"The licence, which the parliament had bestowed on this spirit, by checking ecclesiastical authority; the countenance and encouragement, with which they had honoured it; had already diffused its influence to a wonderful degree: And all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison."
— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Author
Place of Publication
Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill
Date
1754, 1762
Metaphor
"The licence, which the parliament had bestowed on this spirit, by checking ecclesiastical authority; the countenance and encouragement, with which they had honoured it; had already diffused its influence to a wonderful degree: And all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison."
Metaphor in Context
But this project, it had not been in the power, scarcely in the intention, of the popular leaders to execute, had it not been for the passion, which seized the nation for presbyterian discipline, and for the wild enthusiasm, which at that time accompanied it. The licence, which the parliament had bestowed on this spirit, by checking ecclesiastical authority; the countenance and encouragement, with which they had honoured it; had already diffused its influence to a wonderful degree: And all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison. In every discourse or conversation, this mode of religion entered; in all business, it had a share; every elegant pleasure or amusement, it utterly annihilated; many vices or corruptions of mind, it promoted; even diseases and bodily distempers were not totally exempted from it; and it became requisite, we are told, for all physicians to be expert in the spiritual profession, and, by theological consideration, to allay those religious terrors, with which their patients were so generally haunted. Learning itself, which tends so much to enlarge the mind, and humanize the temper, rather served on this occasion to exalt that epidemical frenzy which prevailed. Rude as yet, and imperfect, it supplied the dismal fanaticism with a variety of views, founded it on some coherency of system, enriched it with different figures of elocution; advantages with which a people, totally ignorant and barbarous, had been happily unacquainted.
(pp. 348-9)
(pp. 348-9)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Hume's history was published 1754-1762. Over 45 entries in the ESTC (1762, 1763, 1764, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1775, 1778, 1780, 1782, 1786, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1795, 1796, 1797). [Published in 1754 as The History of Great Britain. Vol.I. Containing the Reigns of James I. and Charles I. The first volumes published became the last of the six in chronological ordering of the 1762 multi-volume work.]
See The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688. in Six Volumes. By David Hume, a New Edition, Corrected. (London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand, M DCC LXII, 1762). <Link to ESTC>
See David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, Foreword by William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1983). <Link to OLL> <Link to ECCOgt;
See The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688. in Six Volumes. By David Hume, a New Edition, Corrected. (London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand, M DCC LXII, 1762). <Link to ESTC>
See David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, Foreword by William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1983). <Link to OLL> <Link to ECCOgt;
Date of Entry
02/06/2011
