reader of the present day is more heartily interested. — On some of these modern authors, a few candid observations may repay a perusal.
The name of RAPIN is now almost forgotten; and Mr. Hume in the end of this English History, has branded him as an author “the most despicable both in style and matter.” The censure is invidious, and unjust: His work contains an immense multitude of interesting circumstances, wholly omitted by the Scottish author. From his personal situation, a classical composition was not to be expected. He wrote a more complete General History of England than had ever appeared in this country; and whatever be his faults, it would be ungenerous to deny his uncommon merit.
SALMON made an essay on the same subject. Though short, it contains much information, which is not to be found in more voluminous historians of England. His own reflexions are brief, lively, and sensible. It is usual to represent Richard III. as deformed and decrepid; yet these very authors inform us, that he unhorsed and killed with his own hand the standard-bearer of Henry VII. who was reputed to be the strongest knight in the rebel army. The inconsistency of these two stories is pointed out by Salmon. He has left behind him no work of very superior value, yet he must have been an author of superior abilities; for, without becoming tiresome, he has written more than most of us have read.
The same remarks apply with equal justice to Dr. SMOLLET. The immense bulk of his writings proves that he composed with greater facility than ordinary men are able to converse. By his own account, in the expedition of Humphrey Clinker, it appears that he very often wrote merely for wages; and on such occasions, nothing above mediocrity can with reason be demanded. The continuation of his English History, from 1748 to 1764, is a mere catchpenny chaos, without even a spark of merit. There is great reason to believe that he, or rather his journeymen, copied at random from somebody else, most of the quotations and references arranged with so much parade on the margin of his text.
GUTHRIE has left behind him more than one ponderous fabric on British history. He had sense, learning, candour; and industry. He had an original manner, and wished to think for himself: But to elegance, he was an entire stranger, and to that happy choice of circumstances which forms an instructive historian; he was often familiar without perspicuity, and prolix without completeness. No writer is at present less popular. A geographical grammar has been printed under his name; but it is generally understood, that he had no share in tis composition.
In point of style, Mr. HUME may be studied as a perfect model. Pure, nervous, eloquent, he is simple without weakness, and sublime without effect. In the art of telling an humorous story, he can never be excelled; and when he chose to exert himself, he was even a considerable master of the pathetic: But it was his misfortune to despise accuracy of research, and fidelity of citation. He was a bitter Tory; and while detection flashed in his face, he commonly adhered to whatever he had once written. His account of the house of Stuart is not the statement of an historian, but the memorial of a pleader in a Court of Justice. He sometimes asserts a positive untruth, contradicted by the very author whom he pretends himself to be quoting; but more commonly gains his purpose, by suppressing the whole evidence on the opposite side of the question. His conduct in the controversy with Mr. Tytler, can hardly be defended: And his injurious treatment of Queen Mary of Scotland is not more disgusting than his farcical panegyrics on the virtues of her posterity. When we examine Mrs. Macaulay’s performance on the same period, we meet with a profusion of interesting intelligence, of which the mere reader of Hume has not the most distant conception. The Scottish historian gives but short and partial excerpts from the writers of the times. His female antagonist, on the other hand, gives large extracts from the original writers; and though to a superficial eye, her work assumes an air less pleasing and classical, what is lost in elegance is fully repaid in authenticity. He is a zealous advocate for the ceremonies of the Church of England. He censures those brave and able men who resisted and defeated her usurpations; and to whom we are, at this day, indebted for our liberties. He attempts to prove, that Episcopacy is preferable to Presbyterianism, and that Laud may be vindicated for persecuting the dissenters. Had Mr. Hume been serious in this opinion, he might have deserved an answer. But on turning over to his Essays, we are surprised by the most stupendous and unblushing contradiction. One chief end of his metaphysical writings is to extinguish every sentiment of religion. The same Court, therefore, which sent Bastwick and Prynne to the pillory, would, with far less injustice, have sent our historian himself to a more decided situation. What are we to think of a professed infidel defending the barbarous insolence of the priesthood?
