"This highly recommended study manifests a sure grasp of political and cultural history, familiarity with current critical approaches, and a lucid and often witty style."—Choice
"Potkay sees in Hume and in the period, a deep ambivalence toward eloquence. . . . While Hume is at the center of this book, much of Potkay's analysis concerns other writers, notably Pope, Thomas Gray, Sterne, and Macpherson. . . . [Potkay's] work is ambitious, capacious, and erudite by any standard; as a first book it is astonishingly so."—Studies in English Literature