philosophic historian. To this may be added the
admirable clearness and rhetorical powers with which he has stated the
principal arguments for and against the great changes in the English
institutions which it fell to his lot to recount--arguments far abler
than were either used by, or occurred to, the actors by whom they were
brought about; for it is seldom that a Hume is found in the councils
of men. With equal ability, too, he has given periodical sketches of
manners, customs, and habits, mingled with valuable details on
finance, commerce, and prices--all elements, and most important ones,
in the formation of philosophical history. We owe a deep debt of
gratitude to the man who has rescued these important facts from the
ponderous folios where they were slumbering in forgotten obscurity,
and brought them into the broad light of philosophic observation and
popular narrative. But, notwithstanding all this, Hume is far from
being gifted with the philosophy of history. He has collected or
prepared many of the facts necessary for the science, but he has made
little progress in it himself. He was essentially a sceptic. He aimed
rather at spreading doubts than shedding light. Like Voltaire and
Gibbon, he was scandalously prejudiced and unjust on the subject of
religion; and to write modern history without correct views on that
subject, is like playing Hamlet without the character of the Prince of
Denmark. He was too indolent to acquire the vast store of facts
indispensable for correct generalization on the varied theatre of
human affairs, and often drew hasty and incorrect conclusions from the
events which particularly came under his observation. Thus the
repeated indecisive battles between the fleets of Charles II. and the
Dutch, drew from him the observation, apparently justified by their
results, that sea-fights are seldom so important or decisive as those
at land. The fact is just the reverse. Witness the battle of Salamis,
which repelled from Europe the tide of Persian invasion; that of
Actium, which gave a master to the Roman world; that of Sluys, which
exposed France to the dreadful English invasions, begun under Edward
III.; that of Lepanto, which rolled back from Christendom the wave of
Mahometan conquest; the defeat of the Armada, which permanently
established the Reformation in Northern Europe; that of La Hogue,
which broke the maritime strength of Louis XIV.; that of Trafalgar,
which for ever took "ships, colonies