in the later editions. "He [the king] issued proclamations against this manifest usurpation; the most precipitant and most enormous of which there is any instance in the English history."
On one incident of some importance in history, he was obliged materially to change his ground of argument, yet would not alter his original opinion. During the fervour of the civil wars in 1646, Lord Glamorgan had in the name of Charles I. concluded a treaty with the confederated Irish Catholics, by which, on the condition of their aiding the king, besides other concessions, the Roman Catholic religion was to be restored to its old supremacy through a great part of Ireland. Ormond, the lord lieutenant, charged Glamorgan with high treason: but he produced two commissions from the king. The king disowned the commissions: but the parliament believed in their genuineness.—It was in this shape that the matter
appeared in the first instance before Hume. In his first edition he accordingly maintained that the commissions were forgeries; and a long note, explanatory of the grounds of this belief, is a remarkable instance of a plausible fabric of historical reasoning, doomed afterwards to fall to pieces by the removal of its foundation. Before he published his second edition, he received a letter from the Rev. John Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle,[78:1] who was intrusted with the editing of the Clarendon Papers. In this communication, the reverend gentleman regrets that he cannot send to Hume a letter written by Glamorgan, describing the method in which the commissions were actually prepared, and its object; but he gives an account of the contents of the letter.[78:2] Hume could no longer hold that the commissions were not genuine: but he still maintained Charles to be guiltless; and though they were unknown to the lord lieutenant, and bore no attestation of having passed through the proper offices, he still argued that Glamorgan, in treating with the Irish, though he was within the letter of his very wide powers, must have exceeded his instructions; and ingeniously pointed to his work, "The century of Inventions," in connexion with which Lord Glamorgan is better known, by his subsequent title of Marquis of Worcester, as the production of a man who never could have been trusted with powers so extensive as those which he arrogated.
Besides the variations in political opinion, there were in the subsequent editions of Hume's History other alterations suggested by other influences. His opinions were self-formed, and he jealously protected them in their formation from the influence of other minds; but in the cultivation of his style he sought assistance with
avidity from all who could afford it. Hence he appears to have earnestly solicited the aid of Lyttelton, Mallet, and others, whose experience of English composition might enable them to detect Scotticisms.
Before they went to press, his compositions underwent a minute and rigorous correction. His manuscripts, as the small fac-simile engraved for these volumes shows, were subjected to a painful revisal. We sometimes find him, after he has adopted a form of expression, scoring it out and substituting another; but again, on a comparison of their mutual merits, restoring the rejected form, and perhaps again discarding it when he has lighted on a happier collocation of words.[79:1]
It is worthy of remark, that his most brilliant passages are those which bear the least appearance of
being amended. It is not thence to be inferred that these passages sprang from his mind in their full symmetry and beauty: but rather that they had been elaborated, and made ready for insertion in their proper place, before they were put in writing.