Hume to the Earl of Balcarres.
"Edinburgh, 17th December, 1754.
"My Lord,—I did really intend to have paid my respects to your lordship this harvest; but I have got into such a recluse, studious habit, that I believe myself only fit to converse with books; and, however I may pretend to be acquainted with dead kings, shall become quite unsuitable for my friends and cotemporaries. Besides, the great gulf that is fixed between us terrifies me. I am not only very sick at sea, but often can scarce get over the sickness for some days.
"I am very proud that my History, even upon second thoughts, appears to have something tolerable in your lordship's eyes. It has been very much canvassed and read here in town, as I am told; and it has full as many inveterate enemies as partial defenders. The misfortune of a book, says Boileau, is not the being ill spoke of, but the not being spoken of at all. The sale has been very considerable here, about four hundred and fifty copies in five weeks. How it has succeeded in London, I cannot precisely tell; only I observe that some of the weekly papers have been busy with me.—I am as great an Atheist as Bolingbroke; as great a Jacobite as Carte; I cannot write English, &c. I do, indeed, observe that the book is in general rather more agreeable to those they call Tories; and I believe, chiefly for this
reason, that, having no places to bestow, they are naturally more moderate in their expectations from a writer. A Whig, who can give hundreds a-year, will not be contented with small sacrifices of truth; and most authors are willing to purchase favour at so reasonable a price.
"I wish it were in my power to pass this Christmas at Balcarres. I should be glad to accompany your lordship in your rural improvements, and return thence to relish with pleasure the comforts of your fireside. You enjoy peace and contentment, my lord, which all the power and wealth of the nation cannot give to our rulers. The whole ministry, they say, is by the ears. This quarrel, I hope, they will fight out among themselves, and not expect to draw us in as formerly, by pretending it is for our good. We will not be the dupes twice in our life.
"I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's most obedient and most humble servant."[413:1]
The literary success that would satisfy Hume
required to be of no small amount. Though neither, in any sense, a vain man, nor a caterer for ephemeral applause, he was greedy of fame; and what would have been to others pre-eminent success, appears to have, in his eyes, scarcely risen above failure. His expressions about the reception of his History, have a tinge of morbidness. In John Home's memorandum of his latest conversations, it is said that "he recurred to a subject not unfrequent with him, that is, the design to ruin him as an author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of his History."[414:1] In his "own life," written at the same time, the only passage truly bitter in its tone, gives fuller expression to a like feeling:—"I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, Churchman and Sectary, Freethinker and Religionist, Patriot and Courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard
of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.