rs: from philosophers they
became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
produced "the triumvirate of British historians who," in the words of
Montgomery, "exemplified in their very dissimilar styles the triple
contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor."

Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a _History of
England_, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
them--for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
faith--he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.

HUME.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
studious, systematic, and consistent life.

Although of good family,--being a descendant of the Earl of Home,--he was
in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,--to Paris,
Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
independent, "though," he says, "most of my friends were inclined to smile
when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds."

His earliest work was a _Treatise on Human Nature_, published in 1738,
which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
a volume of _Essays Moral and Political_, the success of which emboldened
him to publish, in 1748, his _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_.
These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
material for which he was soon to find.

In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
_History of England_.