These hints, however obvious, the author thought proper to suggest, with regard to the free and impartial manner in which he has treated religious controversy. As to the civil and political part of his performance, he scorns to suggest any apology, where he thinks himself entitled to approbation. To be above the temptation of interest is a species of virtue, which we do not find by experience to be very common; but to neglect at the same time all popular and vulgar applause, is an enterprise much more rare and arduous. Whoever, in a factious nation, pays court to neither party, must expect that justice will be done him by time only, perhaps only by a distant posterity.[13:1] The "Natural History of Religion" above referred to, remarkable even among its author's other works, for the breadth of its research, and its apt union of philosophy with historical detail, was published in 1757, along with three other essays;[13:2] and a curious incident connected with this publication has now to be revealed. In 1783, a work was published in London, called "Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul, ascribed to the late David Hume, Esq., never before published; with remarks, intended as an antidote to the poison contained in these performances, by the Editor." The editor and his antidote are now both forgotten: but the style of Hume and his method of thinking were at once recognised in these essays, and they have been incorporated with the general edition of his works. If any doubt attached to the authorship, it would be cleared up by some allusions in his subsequent correspondence, where we shall find him naturally expressing alarm at the circumstance of Wilkes having, through the negligence of Millar, had possession of a copy containing the two suppressed essays. Many copies, indeed, of the first edition of the dissertations bear marks of having been mutilated.[14:1] That Hume wrote these essays, and intended to publish them, is thus an incident in his life which ought not to be passed over; but it is also part of his history, that he repented of the act at the last available moment, and suppressed the publication. That after the ghastly scene which he witnessed twenty years earlier,[14:2] he should have written on suicide with his usual philosophical indifference, and contempt for the prevalent sentiments and feelings of mankind, is a remarkable proof how little he was liable to ordinary imaginative impressions; how completely he was free of subjection to those "lords of the visionary eye, whose lid Once raised remains aghast, and will not fall."