scarcely ever deign to descend from the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, to mention constitutional matters; and perhaps, in an impartial estimate, it will be admitted that in the gradual progress towards a better appreciation of what is truly valuable in British history, no one writer has taken so great a stride as Hume. FOOTNOTES: [3:1] MS. R.S.E. [5:1] MS. R.S.E. [5:2] In a small book, called "Letters on Mr. Hume's History of Great Britain," Edinburgh, 1756, known to have been written by Daniel Macqueen, D.D., the chief object is to prove that Hume has not treated the Roman Catholic religion with sufficient severity, and to supply this defect in his History. In a few remarks at the end, however, Dr. Macqueen had the merit of suggesting many of the constitutional criticisms on Hume, which were afterwards followed out. [6:1] A sketch of Hume's character and habits, in _The Edinburgh Magazine_ for 1802, professing to be by one who was personally acquainted with him, is discredited, by its containing a statement that he had joined the Roman Catholic Church when he was in France. The reader will remember that, almost from the moment of his setting foot on foreign soil, he censures the Roman Catholics, in his letters to his friends; and nothing could be mentioned more at variance with a known character, than this writer's assertion, which seems to rest on some imaginative parallel between the personal history of Hume and that of Gibbon. As the reader may desire to read the sketch thus condemned, and to judge for himself of its applicability to Hume, it is here given. "ANECDOTES OF DAVID HUME, ESQ. "_By one who personally knew him._