He had many precursors in that sort of amusing speculation which tends
to throw doubt over received opinions; and which, as a natural effect of
human vanity, does so the more in regard to those notions which happen
to be retained most generally and with the greatest confidence. But
these limits did not satisfy the author of the Treatise of Human Nature.
The drift of his philosophy is to prove, not only that nothing _is_
known, but that nothing _can_ be known; that the human race are shut up
in the most entire ignorance, partly from the character of the objects
around them, but mainly from the very framework and nature of the human
understanding. Much ingenuity and acuteness was required to give any
plausible appearance to a theory so contrary to the natural impressions
of mankind, and Hume’s philosophical works afford evidence enough of the
sort of talent necessary to his object. But he well knew, that however
proper, and however felicitous it might be, to lay low the giant spirit
of dogmatism by such means, his own conclusions, in every instance of
importance, were hardly less dogmatic than those of his opponents, the
principal difference being, that the sources of _his_ assumptions were
somewhat more difficult to detect and expose. For what assumption can be
greater than that of a right to believe in all unbelief? In this case,
the very faculty that doubts must be a figment of vanity. The writer who
determines to assail everything, forces on mankind a suspicion of
caprice and insincerity, and is not likely to demolish anything. By
attempting less, Hume would have accomplished more; and he would not
then have called forth that array of philosophic power against himself,
which has done so much damage to his reputation in this department of
his labours. His miscellaneous Essays abound in valuable observations,
and are fine models of English composition. The manner in which he met
his death is the stock theme with the superficial, as illustrating the
power of philosophy. But the man of reflection may perhaps see as much
of the weakness of humanity in that event, as of the strength of
philosophy; and certainly he will not need to be told, that nothing can
be more delusive than the use generally made of such scenes.
It is not however as the philosopher, but as the historian, that Hume is
known to the majority of persons, both in this country and on the
continent. Those habits of close thought, and that careful use of
language, to which he had been so long accustomed in his philosophical
studies, qualified him, in a high degree, to treat the topics of history
with discrimination, simplicity, and clearness. The evil to be feared
was, that he would often allow the sprightliness of narrative to sink
into the dullness of disquisition; and that even his narrative would be
deficient in that selection of familiar anecdote, and in those
picturesque descriptions, which, while having little relation to the
great lessons of history, are certainly among its great attractions. But
it happens that the narrative of Xenophon himself is not more easy and
uninterrupted than that of Hume; nor has the former writer shown a
stronger disposition to dwell on domestic incidents, or to throw a
dramatic colouring over public occurrences, than the latter. Never did
any man bring so much of the power of abstruse thought to the writing of
history, and appear to be so much served and so little inconvenienced by
it. His station and intercourse in society added much of the feeling and
manners of the gentleman to the more grave attainments of the man of
learning, and tended to produce that combination of qualities, which
made his society at all times agreeable, and has thrown a nameless and
irresistible charm over his historical writing. His style was the result
of great elaboration, but has every appearance of being that which must
have been adopted without effort. It is open, indeed, in almost every
page, to much verbal criticism, no book perhaps of the same standing
being in this respect so vulnerable. But these lesser blemishes are
forgotten amid the many natural and delightful graces with which it is
adorned; graces which no one can help feeling, but which it would be as
difficult to describe as to imitate.
