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A few typographical errors have been corrected. A complete [list] of corrections follows the text.

The original uses two different kinds of blockquotes. An explanation of the display of those blockquotes can be found [here].

The [Index] that was printed at the end of Volume II. of this series has been included at the end of this Volume for reference purposes.

LIFE AND
CORRESPONDENCE OF
DAVID HUME.

LIFE
AND
CORRESPONDENCE
OF
DAVID HUME.

FROM THE PAPERS BEQUEATHED BY HIS NEPHEW TO THE
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH; AND OTHER
ORIGINAL SOURCES.

By JOHN HILL BURTON, Esq.
ADVOCATE.

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM TAIT, 107, PRINCE'S STREET.
MDCCCXLVI.

EDINBURGH:
Printed by William Tait, 107, Prince's Street.

TO THE PRESIDENT AND COUNCIL

OF

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH,

THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY

THEIR MOST OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT,

J. H. BURTON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In this work, an attempt has been made to connect together a series of original documents, by a narrative of events in the life of him to whom they relate; an account of his literary labours; and a picture of his character, according to the representations of it preserved by his contemporaries. The scantiness of the resources at the command of previous biographers, and the extent and variety of the new materials now presented to the world, render unnecessary any other apology for the present publication. How far these materials have been rightly used, readers and critics must judge; but I may be perhaps excused for offering a brief explanation of the spirit in which I desired to undertake the task; and the responsibility I felt attached to the duty, of ushering before the public, documents of so much importance to literature.

The critic or biographer, who writes from materials already before the public, may be excused if he give way to his prepossessions and partialities, and limit his task to the representation of all that justifies and supports them. If he have any misgivings, that, in following the direction of his prepossessions, he may not have taken the straight line of truth, he may be assured, that if the cause be one of any interest, an

advocate, having the same resources at his command, will speedily appear on the other side. But when original manuscripts are for the first time to be used, it is due to truth, and to the desire of mankind to satisfy themselves about the real characters of great men, that they should be so presented as to afford the means of impartially estimating those to whom they relate. We possess many brilliant Eulogiums of the leaders of our race—many vivid pictures of their virtues and their vices—their greatness or their weakness. But if a humbler, it is perhaps a no less useful task, to represent these men—their character, their conduct, and the circumstances of their life, precisely as they were; rejecting nothing that truly exemplifies them, because it is beneath the dignity of biography, or at variance with received notions of their character and the tendency of their public conduct. The desire to have a closer view of the fountain head whence the outward manifestations of a great intellect have sprung, is but one of the many examples of man's spirit of inquiry from effects to their causes; and the desire will not be gratified by reproducing the object of inquiry in all the pomp and state of his public intercourse with the world, and keeping the veil still closed upon his inner nature. It is difficult to write with mere descriptive impartiality, and without exhibiting any bias of opinion, on matters which are, at the same time, the most deeply interesting to mankind, and the objects of their strongest partialities. Though the task that was before me was simply to describe,

and never to controvert, I do not profess to have avoided all indications of opinion in the departments of the work which have the character of original authorship. I have the satisfaction, however, of reflecting, that the documents, which are the real elements of value in this work, are impartially presented to the reader, and that nothing is omitted which seemed to bear distinctly on the character and conduct of David Hume.

I now offer a few words in explanation of the nature of these original documents. The late Baron Hume had collected together his uncle's papers, consisting of the letters addressed to him, the few drafts or copies he had left of letters written by himself, the letters addressed by him to his immediate relations, and apparently all the papers in his handwriting, which had been left in the possession of the members of his family. To these the Baron seems to have been enabled to add the originals of many of the letters addressed by him to his intimate friends, Adam Smith, Blair, Mure, and others. The design with which this interesting collection was made, appears to have been that of preparing a work of a similar description to the present; and it is a misfortune to literature that this design was not accomplished. On the death of Baron Hume, it was found that he had left this mass of papers at the uncontrolled disposal of the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This learned body, after having fully considered the course proper to be adopted in these circumstances, determined that they would permit the papers to be made use of by any person

