d not so long have been kept out of view,
had it not been that, till very recently, no historian at all worthy of
the name has approached the subject of English history during the
eighteenth century. The immortal work of Hume, as all the world knows,
comes down only to the Revolution of 1688; and of the subsequent period,
down to that when his history was written, in 1760, he has told us only
that the monopoly of offices, places, and opinions, by the dominant Whig
party, had been so close and uninterrupted, that it had well-nigh rendered
it impossible to arrive at the truth on the subject. Smollett, whose
continuation of Hume is to be seen in every bookseller's window beside its
great predecessor, is wholly unworthy of the honourable place which
chance, and the neglect of others, have hitherto assigned it. Admirable as
a novelist--at least as that character was understood in those
days--graphic, entertaining, humourous--Smollett had none of the qualities
necessary for a historian. He was neither a soldier nor an orator, a poet
nor a philosopher. The campaigns of Marlborough, the eloquence of Chatham,
were alike lost upon him. He was neither warmed by the victory of Blenheim
nor the death of Wolfe: the adventures of Charles Edward and the disasters
of Saratoga, were narrated with the same imperturbable phlegm. As to
philosophic views of the progress of society, or the social and political
effects of the Revolution of 1688 and the Reformation, the thing was out
of the question: it neither belonged to his age nor character, to dream of
any thing of the kind. He was, in his history at least, a mere
bookseller's hack, who compiled a very dull and uninteresting work from
the information, scanty during his period, which the _Annual Register_ and
_Parliamentary History_ afforded. If a greater annalist than he do not
arise to do justice to his merits, the fame even of Marlborough will never
descend, at least in its full proportions, to future generations.

It is deeply to be regretted that Sir James Mackintosh did not complete
his long-cherished design of continuing Hume's history. No man, since
Hume's time, possessed so many qualifications for the undertaking. To an
incomparable talent for depicting character, and a luminous philosophic
mind, he joined great erudition, extensive knowledge, and a practical
acquaintance both with statesmen and ordinary life. Though he was a party
man, and had early taken, in his _Vindiciae Gallicae