There are only two ranks of men among us; gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest slaving poor; without any considerable number of that middling rank of men, which abound more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other part of the world.

The slaving poor are incapable of any principles; gentlemen may be converted to true principles, by time and experience.

The middling rank of men have curiosity and knowledge enough to form principles, but not enough to form true ones, or correct any prejudices that they may have imbibed.

And it is among the middling rank of people that Tory principles do at present prevail most in England."-- (III.
80, _note_.) Considering that the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 broke out only four years after this essay was published, the assertion that the Jacobite party had "almost entirely vanished in 1741" sounds strange enough: and the passage which contains it is omitted in the third edition of the _Essays_, published in 1748.

Nevertheless, Hume was probably right, as the outbreak of '45 was little better than a Highland raid, and the Pretender obtained no important following in the Lowlands.
No less curious, in comparison with what would be said nowadays, is Hume's remark in the Essay on the _Rise of the Arts and Sciences_ that-- "The English are become sensible of the scandalous licentiousness of their stage from the example of the French decency and morals."-- (III.