''Watkins's Biographical Dictionary'' was originally published in 1800, with a second edition in 1825, as ''An Historical Account of the lives, characters and works of the most eminent persons in every age and nation, from the earliest times to the present''. It was compiled by
John Watkins, LL.D., and published by
Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green.
''An Universal Biographical and Historical Dictionary'' (London, 1800) was a book written and published by John Watkins on academic figures, statesmen, and royalty. The dictionary went through several editions and was translated into several languages, including French and German.
Entry on Hume
The dictionary is notable for its entry on the philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
, which notes that "he published
he ''Treatise''in London in 1738, but its reception not answering his expectations, he printed a small analysis of it, in a sixpenny pamphlet, to make it sell". Because the pamphlet (''
An Abstract of the Treatise of Human Nature'') was published anonymously, it is not known how the author of the article came by this information. Norman Kemp Smith has speculated that the firm of Longman's, which published both ''Watkins's Dictionary'', and volume III of the ''
A Treatise of Human Nature
'' A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects'' (1739–40) is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, considered by many to be Hume's most important work and one of the ...
'', was the channel through which the tradition of Hume's authorship of the ''Abstract'' was preserved.
[Norman Kemp Smith, ''Mind''; 1938]
Notes
References
*''Biography: writing lives''; by Catherine Neal Parke
* "New Books",
Norman Kemp Smith
Norman Duncan Kemp Smith, FBA, FRSE (5 May 1872 – 3 September 1958) was a Scottish philosopher who was Professor of Psychology (1906–1914) and Philosophy (1914–1919) at Princeton University and was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at th ...
, ''
Mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
'' 1938 XLVII(188):522-524,
* ''An Abstract of a Book lately Published; Entitled, A Treatise of Human Nature, &c. Wherein the Chief Argument of that Book is farther Illustrated and Explained'', (London, 1740).
* "The Authorship of the Abstract Revisited" David Raynor, ''Hume Studies'', Volume XIX, Number 1 (April, 1993) 213-21
External links
Google Booksworldcat.orghathitrust.orgnla.gov.au
1800 non-fiction books
British biographical dictionaries
Historical dictionaries
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