HKB
passage in "The Liberty of the Press" quoted above, and of the remarks put within brackets in the quotation which follows, from the essay on "The Parties of Great Britain."
Some who will not venture to assert, that the real difference between Whig and Tory, was lost at the Revolution, seem inclined to think that the difference is now abolished, and that affairs are so far returned to their natural state, that there are at present no other parties amongst us but court and country; that is, men who, by interest or principle, are attached either to monarchy or to liberty. It must indeed be confessed, that the Tory party has of late decayed much in their numbers, still more in their zeal, and I may venture to say, still more in their credit and authority. [There is no man of knowledge or learning, who would not be ashamed to be thought of that party; and in almost all companies, the name of Old Whig is mentioned as an incontestible appellation of honour and dignity. Accordingly, the enemies of the ministry, as a reproach, call the courtiers the true Tories; and, as an honour, denominate the gentlemen in the Opposition the true Whigs.] The Tories have been so long obliged to talk in the republican style, that they seem to have made converts of themselves by their hypocrisy, and to have embraced the sentiments as well as language of their adversaries. There are, however, very considerable remains of that party in England, with all their old prejudices; and a proof that court and country are not our only parties, is, that almost all our dissenters side with the court, and the lower clergy, at least of the Church of England, with the opposition. This may convince us that some bias still hangs upon our constitution, some extrinsic weight which turns it from its natural course, and causes a confusion in our parties.[141:1]
Perhaps the most ambitious of the essays, and those on which the author bestowed most of his skill and attention, are "The Epicurean," "The Stoic," "The Sceptic," and "The Platonist." These are productions of the imagination, suggested apparently by the style and method of The Spectator. There is no attempt either to support or to attack the systems represented by the names of the essays, nor is there a description or definition of them; but on each occasion a member of one of these celebrated schools speaks in his own person, and describes the nature of the satisfaction that he finds in his own code of philosophy, as a solution of the great difficulty of the right rule of thought and action. "The Epicurean" takes a flight of imagination beyond that of Hume's other works. It departs from the cold atmosphere of philosophy, and desires to fascinate as well as enlighten. But though it possesses all the marks of a fine intellect, the reader is apt to feel how far more sweetly and gracefully the subject would have been handled by Addison, to whose department of literature it seems rightly to belong. The follower of Epicurus is not represented, as indulging in that gross licentiousness, as wallowing in that disgusting "stye" which the representations of Diogenes Laertius, and others, have impressed on the vulgar associations with the name of that master. On the other hand, the picture is far from embodying what many maintain to be the fundamental precept of Epicurus, that happiness being the great end sought by man, the proper method of reaching it is by the just regulation of the passions and propensities; a precept embodied in the
"Sperne voluptates. Nocet empta dolere voluptas."
Hume, who was not correcting errors, or instructing his readers in the true meaning of terms, or appreciation of characters, draws in "The Epicurean" a picture of one who is not gross or grovelling in his pleasures, and who restrains himself lest he should outrun enjoyment; but whose ruling principle is still that of the voluptuary.