HUME.

ROBERTSON.

169

the greater part of his views of events and characters,― that he promises, with the aid of a judicious commentary, if such can be obtained, long to continue superior to all rivalry.

The compilation of such a work by an author who could hardly be said to speak the language in which it was expressed, was one of the most remarkable circumstances connected with it. Scotland had hitherto afforded hardly any writers of English who approached classical excellence; and the surprise was accordingly great, when a piece of composition, so graceful amidst all its negligence, was produced on the northern shores of the Tweed. The truth is, that during the reign of George II., a considerable number of learned persons in Scotland had been studying English literature with the greatest zeal; insomuch that, about the time when Mr. Hume's history appeared, societies existed in more than one of the university towns, for the purpose of encouraging not only the writing, but as much as possible the speaking of pure English. The country was now accordingly prepared to produce that brilliant cluster of writers, embracing Hume, Blair, Robertson, Smith, and others, which occupies so prominent a place in the literary history of the period.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1721-1793), a country clergyman, enjoying comparatively few advantages for historical study, published in 1759 his History of Scotland during the reigns of Queen Mary and King James VI., which was at once pronounced to be a still finer specimen of English composition than the work of Hume, though wanting the nervous philosophy of that writer. Encouraged by the success of this effort, Dr. Robertson ventured upon a task requiring far more research and greater grasp of mind, and gave to the world, in 1769, his History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V., with a View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. In this work he had to survey, in the first place, the steps by which the social institutions of antiquity have passed, through the ages of barbarism, into the characteristic features of the state of modern Europe; secondly, he had to commemorate, with

appropriate spirit and dignity, a series of transactions of peculiar interest, extending throughout the better part of a century, and in which the most civilized countries of Europe were engaged. This difficult performance was accomplished with the most perfect success, and with a material increase to the reputation of the author. The last considerable work of Dr. Robertson was his History of America, which appeared in 1777, and is perhaps, on account of its subject, the most entertaining of all his works. From a time immediately subsequent to his first publication, he had enjoyed several considerable preferments, besides a pension of £200 from the king; and being a man of singular prudence, temperance, and natural dignity of character, the latter part of his life was spent in the enjoyment of almost every worldly blessing. His merits as a writer are thus described by one of his biographers: His style is pure, sweet, dignified without stiffness, singularly perspicuous, and often eloquent; the arrangement of his materials is skilful and luminous, his mode of narrative distinct, and his descriptions highly graphical; and he displays a sagacity in the development of causes and effects, and in his judgment of public characters and transactions, - which is very remarkable in one who was brought up in obscurity and retirement. If there is less glow and ardour in his expression of moral and political feelings, than some eminent writers in a free country have manifested, there is, on the other hand, all the candour and impartiality which belongs to a cool temper, when enlightened by knowledge and directed by principle.'

Hume and Robertson were the means of exciting at once a taste in the public for historical reading, and a desire in literary men to rival them in the same department. An elaborate History of the Reign of Henry II. was published by George LORD LYTTLETON, in 176771. DR. ROBERT HENRY (1718-1790), a Scottish clergyman, devoted thirty years of his life to the composition of a History of Great Britain, in which the civil, ecclesiastical, constitutional, literary, and commercial affairs, and the progress of arts and of manners, were each treated in a distinct series of chapters. This work appeared in detached portions at different dates between

GRAINGER.-BIRCH.

171

1771 and 1785, but was brought down no farther than the reign of Henry VIII. It is a perspicuous and useful production, though the author's views and reflections are marked by little force or originality. A Biographical History of England, that is, a history of the lives of the most distinguished characters in the annals of that country, was published in 1769 by the Reverend JAMES GRAINGER, an English clergyman. Lives of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh, Tillotson, Henry Prince of Wales, and others, were written with great research, but in a somewhat dry manner, by DR. THOMAS BIRCH (1705-66), one of the secretaries of the Royal Society. We may also here advert to Dr. Charles Burney's elaborate General History of Music, in four volumes (1776-89), and to Dr. Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry, of like extent, produced between 1774 and 1781,-a work of vast research, and upon the whole accurate, but left incomplete by the author.

