LX. TURE AND ART. "drawn and quartered for high treason against his CHAP. "mother tongue." "* The principle of Hume might seem to lead almost unavoidably to a choice of LITERAwords, elegant perhaps, and expressive, but in a high degree artificial and elaborate-a choice of words like that of Dr. Johnson, or at best like that of Gibbon. Yet, strange to say, in the case of Hume himself, it led, to what Gibbon most justly terms, the “careless inimitable beauties” of his style. 66 But the superiority of Hume does not rest on style alone. The late Mr. John Allen, an acute and learned critic, wholly opposed in politics to that historian, nevertheless observes of him: "In "vain shall we look elsewhere for those general "and comprehensive views, that sagacity and judgment, those masterly lessons of political ،، wisdom, — that profound knowledge of human "nature, that calm philosophy and dispassionate balancing of human opinions, which delight "and instruct us in the pages of Hume."+ Such praise, though not without some considerable drawbacks and exceptions, is confirmed by the voice of an enlightened people during a long period of years. The perusal of his narrative, upon the * Letter of Mr. Southey to Mr. William Taylor of Norwich, February 14. 1803. + Edinburgh Review, No. Ixxxiii. p. 3. See nearly to the same effect a passage in the Fifth Lecture of Professor Smyth, vol. i. p. 126. HH 4 LITERA ART. CHAP. whole, is found to afford so much both of pleasure LX. and instruction, that, in all probability, it will never cease to be the common guide and handTURE AND book of our history until the Revolution; the student, however, not neglecting those invaluable lights which later writers, and none more than Mr. Hallam, have collaterally brought to bear upon the subject. The attacks upon Revealed Religion in the Essays of Hume, and in the History of Gibbon, were, it is well known, only parts of one great plan, only branches of that evil tree which at this period overshadowed the whole Northern Continent of Europe. A sect-if so it can be called where every thing was doubted and nothing taught arrogating to itself the title of Philosophy, and, with Voltaire for its patriarch, or high-priest, at Ferney, numbered proselytes at every Court from Petersburg to Paris. With very few and not very distinguished exceptions, the whole Literature of those countries was in its hands or under its control. At Berlin, the King himself was among its most zealous votaries, and employed some of those hours of leisure which were left him by the cares of war or sovereignty, in aping the style of the annotators upon Holy Writ, and composing, after the manner of Dom Calmet, some mock comments upon the nursery-tale of Blue Beard! In the Southern states of Europe, the progress of that sect was arrested, not by argument and reason, but rather through the authority of the governments LX. TURE AND ART. and the ignorance of the governed. There the CHAP. most sacred truths came to be classed with despotism and misrule, because they were maintained LITERAby the same means. There the grossest impostures continued to be practised on the people. Of these one remarkable instance, touching the King of Prussia, may be given. The priests in Italy regarded with much displeasure the career of Frederick; his example might be dangerous if it could be thought that so many victories and conquests had been gained by an unbeliever, or even by a heretic. Accordingly they devised a tale explaining his successes entirely to their own satisfaction. Goethe in his youthful wanderings relates how on one occasion he travelled from Bologna through the Apennines in company with a Captain of the Papal army. "Tell me," asked this officer, "may "we trust what we hear from our priests respecting your Frederick the Great? Is it true that "he holds the Catholic faith, but has obtained "from the Pope a dispensation to conceal it? "We know that he never visits any of your Pro"testant Churches, but we are further told that “he has a subterranean chapel beneath his palace, "where he offers up his devotions day by day, "with a heart full of anguish, grieving that he "cannot venture to avow in public our holy religion; for doubtless if he did, his Prussians, "who are all furious heretics, would strike him dead upon the spot. Tell me, is all this really "true?" Goethe answered only as became a 66 66 LX. CHAP. prudent traveller in the Pope's dominions, that since these were deep mysteries of state, no one was precisely informed respecting them.* LITERA TURE AND We Looking then to the intellectual condition of Europe at this time, we find a melancholy scenescepticism on the one side, and superstition on the other. In England the taint of the new philosophers was far less than in France or Germany, yet still their influence may be traced to no small extent, both on its literature and on its society. So early as 1753, the veteran patriot Sir John Barnard could exclaim in the House of Commons: "At present it really seems to be the fashion for "a man to declare himself of no religion." may observe in Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, that even where the recommendations are most laudable, they are seldom, if ever, urged on lofty grounds. So great was the vogue of precepts delivered in that tone, that these Letters passed through no less than four editions in one year. In the case of Hume's Essays, or of Gibbon's History, we may view with some surprise not merely the boldness of their attacks, bnt how little that boldness appears to have affected their fame or fortunes. Even where they did provoke disapprobation, it was sometimes far more timidly and faintly than might have been supposed. Take the instance of Dr. Robertson. He was a leading *See Goethe's Travels in Italy in 1786. (Werke, p. 180. ed. 1830.) † Parl. Hist. vol. xiv. LX. Divine of the Scottish Church. He was the CHAP. Principal of an important University. He was, there is no reason to doubt, a conscientious and LITERAreligious man. He had no such familiar friendship with Gibbon as to warp his judgment. Yet when Gibbon's first volume appeared, we find Dr. Robertson write of it in such terms as these: "I hope the book will be as successful as it deserves "to be. I have not yet read the two last chapters (on the Progress of Christianity) but am sorry, "from what I have heard of them, that he has "taken such a tone in them as will give great "offence and hurt the sale of the book.' If then it be asked, who first in England at this period breasted the waves and stemmed the tide of infidelity—who, enlisting wit and eloquence together with argument and learning on the side of Revealed Religion, first turned the literary current in its favour, and mainly prepared the reaction which succeeded: that praise seems most justly to belong to Dr. Samuel Johnson. Religion was to him no mere lip-service nor cold formality: he was mindful of it in his social hours as much as in his graver lucubrations; and he brought to it, not merely erudition such as few indeed possessed, but the weight of the highest character and the respect which even his enemies could not deny him. It may be said of him, that, though not in Orders, he Letter to Mr. Strahan, dated Edinburgh College, March 15. 1776, and published in Gibbon's Correspondence. TURE AND |