Having however spoken thus of Mr. Hume’s style, and remarked the general
acuteness and frequent justice of his observations, we have fairly
exhausted our topics of praise. With regard to the two most valuable
qualities of a historian—research and integrity, the claims of Hume are
in the inverse position of his pretensions in other respects. Instead of
seeking, as the author of the Essay on Miracles might have been expected
to do, for the best possible testimonies, for these in the greatest
possible number, and then sifting them to the utmost, we find him
committing himself, with apparent unconsciousness, to the most
incompetent guides, often to a single authority where several were
accessible, and where several are adduced, attaching no more credit to
the depositions of an intelligent writer contemporary with what he
records, than to that of some worthless chronicler, who lived some
centuries later! This is particularly the case with regard to that
portion of our history which precedes the Reformation; and there cannot
be a greater mistake than to suppose that his references at the foot of
the page in these earlier volumes indicate the sources from which the
material of his text was derived. “Ingenious but superficial” is the
description of these volumes which Gibbon recorded in his diary, after
reading them. In the more modern period of our history, as the
authorities relating to it may be consulted by an indolent man with less
labour, and by a man of taste with less disgust, we find a little more
research and discrimination, but by no means sufficient to render his
accounts worthy of implicit confidence, even when not liable to be
affected by any of his known partialities. It is to this deficient
industry, and to the consequent want of a steady mastery of his subject
before beginning to write upon it, that we have mainly to attribute the
perpetual contradictions which occur in his description of the great
contest under the Stuart princes; contradictions which are so many and
so irreconcilable as to make his book one of the most inconsistent that
ever emanated from a man of ordinary powers. We have not, of course,
space in which to exhibit the proofs of this statement;—but we are
confident that inquiry will prove it to be correct.
But the want of industry, though a serious delinquency in a historian,
is almost venial when compared with a want of impartiality, and the
deficiency of Hume in this last quality has been often and largely
exposed. The extent in which the historian was conscious of his own
habit of unfairness, it is not in our power to determine; but there is
hardly a conceivable form of disingenuousness, of which his volumes
might not be shown to afford numerous and striking examples. The volume
embracing the reigns of James and Charles was first published, and we
have seen that the reception it met with only taught the author to
resolve, with a more fixed purpose, as to the complexion of those which
were to follow. In instances where his integrity is in the main
preserved, his eloquence is often so far misdirected that the truth
becomes discoloured, and makes the impression of falsehood. In his hands
the faults of his favourites lose much of their magnitude and grossness,
while their merits are raised much above their proper level, and with
regard to their opponents, the inverse process is adopted. Disagreeable
facts are passed over, or but partially and very artfully developed;
while others, of an opposite nature, have all prominence, and all
imaginable force assigned them. Incidents of very rare occurrence, and
existing only as exceptions, are culled with the greatest care, and
presented as the rule, and as no more than samples of the abundance that
might be adduced. And in describing the reasonings and the motives by
which the contending parties from time to time were influenced, it is
the fixed usage of this writer to consult his own prejudices or
imagination much more than the lights afforded by the documents of the
times. These summaries, as they are called, are inserted by Hume, in the
place of the speeches which the ancient historians were wont to put into
the mouth of their leading men; and, interesting as they are, deserve no
more credit, considered as the character of parties, or as accounts of
what was really said, than it is usual to bestow on those elaborate
harangues. There is much reason to believe that the historian began the
reigns of the two first Stuarts with a sincere conviction that
sufficient allowance had not been made for the peculiar situation of
those princes. But his delinquencies are such, that this excuse must be
of small avail in his defence. The majority of more than one generation
in this country have derived their notions of English history almost
exclusively from the pages of Hume; but so low has he fallen as a
historical authority, that the persons who have read scarcely anything
else, rarely show courage, or rather weakness, enough to make any appeal
to him.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by E. Scriven._
DE WITT.
_From a Picture by Netscher, in the possession of M^r. Lenoir, at
Paris._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
DE WITT.
The father of this wise and honest statesman was burgomaster of the town
of Dort, or Dordrecht, and one of its representatives in the Assembly of
the States of Holland, a man of patriotism, courage, and integrity, who
apprehended danger to the liberties of the United Provinces from the
hereditary power of the House of Orange, and used his best exertions to
counteract it. His sons, Cornelius and John De Witt, born at Dort, the
former June 25, 1623, the latter September 25, 1625, inherited his
principles and his integrity; and rendered his name illustrious by
greater talents exerted in a higher sphere of action. Of these brothers,
united in their counsels, their lives, and their deaths, it is the
younger, John, the original of our portrait, who rendered the name of De
Witt most illustrious, by the ability and virtue with which, during
eighteen years, he directed the government of his country.
