Morgenthau at the University of Chicago where he earned both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science. He received his J.D. degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Buffa was a criminal defense attorney for 10 years and his seven Joseph Antonelli novels strive to reflect, from his own experience, what a courtroom lawyer does, the way he (or she) thinks, and the way he feels about what he does.
In Buffa's new novel, Immunity, the President of the United States has ordered the murder of his political opponents—and the Constitution seems powerless to stop him.
Here is Buffa's take on David Hume’s History of England:
In a brief preface to the six volumes of his History of England From the Invasion of Julius Caesar To The Revolution of 1688, David Hume remarked, “It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore I will be short.” And then he adds, “It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations.”Visit D.W. Buffa's website.
Born in 1711, Hume was only twenty-seven when he published his Treatise of Human Nature, which, he reports, “fell deadborn from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots,” by which he means the religious zealots who despised any thought not found in the Bible. Hume’s Treatise did excite, some years later, one reader, Immanuel Kant, who “roused himself from his dogmatic slumbers” to write in reply the Critique of Pure Reason. Hume wrote three more books over the next fourteen years, books that would, each of them, become a permanent part of the small number of works still worth the time and effort of serious study. Then, in 1752, he “formed the plan of writing the History of England.” The first volume, published two years later, sold, according to a bookseller, a “Mr. Miller,” sold only 45 copies.
Hume’s account, which suggests the initial failure of a work that only later generations will come to appreciate, is far too modest. The first volume actually sold 450 copies, not 45, and sold them in the first five weeks. Moreover, according to a literary historian writing in the early years of the twentieth century, the sale of the History eventually became sufficient to gain for the author a larger revenue than had ever before been known in his country to flow from literature, and to place him in comparative affluence.” The History, not only more successful than we were led to expect, was not written in the chronological order in which we now read it. The first volume Hume wrote begins with King James the First; the second continued the narrative to the end of the reign of James II and the Revolution of 1688. He then worked backwards, with a survey of the Tudor period that proved, or attempted to prove, that the Tory nation was firmly based upon the constitution. Published in 1759, it was followed, two years later, by the history that began with Caesar’s invasion; it was, like the others, “a great literary success.” It was, according to this same writer, “the first attempt at a comprehensive treatment of historic facts, the first to introduce the several literary aspects of the nation’s life as only second in importance to its political fortunes, and the first historical writing in an animated yet refined and polished style.”
Thomas Macaulay did not like it. He dismissed Hume as an “accomplished advocate” who “gives prominence to all the circumstances which support his case,” and “slides lightly over those which are unfavorable to it.” Macaulay’s own History of England, written a century later, beings with the accession of King James the Second, almost the point at where Hume’s History ends. Read them both, and you will be forgiven if you think Macaulay’s criticism might more fairly be directed to himself. There is no historian, certainly not Macaulay, whose judgment was more balanced than David Hume. It was part of his character. When he died, in 1776, his close friend, Adam Smith, wrote: “His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that of perhaps any other man I have ever known.” His “gaiety of temper…was in him certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him…as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.”
In the third volume of the History, Hume takes up the history of Henry VIII, and the conflict between the civil and the religious authority. Hume understands, what everyone once understood, that there “must be an ecclesiastical order and an public establishment of religion in every civilized community.” The question was whether the established religion would be under the control and direction of the king or of the pope. Henry, who had written a book in Latin against the principles of Luther, was convinced that he knew better than anyone what should be done: “having entered the lists of those scholastic quarrels, he had received from his courtiers and theologians infinite applause for his performance. Elated by his imaginary success, and blinded by a natural arrogance and obstinacy of temper, he had entertained the most lofty opinions of his own erudition; and he received with impatience, mixed with contempt, any contradiction to his sentiments.”
Henry separated his kingdom from the pope and the Catholic church; all his subjects were, “under the severest penalties, expressly bound to receive implicitly whatever doctrine he should please to recommend to them.” This did not stop the pope from continuing to insist that England had no such authority. When Elizabeth assumed the title of queen, she was reminded that, “England was a fief of the holy see,” and that she must “renounce all pretensions to the crown, and submit entirely to his will.” Elizabeth ignored him; just as she tried to ignore her sister Mary’s request for acknowledgment of her right to succession. The last thing Elizabeth would ever do, the one thing she was most concerned about, was the threat that would develop if anyone was thought to have a legitimate claim to be next in succession to the throne. It was the fear that led her to do things few, if any, had done before.
“What is most singular in the conduct and character of Elizabeth is that though she determined never to have any heir of her own body, she was not only very averse to fix any successor to the crown, but seems also to have resolved, as far as it lay in her power, that no one who had any pretensions to the succession should ever have any heir or successors.” Lady Catherine Gray married the Earl of Hertford and became pregnant. Elizabeth was so enraged that they had married without her consent, she threw both of them into the tower, and had a commission declare their “commerce” unlawful, and “their posterity illegitimate.” The story does not end there. Though kept prisoner, and kept separate, in the tower, the Earl and his wife bribed their keepers, “found means to have further intercourse; and another child appeared to be the fruit of their commerce.” Elizabeth imposed an enormous fine, and ordered their confinement to be “more rigid and severe.” Hertford “lay in this condition for nine years, till the death of his wife, by freeing Elizabeth from all fears, procured him his liberty.” It was unclear whether her fear was that “a pretender to the succession should acquire credit by having issue,” or envy of the “natural pleasures of love and posterity, of which her own ambition and desire of dominion made her renounce all prospect for herself.”
