The History of England, Volume I
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~250,000 words · 1,188 passages
Cite this work
- APADavid Hume. (n.d.). The History of England, Volume I. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/the-history-of-england-volume-i
- MLADavid Hume. "The History of England, Volume I." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/the-history-of-england-volume-i.
- ChicagoDavid Hume. The History of England, Volume I. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/the-history-of-england-volume-i.
What it is about
Hume's History of England: the first volume of a work running from Julius Caesar's invasion to the revolution of 1688.
Context and history
One thing is worth recalling, since it now surprises: in his own lifetime Hume was known chiefly as a historian, not as a philosopher. This is the book that brought him fame and money, while the Treatise of Human Nature went unnoticed. He wrote it backwards, beginning with the Stuarts, and was accused both of Toryism and of coldness towards religion. It was the standard history of England for more than half a century, and it is a work of that genre as much as a source on how its author thought.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Like much 18th and 19th century publishing, the edition of David Hume's "History of England" from which this text was prepared makes extensive use of both footnotes and marginal notes. Since this e-text format does not allow use of the original superscripts to denote the lettered footnotes, they are indicated by the relevant letter within brackets, thus "[a]", and the footnotes themselves are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "FN" at the end of the PARAGRAPH to which they relate; since some of Hume's paragraphs are considerably longer than is normal in 21st century American or British writing, you may have to scroll some distance to find the text of the footnote. All footnotes are reproduced exactly as in the printed text. More discretion has been exercised regarding marginal notes. Those which simply repeat chapter numbers and dates already given in the text are omitted as non-essential clutter. The remainder are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "MN". Those marginal notes which appear to correspond to sub-chapter headings are reproduced as the first line of the paragraph to which they relate. Other marginal notes are reproduced within the text of the paragraph. Some apparently incomplete marginal notes ending or beginning with ellipses are due to cases where what is logically a single marginal note has been broken into two or more pieces separated by a considerable vertical distance. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 by DAVID HUME, ESQ. With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES MY OWN LIFE. It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pre