Cornelius De Witt served in the navy during several years, and
distinguished himself in the bloody wars of England and Holland; he also
studied jurisprudence in his youth, and displayed talents for civil and
military business not unnoticed by his fellow-citizens, who bestowed
several municipal offices on him at an early age. The youth of John De
Witt appears to have been less occupied by active employments; though he
possessed great knowledge and practical skill in maritime affairs, and
was esteemed one of the best pilots of his time. The early development
of his political talents, aided probably by family connexion, and the
respect due to his father’s services, soon introduced him to high civil
employment. In 1650 he was appointed Pensionary of his native town, and
in 1652, Grand Pensionary of Holland, an office which gave him a
commanding influence over the deliberations of the whole Union. It was
granted nominally only for five years, but in effect was permanent,
since at the end of each period it was customary to re-appoint the
holder.
It was the leading object of De Witt’s policy to diminish the influence
which the princes of the House of Orange had acquired, as much by their
services and high personal qualities, as by their power and territorial
possessions, and to strengthen the republican institutions of his
country, which he saw to be endangered, as it was ultimately destroyed,
by their hereditary tenure of the office of Stadtholder. “The chief
direction of the affairs of Holland, for eighteen years, continued in
the hands of their Pensionary De Witt, a minister of the greatest
authority and sufficiency, the greatest application and industry, ever
known in their state. In the course of his ministry he and his party
reduced, not only all the civil charges of the government in this
province, but in a manner all the military commands of the army, out of
the hands of persons affectionate to the Prince of Orange, into those
esteemed more sure and fast to the interests of their more popular
state. And all this was attended for so long a course of years with the
perpetual success of their affairs, by the growth of their trade, power
and riches at home, and the consideration of their neighbours abroad.”
Such is the testimony of Sir William Temple, (Essay on the Origin and
Nature of Government,) to the policy, success, and merits of a friend
whom he loved and venerated. The position of affairs, when De Witt
attained to the direction of the state, favoured the development of his
republican views. William II., Prince of Orange, had died in 1650, and
his posthumous son and heir, afterwards William III. of England, was an
infant. Had the representative of that house been of mature age, we may
conclude that gratitude for the eminent services of his predecessors,
and the natural inclination of the people towards the form of government
to which they had been accustomed, would have led again to the
appointment of a Stadtholder in his person. But the office was of a
nature which could not be well exercised by a regent, or committed to an
infant, without acknowledging a species of hereditary right, scarcely
differing from the claims of royalty: and accordingly in some provinces
another prince of the Nassau family was appointed Stadtholder, in
others, of which Holland was one, the office continued in abeyance, and
De Witt, thwarted by no superior, was able to direct his best efforts to
counteract the workings of the Orange party, and to effect those changes
in the civil and military organization of the state, which are mentioned
in the above quotation from Sir W. Temple. The same leading principle
guided his foreign policy. When he was appointed Grand Pensionary, the
Provinces were engaged in war with England; an unequal contest while her
government was directed by Cromwell. But the true interest of both
parties lay in their amity, and peace was concluded in 1654. While
Cromwell lived, the republican party was upheld by his influence. He
endeavoured to obtain from the States General, in the treaty of 1654,
the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of Orange from the
Stadtholdership: but not being able to obtain their consent to this,
contented himself with the assent of the States of Holland, as far as
regarded their own province, which was accorded by a secret article.
After the Restoration it was to be expected that Charles II. would
support the interests of his nephew the Prince of Orange; and De Witt
thenceforward cultivated the alliance of France in preference to that of
England. This, and the jealousy of the English nation at the commercial
prosperity of the Dutch, led to the breaking out of a bloody war in
1665, in which the preponderance of success was on the side of England.