desirous to apply them to a legitimate literary purpose, who might enjoy their confidence. Having for some time indulged in a project of writing a life of Hume, postponed from time to time, on account of the imperfect character of the materials at my disposal, I applied to the Council of the Royal Society for access to the Hume papers; and after having considered my application with that deliberation which their duty to the public as custodiers of these documents seemed to require, they acceded to my request. The ordinary form of returning thanks for the privilege of using papers in the possession of private parties, appears not to be applicable to this occasion; and I look on the concession of the Council as conferring on me an honour, which is felt to be all the greater, that it was bestowed in the conscientious discharge of a public duty.

The Hume papers, besides a manuscript of the "Dialogues on Natural Religion," and of a portion of the History, fill seven quarto volumes of various thickness, and two thin folios. In having so large a mass of private and confidential correspondence committed to their charge, the Council naturally felt that they would be neglecting their duty, if they did not keep in view the possibility that there might be in the collection, allusions to the domestic conduct or private affairs of persons whose relations are still living; and that good taste, and a kind consideration for private feelings should prevent the accidental publication of such passages. On inspection, less of this description of matter was found than so large a mass of private

documents might be supposed to contain. There is no passage which I have felt any inclination to print, as being likely to afford interest to the reader, of which the use has been denied me; and I can therefore say that I have had in all respects full and unlimited access to this valuable collection. Before leaving this matter, I take the opportunity of returning my thanks for the kind and polite attention I have received from those gentlemen of the Council, on whom the arrangements for my getting access to these papers, imposed no little labour and sacrifice of valuable time.

A rumour has obtained currency regarding the contents of these papers, which seems to demand notice on the present occasion.

It is stated in The Quarterly Review,[xi:1] that "those who have examined the Hume papers—which we know only by report—speak highly of their interest, but add, that they furnish painful disclosures concerning the opinions then prevailing amongst the clergy of the northern metropolis: distinguished ministers of the gospel encouraging the scoffs of their familiar friend, the author of 'the Essay upon Miracles;' and echoing the blasphemies of their associate, the author of the 'Essay upon Suicide!'" I have the pleasing task of removing the painful feelings which, as this writer justly observes, must attend the belief in such a rumour, by saying that I could not find it

justified by a single sentence in the letters of the Scottish clergy contained in these papers, or in any other documents that have passed under my eye. I make this statement as an act of simple justice to the memory of men to whose character, being a member of a different church, I have no partisan attachment: and I may add that, in the whole course of my pretty extensive researches in connexion with Hume and his friends, I found no reason for believing that letters containing evidence of any such frightful duplicity ever existed.

Among these papers, a variety of letters, chiefly from eminent foreigners, though interesting in themselves, were entitled to no place in the body of this work, as illustrative of the life and character of Hume. These I had intended to print in an appendix, believing that, though not directly connected with my own project, the lovers of literature would not readily excuse me for neglecting the opportunity afforded by my access to these papers, for adding to the stock of the letters of celebrated men. But the work, according to its original scope and design, continuing to increase under my hands, I found that if it contained the documents specially referred to in the text, its bulk would be sufficiently extended, and I have determined to let the other papers here alluded to follow in a separate volume, which will contain letters to Hume from D'Alembert, Turgot, Diderot, Helvétius, Franklin, Walpole, and other distinguished persons.

The reader will find that many original documents

printed in this collection have been obtained from other sources than the Hume papers. My acknowledgments are particularly due to the Earl of Minto, for the liberality with which he allowed me the uncontrolled use of the large and valuable collection of correspondence between Hume and Sir Gilbert Elliot. For the letters in the Kilravock collection I am indebted to Cosmo Innes, Esq., sheriff of Morayshire; and I obtained access to those addressed to Colonel Edmondstoune, through the polite intervention of George Dundas, Esq., sheriff of Selkirkshire. I am obliged to the kindness of Lord Murray for much assistance in obtaining materials and information for this work; and to Robert Chambers, Esq., who has been accustomed from time to time, to preserve such letters and other documents connected with Scottish biography, as came under his notice, I have to offer my thanks for the whole of his collections regarding Hume, which he generously transferred to me.