Because Henry VIII had separated England from the pope and the Catholic church, the Reformation was more gradual in England than elsewhere. Much “of the ancient religion waspreserved; and a reasonable degree of subordination was retained in discipline, as well as some pomp, order, and ceremony in public worship.” Nothing was allowed to interfere with the power of the crown, until, because of the Reformation, a new group came into being insisting God spoke, not through the Catholic church or any civil authority, but directly to everyone. “So absolute, indeed was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved, by the puritans alone; and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so frivolous, and habits so ridiculous, that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitutions.” They employed all their “industry to be elected to Parliament, a matter not difficult, while a seat was rather regarded as burden than an advantage, they first acquired a majority in that assembly, and thus obtained an ascendant over the church and monarchy.”
Religion became the central political issue; everything, or almost everything, was seen in reference to the great conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Philip of Spain had as his sole ambition, “To support orthodoxy, and exterminate heresy; and as the power and credit of Elizabeth was the chief bulwark of the Protestants, he hoped, if he could subdue that princess to acquire the eternal renown of reuniting the whole Christian world in the catholic communion.” A Spanish fleet of 130 ships, that famous Spanish armada, most of them of a “greater size than any ever before used in Europe,” met an English fleet of 140 sail and was defeated by its own pretences: “Their bulk exposed them the more to the fire of the enemy; while their cannon, placed too high, shot over the heads of the English.” The Spanish fleet lost a considerable part of their navy; the English lost only a single ship. The tempest, the storm that in legend saved England, came up only after the battle had been won.
The power of the English crown over both religious and secular matters, was now absolute. The law made this quite clear: “Whoever, in any way, reconciled anyone to the church of Rome, or was himself reconciled, was declared to be guilty of treason. To utter slanderous or rebellious words against the Queen was punishable, for the first offense, with the pillory and loss of ears; the second was declared felony,” which meant death. The “writing or printing of such words was felony even on the first offense.” Justice, as Hume notes, was a “quality which, even when erroneous, is respectable as well as rare in a monarch.” All this might have gone unchanged had it not been for the Renaissance. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had spread beyond the small circle of “sedentary professions,” to “men of the world;” and “a familiar acquaintance with the precious remains of antiquity” produced “a passion for a limited constitution, and begun an emulation of those manly virtues, which the Greek and Roman authors…recommend to us.”
Parliament began to assert itself, and eventually to claim the sole right to the legislative authority; finally, under Cromwell, it “claimed the right of modeling the whole government and settling the nation.” And then, to prove its power, the Commons, assembled in Parliament, insisted that “being chosen by the people, and representing them, are the supreme authority of the nation, and that whatever is enacted and declared law by the Commons hath the force of law, without the consent of the King or the House of Peers.” Possessed with this power, Parliament passed the ordinance for the trial, and the execution, of Charles Stuart, king of England.
Hume’s History comes to an end after the restoration, when first Charles II, and then James II, rules, or tries to rule, England, during the brief period before the English civil war. Better than any historian since Thucydides, Hume brings to light the real causes of events, what really made things happen the way they did. Charles II, he explains, wanted to introduce the same rights of government and religion as Louis XIV had established in France; he wanted to make catholicism once again the religion of England: “What is most probable in human affairs is not always true; and a very minute circumstance, overlooked in our speculations serves often to explain events, which may seem the most surprising and unaccountable. Though the king possessed penetration and a sound judgment, his capacity was chiefly fitted for smaller matters, and the ordinary occurrences of life; nor had he application enough to carry his view to distant consequences, or to digest and adjust any plan of political operations. As he scarcely ever thought twice on any one subject, every appearance of advantage was apt to seduce him; and when he found his way obstructed by unlooked-for difficulties, he readily turned aside into the first path, where he expected more to gratify the natural indolence of his disposition.”
Throughout the six volumes of his History, Hume takes time to give an account of those who, in their different ways, made lasting contributions to literature and science. His observations on Shakespeare, which on first impression strikes us as ill-judged, on closer thought proves instead the inadequacies of our own education: “If Shakespeare be considered as a man, born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction, either from the world or from books he may be regarded as a prodigy; if represented as a poet, capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy.” Then he adds, “A striking peculiarity of sentiment, adapted to a single character, he frequently hits, as it were, by inspiration; but a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold.”
Hume has no hesitation in extolling the achievement of Issac Newton. “In Newton this island may boast of having produced the greatest and rarest genius that has ever rose for the ornament and instruction of the species.” While he “seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfection of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to the obscurity in which they ever did, and ever will remain.”
It is, and will ever remain, one of nature’s ultimate secrets that somehow, every few generations, someone like David Hume is added to the small number of those able, and willing, to tell us something worth knowing about the world into which we are born and die.
Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius; The Closing of The American Mind; History of Rome; Before The Deluge; Herodotus's Histories; The Education of Henry Adams; Talleyrand; The Golden Bowl; The Life of George Washington; Tacitus and the dangers of history; The Lost History of the American Constitution.
--Marshal Zeringue
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