den told Sir Robert Filmore that he was not suffered to print all his
annals of Elizabeth; but he providently sent these expurgated passages
to De Thou, who printed them faithfully; and it is remarkable that De
Thou himself used the same precaution in the continuation of his own
history. We like remote truths, but truths too near us never fail to
alarm ourselves, our connexions, and our party. Milton, in composing his
History of England, introduced, in the third book, a very remarkable
digression, on the characters of the Long Parliament; a most animated
description of a class of political adventurers with whom modern history
has presented many parallels. From tenderness to a party then imagined
to be subdued, it was struck out by command, nor do I find it restituted
in Kennett's Collection of English Histories. This admirable and
exquisite delineation has been preserved in a pamphlet printed in 1681,
which has fortunately exhibited one of the warmest pictures in design
and colouring by a master's hand. One of our most important volumes of
secret history, "Whitelocke's Memorials," was published by Arthur, Earl
of Anglesea, in 1682, who took considerable liberties with the
manuscript; another edition appeared in 1732, which restored the many
important passages through which the earl appears to have struck his
castrating pen. The restitution of the castrated passages has not much
increased the magnitude of this folio volume; for the omissions usually
consisted of a characteristic stroke, or short critical opinion, which
did not harmonise with the private feelings of the Earl of Anglesea. In
consequence of the volume not being much enlarged to the eye, and being
unaccompanied by a single line of preface to inform us of the value of
this more complete edition, the booksellers imagine that there can be no
material difference between the two editions, and wonder at the
bibliopolical mystery that they can afford to sell the edition of 1682
at ten shillings, and have five guineas for the edition of 1732! Hume
who, I have been told, wrote his history usually on a sofa, with the
epicurean indolence of his fine genius, always refers to the old
truncated and faithless edition of Whitelocke--so little in his day did
the critical history of books enter into the studies of authors, or such
was the carelessness of our historian! There is more philosophy in
_editions_ than some philosophers are aware of. Perhaps most "Memoirs"
have been u