Mr. Hume has expressed much indignation at that memorable act of justice, the execution of Charles I. His two elder sons ought to have shared the same fate. Their annals are distinguished by endless usurpations, plots, rebellions, and massacres; by two foreign wars, and a revolution. We cannot but observe with the honest Dutchman, that their predecessor “was quite another man.” Had Cromwell survived but for ten years longer, we should have heard no more about the posterity of “the Holy Martyr.”
James I. butchered Sir Walter Raleigh, without the form of a trial. Mr. Hume tells us, that his measure “was esteemed an instance of the utmost cruelty and injustice;” and his vindication of James is one of the most elaborate passages in his whole work. The best of his arguments appears to be, “that no jury would have found Raleigh guilty!”
At the sentence of Lord Bacon, Mr. Hume adds, that James “conferred on him a large pension of eighteen hundred pounds a-year, and employed every expedient to alleviate the weight of his age and misfortunes.” This pension would have been equivalent to six or eight thousand pounds sterling at the present day: And as his Majesty had nothing of his own, it must have been transferred from the pockets of his subjects. The transaction at best could have but resembled an apprentice interfering with his master’s till; a comparison which applies to most other examples of royal munificence. But the fact is, that Bacon, from the time of his sentence, lived as he died, in beggary. On this point, the reader may consult Mrs. Macaulay and her authorities.
Mr. Hume has canted much about the death of Strafford, and claims the merit of having shed some “generous tears” on that subject. All that he says, put together, is not worth a single expression of honest Pym. When Strafford, then a leader of Opposition, for the sake of a place at Court, deserted the public cause; “you have left us,” said Pym, “but we shall not leave you while your head is on your shoulders;” and he kept his word.
No part of our historian’s performance has been more controverted than that relative to Queen Mary. Perhaps the next age may consider her conduct in a light equally different from her present accusers and her apologists. I would met the former on their own ground, and frankly reply, that the brutal insolence of Darnly to his wife, his sovereign, his benefactress, deserved ten deaths; and that Mary, if connected with the conspirators, was at worst but an executioner of justice. If she wanted to depose and destroy Elizabeth, still the ruin of her country, the massacre of her friends, the loss of her kingdom, her liberty, and her child, justified her revenge. Let us, for example, suppose that Mr. Hume had been confined in one of the dungeons of the Holy Office at Lisbon, and that he had obtained a chance of escaping. Query, Would he have refused freedom, for fear of injuring the inquisitor who arrested him? Surely he could not have scrupled at knocking out the brains of the whole fraternity? Many modern historians, and among others, Mr. Hume, have fallen into the practice of quaint wiredrawn portraits. The virtues and literary genius of James I. for instance, are expanded by our author into a quarto page, which can be regarded but as waste paper. As a man of taste, Mr. Hume is often extremely singular. He affirms that Shakespeare “was totally ignorant of all theatrical art and conduct; that it is in vain we look either for continued purity, or simplicity of diction; and that he cannot for any time uphold a reasonable propriety of thought.” There is much more to the same purpose.
Mr. Hume, in common with most of our historians, has omitted to give an account of his materials. A judicious reader, when he sees them perpetually referred to, will ask who is Froissart, and who is Rhymer? Till the accession of the house of Tudor, his narrative is abrupt. For example; the reign of Edward III. extended to almost half a century, and is one of the most busy and memorable in ancient or modern annals. It is compressed by Mr. Hume within an hundred octavo pages, while the reign of Elizabeth alone fills one of his largest volumes. His warmest admirers must allow, that he betrays a wide disproportion of parts in the execution of his plan: But in truth, it was by far too extensive to be completed by any single pen. It was necessary to write a book of a saleable size. As an epitome of English History, it is too large; but as a complete history, it is by far too short. We often see whole folios printed on the antiquities of a single town, or a single country parish. Why then should we think it tiresome to read twenty or thirty volumes on the national history of our ancestors? Mr. Hume, like many men of eminence, has performed too little, by attempting to perform too much; yet his writings afford universal and lasting pleasure. The distinctness of his manner, and the acuteness or plausibility of his general observations, cast a veil over the errors and deficiencies of his narrative.