In the less ambitious walk of historical composition, where the object was simply to furnish books of a certain extent and form, for the convenience of ordinary readers, the age now under notice was not less distinguished. Indeed, the reign of George II. may be termed the epoch of respectable compilation in England, for, excepting Echard and Kennett, there had not previously existed any literary men who were qualified to put existing knowledge into new shapes with the required dexterity and neatness. A most valuable work, under the title of Universal History, of which the portion devoted to ancient times extended to seven, and the modern part to sixteen volumes, in folio, was brought out by the London booksellers in the reign of George II., and is still a constituent part of every good library. It was written by Bower, Campbell, Guthrie, Sale, Psalmanazar, and other professional authors of eminence. The first of these individuals published a History of the Popes; Campbell was the author of Lives of the Admirals, and of the best articles in the Biographia Britannica; Guthrie published a History of Scotland, a History of England, and a Geographical and Historical Grammar, which has continued in repute almost to our own day; and Sale gained celebrity by translating the

Koran of Mohammed. The three first were natives of Scotland. Dr. Smollett published, in 1758, a History of England, in four quarto volumes, which he is said to have written in the brief space of fourteen months. This work he afterwards brought down to the year 1765. Though, as might be expected, it is superficial in point of information, and much beneath Hume's History in every other respect, the portion which extends from the Revolution to the end of the reign of George II., is usually appended to that superior production, as the best account of the period which as yet exists. Goldsmith, being compelled to resort to compilation for his daily bread, wrote several short histories, which have ever since been very generally used in schools. His History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, published in 1763 in two small volumes, was so much admired at the time as to be generally attributed to Lord Lyttleton. His larger History of England, in four volumes, and his histories of Greece and Rome, received equal approbation. There is, however, no writer of this class who approaches in skill, sprightliness, and energy, to DR. WILLIAM RUSSELL, a native of Selkirkshire, who, in 1779-84, supplied the London booksellers with a History of Modern Europe, in seven volumes; a production which it is at once so brief, so perspicuous, so comprehensive, and so entertaining, that all rivalry appears to be precluded. This work, each volume of which cost the labour of a year, was brought down by the author to 1763, but has been continued by Dr. Coote and other writers to the present time. It is the view of modern European history most proper for the perusal of young persons.

The latter part of the era under review produced a historical work of the first class. EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794) was the son of a gentleman of family and fortune, and thus enabled to devote the whole of the earlier part of his life to study. Instead of applying, however, to the usual academic pursuits, he spent his time chiefly in a course of miscellaneous reading, particularly in the belles lettres, and in the history of man and of the human mind. In his youth he embraced and soon after renounced the Roman Catholic religion, and

displayed many other symptoms of an eccentricity which was perhaps solely attributable to genius. He spent much of his time upon the Continent, and made his first appearance as an author in the French language. At length, while musing one evening amid the ruins of the Capitol at Rome, he formed the resolution to write the history of the decay and overthrow of the great empire of which that city was the metropolis. He soon after proceeded to make the necessary researches; and in 1776 appeared the first volume of this work, under the title of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the remaining five being added in the course of the twelve ensuing years. It has been pronounced by the public to be a performance of vast and accurate research, and of enlarged and philosophical thinking; abounding in splendid passages and curious discussions; and written in a style, which, though affectedly sonorous and occasionally obscure, is such as to display in the author a thorough mastery of the whole compass of the English language. Notwithstanding an oblique attack upon Christianity, which was very generally condemned, it has taken a secure place among the English classics, and must ever form a conspicuous object in the literary history of the eighteenth century.

In this department of literature, we find but few American writers, during this period. Some half dozen respectable histories of the individual colonies were written, among which may be named, a History of Massachusetts by Thomas Hutchinson; one of Rhode Island by John Callender; one of New Hampshire by Dr. Belknap, already named, and an Account of the first Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, by William Stith. The reputation of Dr. Belknap as a historian, and generally as a writer, stands high in his own country. He was a man of genius and taste, and explored various walks of literature with success. *

METAPHYSICAL WRITERS.

Several metaphysical writers of this period have obtained a brilliant reputation, though it is now by some

* AM. ED.