The spirit, energy, and ability of De Witt was the main stay of his
countrymen under the reverses which they sustained in this contest:
their disasters were promptly repaired, their defeated armaments
refitted, their credit sustained; and Charles II. becoming weary of a
war which brought no advantages to compensate for the drain which it
occasioned on the treasury, condescended to open negotiations for peace
in 1667. These, however, proceeded but slowly: and while they were yet
pending, De Witt planned that memorable expedition which surprised our
ill-guarded shores, burnt our ships in the Thames, and threw the
metropolis into the utmost alarm. The course of diplomacy being
quickened by this event, the treaty of Breda was soon after concluded,
on terms not disadvantageous to Holland.
In the following year a closer union, called the Triple League, was
formed, chiefly by the agency of De Witt and Sir William Temple, between
these two powers, in conjunction with Sweden. It was intended to
restrain the ambition of Louis XIV., which had manifested itself in such
encroachments upon the Spanish Netherlands as gave just cause of anxiety
to the United Provinces. De Witt saw that a new danger threatened the
independence of his country from abroad, and sacrificed to the emergency
his own political prepossessions and his jealousy of everything which
could restore the House of Orange to power. So great was his
earnestness, that he violated a fundamental principle of the Union, by
inducing the States General to ratify the treaty at once, instead of
referring it, as was prescribed by the constitution, to the acceptance
of the several provinces: an act by which, had it proved unpalatable to
the nation, the lives of all who were concerned in it were endangered,
and which is only to be excused on the plea of necessity, and by the
certainty that the measure, which its framers regarded as essential to
the welfare of the whole confederacy, would have been frustrated by the
influence of France over some or other of its least important members.
In 1670 De Witt concluded another treaty with the emperor of Germany and
the King of Spain, with the same object of maintaining the power of
Spain in the Netherlands, as a barrier against the encroachments of
France.
All these precautions were rendered vain by the weak and corrupt conduct
of the English Court. The ministers were bribed, and the King cajoled by
a French mistress, sent over in the train of his sister the Duchess of
Orleans, to renounce the Triple League and to declare war against the
United Provinces, in 1672, on the most frivolous pretences. At the same
time the king of France in person led against them a numerous, well
appointed, and well officered army. It is probable that De Witt had
relied with confidence on the sincerity of England in promoting the
objects of the Triple League, and that though well aware of the
disposition of Louis, he had not thought the danger so near at hand. At
all events he had made no sufficient preparation to meet it; and the
consequences of this omission were most disastrous. The troops of the
Provinces, composed in a great measure of new levies, could make no
head; the frontier fortresses yielded almost without resistance; the
Rhine was passed, an event remarkable only by the flatteries for which
it gave a subject to the French poets; and Louis held his court at
Utrecht, while his troops advanced within a few miles of Amsterdam. A
loud clamour was now raised against De Witt, who was roundly accused of
having disbanded the veteran troops of the Republic, dismantled the
fortresses, and exhausted the treasury, that his country might fall an
easier prey to the French connexion. This calumny, even at the time,
probably, was hardly believed: but too great neglect of the military
establishment seems justly chargeable as a fault on his administration.
For this, however, some excuse may be found in the necessity of economy,
the inconsistency of a mercenary army of foreigners with republican
principles, and the readiness of the Orange party to misrepresent this
policy of the Pensionary, as tending to concentrate in himself the
powers of Stadtholder, a name and office which he had been so eager to
abolish. By the machinations of that party the embarrassments of the
government were increased, and discontent was fomented; and their
sufferings and danger led the people to think more and more favourably
of the claims of William of Orange. The natural high qualities of that
prince had received most careful cultivation under the superintendence
of De Witt, who was resolved, he said, to render him capable of serving
his country, if any change should throw the administration into his
hands. Already, February 25, he had been declared captain-general and
admiral of the Provinces. Shortly after, De Witt’s life was attempted by
four assassins, who left him for dead, as he was returning home at
night, unattended, with his usual simplicity of demeanour. While he lay
ill of his wounds, the repeal of the Perpetual Edict passed in 1667, by
which the office of Stadtholder was abolished for ever in the province
of Holland, was demanded by the populace, with much violence and
sedition. That State yielded to the clamour, and the Prince was thus
reinstated in the full power enjoyed by his predecessors.
