Hume

hum, David (1711-1776), a Scotch man of letters. He was born and educated at Edinburgh. His studies at the University were designed to fit him for the law, but he took to literature. He studied three years in France. He made a living as a teacher and as a private secretary until appointed librarian at the University of Edinburgh. He wrote a number of works on philosophy, morals, and religion that have brought him little fame, but his History of England is a masterpiece. It is written in a clear, attractive style, hardly second to that of Macaulay. Hume was the first English historian to make place for chapter on literature and the condition of the common people. His history contains a few sentences that have warranted a charge of hostility to orthodoxy, but the high merit and originality of his work made it an undisputed standard until Green's history appeared. See Green; Macaulay; Hallam; Lingard; Froude