'A Chief Standard Work': the Rise and Fall of David Hume's' History of England'. 1754-C. 1900
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’A CHIEF STANDARD WORK’: THE RISE AND FALL OF DAVID HUME’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1754-C.1900. UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PhD THESIS JAMES ANDREW GEORGE BAVERSTOCK UNIVERSITY COLLEGE [LONOIK. ProQuest Number: 10018558 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10018558 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract. This thesis examines the influence of David Hume’s History of England during the century of its greatest popularity. It explores how far the long-term fortunes of Hume’s text matched his original aims for the work. Hume’s success in creating a classic popular narrative is demonstrated, but is contrasted with the History's failure to promote the polite ’coalition of parties’ he wished for. Whilst showing that Hume’s popularity contributed to tempering some of the teleological excesses of the ’whig version’ of English history, it is stressed that his work signally failed in dampening ’Whig’/ ’Tory’ conflict. Rather than provide a new frame of reference for British politics, as Hume had intended, the History was absorbed into national political culture as a ’Tory’ text - with important consequences for Hume’s general reputation as a thinker. The twin themes, then, around which the thesis develops, are the reasons for the History’s phenomenal success, and the party-politicised nature of its reputation. These developments are shown to have been closely related, and were both accentuated by the British reaction to the French Revolution. Hume’s prominent role as a party totem in literary periodicals is highlighted, but his actual influence on early nineteenth-century ’Tory’ historians is shown to have been shallow alongside varieties of Whig ’compromise’ with his work, which are 3 followed from late eighteenth-century compilation histories, through the works of Hallam and his contemporaries, to mid nineteenth-century children's histories. The decline in Whig/Tory partisanship in the literary world of the later nineteenth century is shown to have contributed to the History* s declining relevance. Ironically, the 'Tory' reputation which frustrated Hume's supra-party intentions for his History can be seen to have been crucial in maintaining its central role in British political culture for over a century. Contents. Introduction. 7 Chapter One. 'Reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation'? Contemporary criticism and usage of Hume's History before the French Revolution. Introduction. 17 1. 'Miserable was my disappointment': Hume and the criticism of his History. 21 2. 'A generous tear for the fate of Charles 1' : Hume and the politics of church and state. 33 3. 'A regular plan of liberty'? The Humean interpretation of constitutional history: opposition and adoption. 57 4. Scholarship, style and method. The reputation of the History to the 1790s. 72 Conclusion. 79 Chapter Two. 'The Tory side'? The impact of the French Revolution, the new 'Toryism' and Hume's History. Introduction. 85 1. Polarisation. The crisis of the 1790s. 88 2. Organicism and evangelicalism. The anti- Enlightenment reaction. 99 3. 'The declension of Whig sentiments': A 'Tory' 5 interpretation of history? 112 Conclusion. 142 Chapter Three. 'Senseless clamour'? The History and Whiggery in the first half of the nineteenth century. Introduction. 146 1. Speculative and classical history. John Millar and Charles James Fox. 147 2. Party-political history. The Edinburgh Review and anti-Tory periodicals. 156 3. The 'Whig compromise'. Henry Hallam and Lord John Russell. 170 4. 'Instructive and affecting': Mackintosh and Macaulay's histories of England. 178 Conclusion. 190 Chapter Four. 'A possession for all time'? The History's reputation in the nineteenth century. Introduction. 192 1. 'A chief standard work': The early nineteenth-century supremacy of Hume's History. 194 2. Mid-century. Hume's supremacy undermined. 217 3. Indian summer. The later nineteenth century. 236 Conclusion. 245 Chapter Five. 'Additional lustre'? Popularisations, illustrations and continuations of Hume. 249 Introduction. 1. 'Suited to every capacity': The popularisation and illustration of Hume. 252 2. 'Catchpenny chaos': Continuations of Hume. 286 Conclusion. 296 Conclusion. 300 Bibliography. 312 Introduction. The writing of English history in late Hanoverian and early Victorian Britain was overshadowed by the resounding success enjoyed by David Hume's History of England. From shortly after its publication in the mid-eighteenth century, Hume's text acquired an intimidating stature. This was maintained through to the second quarter of the nineteenth - the History being commonly regarded in this period as the 'standard work' on the subject. The effect this had on ways in which the national past was commonly interpreted is especially interesting, given that Hume himself had clearly defined ambitions for his History. He had designed the work to encourage a distaste for political enthusiasms and pointless party conflict among the English public, by undermining the dangerous idealism inspired by Whig worship of the 'ancient constitution', as well as the 'divine right' theories associated with the Tories. This thesis examines the ways in which British political culture resisted many elements of Humean history, whilst absorbing others, over the course of the century when it stood as English history's central narrative. Hume's distaste for 'patriotism', his pro-French cultural sympathies, and cool attitude towards English 'liberties' make him seem an odd candidate for 'standard' historian in an era when whiggish history enjoyed something of a golden age. These, and other paradoxes surrounding his 8 reputation as a historical writer have deterred serious investigation of it, whilst Namierite scorn for study of the meanings of ’Toryism' in a late eighteenth-century context has similarly contributed to discourage examination of the fortunes of a text which contemporaries regarded as a key 'Tory' work. Questions obviously need to be answered concerning how influential the History actually was, and whether it was influential in the ways in which Hume had intended it to be. It seems especially apt to ask such questions now, when after a long period of critical neglect the study of Hume's History has begun to attract serious attention again. Forbes's Hume's Philosophical Politics opened the way for a serious reconsideration of the History's place in Hume's philosophical system, and books by Wexler and Phillipson have examined the internal structure of the work, and its relation to Hume's literary career in detail.^ This revived interest has taken place over a wide academic front: literary scholars have advanced our understanding of how Hume's work related to the conventions of the contemporary world of polite letters; political philosophers have shown the coherence of thought between the History and Hume's Essays : and historians have furthered our understanding of Hume's Scottish \ D. Forbes, Hume's Philosophical Politics (Cambridge, 1975), section III; V.G. Wexler, David Hume and the 'History of England' (Philadelphia, 1979); N. Phillipson, Hume (London, 1989). 9 Enlightenment context.^ Less examination, however, has been devoted to the study of the reception and subsequent influence of Hume's History. Mossner's scouring of contemporary journals for his monumental Life of David Hume has usually been taken as sufficient. For example, a recent 'Eng. Lit.' approach to Hume's reception - Christensen's Practicing Enlightenment - produced nothing new in terms of primary material.^ Yet, as this thesis will show, there is a good deal of relevant matter beyond that explored by Mossner, to further our understanding of the status of Hume's History, and its important long-term impact on the writing of British history. The lack of work on Hume's historical reputation is related to our deficient understanding of British historiography as a whole in the late Hanoverian era. The fact that the standard account of this subject is still T.P. Peardon's very broad study The Transition in English Historical Writihg, 1760-1830 (1933), shows how this period has suffered neglect relative to the much-studied Victorian heyday of Macaulay and Carlyle. The later nineteenth ^ Prominent examples include J.C. HiIson, 'Hume, the Historian as Man of Feeling, ' in Augustan Worlds, ed. J.C. Hilson, M.M.B. Jones & J.R. Watson (Leicester, 1978), pp. 205-22; M.A. Box, The Suasive Art of David Hume (Princeton, 1990), is very interesting on Hume as polite writer, but unfortunately does not consider the History; D. Miller, Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought (Oxford, 1981); R.B. Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment. The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1985). ^ J. Christensen, Practicing Enlightenment. Hume and the Formation of a Literary Career (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987) . 10 century has also been better served, having recently inspired a number of fine academic biographies of historians, and treatments of the professionalisation