Some of the subjects of these essays were not less untrodden at the time when they appeared, than they are hackneyed in the present day. Of these may be cited, "The Liberty of the Press;" "The Parties of Great Britain;" "The Independency of Parliament." When they are compared with the _Craftsman_, with _Mist's Journal_, and with the other periodicals of the day, which had set the example of discussing such subjects, these essays as little resemble their precursors, as De Lolme's "Remarks on the British Constitution" do the articles in a daily London party paper. Whatever he afterwards became, Hume was at that time no party politician. He retained the Stoic severity of thought with which we have found that he had sixteen years previously invested himself; and would allow the excitements or rewards of no party in the state to drag him out of the even middle path of philosophical observation. There is consequently a wonderful impartiality in these essays, and an acuteness of observation, which to the reader, who keeps in view how little the true workings of the constitution were noticed in that day, is not less remarkable. How completely, for instance, has the wisdom of the following observations in the essay on "The Liberty of the Press," been justified by the experience of a century. We need not dread from this liberty any such ill consequences as followed from the harangues of the popular demagogues of Athens and tribunes of Rome. A man reads a book or pamphlet alone and coolly. There is none present from whom he can catch the passion by contagion. He is not hurried away by the force and energy of action. And should he be wrought up to never so seditious a humour, there is no violent resolution presented to him by which he can immediately vent his passion. The liberty of the press, therefore, however abused, can scarce ever excite popular tumults or rebellion. And as to those murmurs or secret discontents it may occasion, 'tis better they should get vent in words, that they may come to the knowledge of the magistrate before it be too late, in order to his providing a remedy against them. Mankind, 'tis true, have always a greater propension to believe what is said to the disadvantage of their governors than the contrary; but this inclination is inseparable from them whether they have liberty or not. A whisper may fly as quick, and be as pernicious as a pamphlet. Nay, it will be more pernicious, where men are not accustomed to think freely, or distinguish betwixt truth and falsehood.