Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary - Faculty of Social Sciences

68 IIISTORY OF THE EDITIONS.of the argument, to what is here insisted on, and containedmnch erudition and good reasoning. The author acknowledgesto have borrow'd, with some variations, from that discourse,two coinputations, that with regard to the number ofiiihabitants in Belgium, and that with regard to those inEpirus. If this learned gentleman be prevail'd on to publishhis dissertation, it will serve to give great light into the presentquestion, the most curious and important of all questionsof erudition.'Dr. Wallace accepted the invitation, and published hisdiscourse the year following anonymously: 'A dissertationon the numbers of mankind in antient and modern times ;with an appendix containing observations on the same subject,and remarks on Mr. Hume's discourse on the populousnessof antient nations.' Hence in the editions from 1756 to1768 another note was substituted for the preceding :' An ingenious writer has honoured this discourse with ananswer, full of politeness, erudition, and good sense. Solearned a refutation would have made the author suspect,that his reasonings were entirely overthrown, had he notused the precaution, from the beginning, to keep himself onthe sceptical side ; and having taken this advantage of theground, he was enabled, tho' with much inferior forces, topreserve himself from a total defeat. That Reverend gentlemanwill always find, where his antagonist is so entrenched,that it will be difficult to force him. VARRO, in such a situation,could defend himself against HANNIBAL, PHARNACESagainst CZSAR. The author, however, very willingly acknowledges,that his antagonist has detected many mistakes bothin his authorities and reasonings ; and it was owing entirely.to that gentleman's indulgence, that many more errors werenot remarked. In this edition, advantage has been taken ofhis learned animadversions, and the Essay has been renderedless imperfect than formerly.'Nevertheless, the corrections introduced at Dr. Wallace'ss~lggestion are very few, and the vast majority of the ' animadversions'were passed orer in silence. A misquotationfrom Livy was omitted : l a paragaph was inserted quotingJustin a ; a new note was given to strengthen the argumentabout Tllebes :3 and a trifling correction was introduced in aI Page 386. Page 425. a Page 422.HISTORY OF TEIE IIDI'I'IONS. 69reference to Diodorus.* Perhaps this list exliausts the alterationswhich were due to Dr. Wallace."The circumstances under which the paper, Of the ProtestantSaccession, was inserted in this volume, have alreadybeen detailed.3In 1752 Hume was appointed Keeper of the Advocates'Library. This position, giving him ' the coinmand of a largelibrary,' finally determined hiin to gratify his long cherisheddesign of writing history, and froin this time he almostabandoned philosophy. The first volume of the History ofGreat Britain, containing the reigns of James I. andCharles I., appeared in the autumn of 1754. Previously,however, he had collected the varied labours of thirteen yearsin a uiiiform edition, in four volumes ; the first three beingpublished in 1753, and the fourth in 1754. In a letter toAdam Smith, September 24, 1752, he says :I am just now diverted for a moment, by correcting my"Essays Moral and Political," for a new edition. If anything occur to you to be inserted or retrenched, I shall beobliged to you for the hint. In case you should not have thelast edition by you, I shall send you a copy of it. In thatedition I was engaged to act contrary to my judgment, inretaining the sixth and seventh Essays, which I had resolvedto throw out, as too frivolous for the rest, and not very agreeableneither, even in that trifling manner : but Millar, mybookseller, made such protestations against it, and told mehow much he had heard them praised by the best judges,that the bowels of a parent melted, and I preserved themalive.'For the second time Hume relented ; no change was madein the list of contents, but the numerous notes added in thisedition, abounding in references to Greek and Latin literature,show how well he used the Advocates' Library.About this period Hume began a translation of Plntarch'sLives, but so011 laid it aside. He declined an invitationfroin Millar to edit a newspaper ill London. In 1756 thesecond volume of the History brought down the narrativeto tlle Revolut~ion.' Page 424.was taken of the objection.* He also olljected. tliat he co~lltl not Vol. i. p. 440.firid thc jla's,1gfs r( ft.1.1.cltl to in I~ocarilt ob' Life. 1-01. i. p. 375.l'ari~g~rrt- (1101~ 6 p :if)( ). but 110 tlotita~