Cornelius De Witt was induced, with great difficulty, to sign the
revocation of the Edict. Soon after, he was accused of being concerned
in a plot to murder the Prince of Orange. The informer and only witness,
one Tichelaer, was a person of infamous character: yet on his evidence
this brave and well-deserving citizen was thrown into prison at the
Hague, and cruelly tortured to extort confession of a plot, the very
existence of which, without that confession, could not be proved. He
bore the trial with unshaken constancy, protesting that if they cut him
to pieces, they should not make him confess a thing which he had never
thought of. Without it, he could not be convicted: but he was stripped
of his employments and banished from Holland; and such was the madness
of the time, that even this iniquitous decree gave great offence, by its
leniency, to the people, who were fully persuaded of Cornelius De Witt’s
guilt. John De Witt meanwhile had recovered from his wounds; and finding
that in the existing state of public feeling his continuance at the head
of affairs was both undesirable for himself and unpleasing to the
country, he resigned his office. After the promulgation of his brother’s
sentence, he went to receive him upon his delivery from prison; and
probably to do him more honour, and testify his own sense of the malice
of the charge, and the unworthiness of the treatment which he had
received, repaired to the Hague in his coach and four, a sort of display
which he was not wont to affect. This bravado proved still more
unfortunate than ill-judged. The people, collected by the unusual
spectacle, began to murmur at the presumption of one suspected traitor
coming in state to insult the laws, and triumph in the escape of a
traitor-brother from a deserved death. De Witt went to the prison, to
convey his brother to his own house; but Cornelius replied, that having
suffered so much, being innocent, he would not leave the prison as a
culprit, but remain, and appeal against the sentence; a resolution which
John De Witt strove in vain to shake. Meanwhile Tichelaer, the informer,
was busily engaged in stirring up the populace to riot. Apprehending
some disturbance, the States of Holland, which were then sitting at the
Hague, requested the Prince of Orange to repair thither with a military
force. Meanwhile the tumult spread from the lowest people to the
burghers, and a furious mob collected round the gates of the prison
where the brothers still remained. The military force which had been
sent for did not arrive, and that which was in the city was drawn off,
by written order from one or more of the magistrates, upon a false
report, that a body of peasants was advancing to pillage the Hague.
Actuated by fear, or some worse motive, the gaoler opened the gates, the
leaders of the mob rushed in, the brothers were violently dragged from
their chamber, and massacred as soon as they reached the street, with
circumstances of brutality too revolting to be narrated in detail. Their
corpses were dragged to the gibbet, and publicly suspended with the
heads downwards; and the mangled limbs of these upright magistrates and
patriotic citizens were offered for sale, and bought at prices of
fifteen, twenty, and thirty sols.
There is another account, different in some particulars, which intimates
that this atrocious murder was preconcerted, and that a train was laid
for it, if not by the Prince of Orange himself, at least by the leaders
of his party. Such charges are often lightly made; and we are not aware
that there is any direct evidence to fix this guilt on any one,
certainly not personally on that distinguished monarch. But that there
was culpable neglect, even acquitting those in power of wilful
connivance, seems certain; and the proceedings of the court which
sentenced Cornelius, show that the government was not delicate in
finding means to remove those whom it disliked. And William’s subsequent
conduct may almost be said to have merited the imputation which he
incurred; for though the States of Holland voted the murder detestable
in their eyes and the eyes of all the world, and requested the
Stadtholder to take proper measures to avenge it, none of the murderers
were ever brought to justice. The flimsy pretext for this neglect was,
that it would be dangerous to inquire into a deed in which the principal
burghers of the Hague were concerned.