In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office
from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
command of a large library. I then formed the plan of writing the
History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing
a narrative through a period of one thousand seven hundred years, I
commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I
thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take
place. I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of
this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once
neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of
popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity,
I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my
disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation,
and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory,
churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and
courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to
shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of
Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,
what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion.
Mr. Miller told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five
copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three
kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the
book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These
dignified prelates separately sent me a message not to be discouraged.

I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war at that
time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly
retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my