taught, and to begin anew the laborious task of investigation after you thought it had been completed. To afsist you as much as is in my power, I fhall endeavour to give you some general notions of what you are to expect in the writings of some of our most celebrated authors. To know the general character of these writers, will put you on your guard in reading their works, and will the better enable you to avoid their errors, and to benefit by their knowledge.

HUME is, with justice, accounted a writer of the first rank in this nation. He pofsefsed great energy of mind, a strong nervous mode of expression, and a concise and perspicuous stile. Few authors have written with greater perspicuity, and none knew better than he did how to place a favourite object in a conspicuous point of view, or to sink what did not serve his purpose in the fhade, or to keep it entirely out of sight. Yet with all these talents he had great defects. Nature bestowed upon him strong mental powers; but he relied too much on their afsistance. He was indolent in research; and wished to enjoy literary fame at as small an expence of this kind of literary drudgery as pofsible. Fond of metaphysical investigations, which gave full scope to his speculative ardour without much extraneous research, he attached himself to that mode of reasoning from his earliest infancy'; and never could depart from it. Hence it has happened that his reasoning, though specious and plausible, is often sophistical and erroneous. His notions of political economy, not being founded on facts, but

on the

307 imaginations of his own mind, are, in general, crude, and imperfect; and his speculations on these subjects fallacious. Being a stranger to mathematical knowledge, and in nowise versant in general physics, he was unable to appreciate the merit of a Bacon or a Newton. Their works made nearly the same impression on his mind, as a description of colours may probably produce on the imagination of a blind man. A Shakespeare and a Milton were, in like manner, greatly beyond the sphere of his mental ken. Destitute of those perceptions, which convey to the mind those exquisite sensations denominated by the word taste, he read their writings with a frigid indifference, and wondered what any person could see in them, to excite those extravagant emotions which he viewed as little fhort of insanity. To the pleasures and pains of love, he too was a stranger *. Can we then wonder that the judgement he formed of men and things was often erroneous? Yet his chief aim, in every part of his history, is to represent the actions of men as proceeding from motives which were familiar to him. It is therefore uniformly tinged with a colouring, that is far from pofsefsing that infinite diversity which nature invariably produces; and which Shakespeare would have imitated. In accompanying him, you

*Never was a more unnatural connection formed between two men, than that which was attempted between Hume and Rousseau. It was like an attempt to unite fire and ice. The result is well known. It was exactly what any man of sense who knew them both could have predicted. Hume and Rousseau no more understood each other, than if the one had known no other language but Hebrew, and the other English,

Feb. 27 are introduced into a fairy land, which is extremely beautiful while you fkim the surface only; but no sooner do you attempt to enter more deeply on the subject, than you find you have been deceived at every step; and that nothing can be more fallacious than the picture he has given of the transactions that have come under his review.

ROBERTSON pofsefses talents of a different kind, that are not less conspicuous, and defects that as necefsarily result from these, as those which belonged to his illustrious cotemporary. His mind, lefs vigorous, though more cultivated, dared not to range so much at large in the regions of Parnafsus. He hazards not such daring thoughts; nor clothes them in such ardent exprefsions. His language is easy, flowing, and correct; his periods musical, and elegantly rounded; but his thoughts are not so natural nor so easy; nor dares he venture to be so concise and clear. No adept in the principles of political legislation, and conscious of this defect, he tries to conceal it by a combination of beautiful words, which, though conveying no precise ideas, seem to discover great depth of reasoning to those who are no better informed than himself. Unable too to trace the actions of men from those principles that affected their various minds, he has contrived to write in a manner that did not render this defect perceptible. His history is a string of aphorisms, of which the events he relates are adduced as illustrations; the mind is therefore prejudiced before it becomes acquainted with the facts on which that judgepient is founded. And should it happen, that the

facts, as they really occurred, do not prove exact illustrations of the aphorsim, can we be surprised that they should be sometimes so moulded as to make them seem perfectly fitted for the purpose? From this mode of writing history, you will easily perceive that accurate information is not to be obtained.

But notwithstanding these great defects, it is not without reason that Dr Robertson has obtained a very high degree of applause: for few writers, perhaps, in any tongue, have excelled him in the purity of his language, in the luxuriant flow of his sentences, and the elegant turning of his periods; and in regard to the perspicuity of his arrangement, and the distinctness of his narrative, where he confines himself to narrative alone, I conceive that he leaves all other writers far behind him. This peculiarity gives to his writings a charm, that an indolent reader searches for in vain in other performances. And though a man of deep knowledge is disgusted at his political remarks, and the mere Tyro in philosophy smiles at his physical observations, yet his writings will be read with pleasure, even by the learned, where they can get over these stumbling blocks; and by the careless votaries of pleasure and amusement, they will be long prized as possessing inestimable beauties. If you read them with proper discrimination, you will be both pleased and informed: but never forget that though you may thus obtain a tolerable idea of some of the resting places on the road through which you have travelled, yet you must not depend upon your knowledge of the country from these sources.

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As to DR JOHNSON, concerning whom you are so anxious to have my opinion, I fear you will not find my notions quadrate with your own on that subject. Nature formed for him a gigantic mind. Education and habit reduced it to the stature of a dwarf. Relying upon that kind of intuitive store, which nature had conferred so liberally upon him, he, like a spendthrift heir, was 'continually drawing upon this as a bank his draughts were of course often dishonoured; and on these occasions, noise, bombast, and impertinence, were substituted for wit and argument. He was a miserable being, perpetually despising others, because he saw that they had not perceptions adequate to his own; and perpetually acting absurdities, that placed him below the meanest of his companions. He struggled through life, till near the last period of it, in poverty and continued warfare, despising and despised, unless by a few who ministered to his vanity, that they might derive some consequence from it in the eyes of the multitude, and some profit after his death. And they have satiated themselves upon his remains abundantly.

His writings are, what might have been expected from such a man. Towards the latter part of his days, when he thought he could indulge his humour, there are many strong and luminous flashes, buried among a chaos of rubbish and confusion. Yet even

that chaotic mass has something of the terrible and sublime; the flashes that there occur are like the glare of lightning, that serve to make the impression of the gloom more awful; but nothing is just, natu-.