In the use of printed books, where the Advocates' Library, to which I have professional access, has failed me, I have found the facilities for consulting the select and well arranged collection of the Writers to the Signet of great service.

I owe acknowledgments to many friends for useful advice in the conduct of the work. To one especially, who, after having long occupied a distinguished place in the literature of his country, permits his friends still to enjoy the social exercise of those intellectual qualities that have delighted the world, I am indebted for such critical counsel as no other could have given,

and few would have had the considerate kindness to bestow, were they able.

Of the two portraits engraved for this work, that which will, probably, most strikingly attract attention, is taken from a bust, of coarse and unartistic workmanship, but bearing all the marks of a genuine likeness. It was moulded by a country artist, at the desire of Hume's esteemed friend, Professor Ferguson; and I am under obligations to his son, Sir Adam, for the privilege of using it on this occasion, and to Sir George Mackenzie, for having kindly mentioned its existence, and exerted himself in its recovery, after it had been long lost sight of. The medallion, from which the other portrait is taken, is in the possession of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., by whom I was presented with the engraved plate, from which the fac simile of a letter, addressed by Hume to his collateral ancestor, is printed.

Edinburgh, February, 1846.

^*_*^* It may be right to explain, that the two sizes of type, used in this work, were first adopted with the design of presenting all letters addressed to Hume, all extracts, and all letters from him with which the public is already familiar, in the smaller type, in order that the reader coming to a document with which he is already acquainted, might see at once where it ends. This arrangement was accidentally broken through, several letters having been printed in the larger that should have appeared in the smaller type.

FOOTNOTES:

[xi:1] No. LXXIII. p. 555.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIRST.

THE LIFE
OF
DAVID HUME.

CHAPTER I.

1711-1734. Æt. 0-23.

Birth—Parentage—His own account of his Ancestors—Local associations of Ninewells—Education—Studies—Early Correspondence—The Ramsays—Specimen of his early Writings—Essay on Chivalry—Why he deserted the Law—Early ambition to found a School of Philosophy—Letter to a Physician describing his studies and habits—Criticism on the Letter—Supposition that it was addressed to Dr. Cheyne—Hume goes to Bristol.

David Hume was born at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April,[1:1] 1711. He was the second son of Joseph Hume, or Home, proprietor of the estate of Ninewells, in the parish of Chirnside, in Berwickshire. His mother was a daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, who filled the office of Lord President of the Court of Session from 1682 to 1685, and is known to lawyers as the collector of a series of decisions of the Court of Session, published in 1701. His son, the brother of Hume's mother, succeeded to the barony of Halkerton in 1727. Mr. Hume the elder, was a member of the Faculty of Advocates.[1:2] He appears,

however, if he ever intended to follow the legal profession as a means of livelihood, to have early given up that view, and to have lived, as his eldest son John afterwards did, the life of a retired country gentleman.

It is an established rule, that all biographical attempts of considerable length, shall contain some genealogical inquiry regarding the family of their subject. The present writer is relieved both of the labour of such an investigation, and the responsibility of adjusting it to the appropriate bounds, by being able to print a letter in which the philosopher has himself exhibited the results of an inquiry into the subject.

David Hume to Alexander Home of Whitfield.

"Edinburgh, 12th April, 1758.

"Dear Sir,—I was told by Mrs. Home, when she was in town, that you intended to make some researches into our family, in order to give them to Mr. Douglas, who must insert them, or the substance of them, into his account of the Scottish nobility.[2:1] I think that your purpose is very laudable, and is very obliging to us all; and for this reason I shall inform you of what I know of the matter. These hints will at least serve to point out to you more authentic documents.

"My brother has no very ancient charters: the oldest he has, are some charters of the lands of Horndean. There he is designated Home, or Hume, of Ninewells.

The oldest charters of Ninewells are lost. It was always a tradition in our family, that we were descended from Lord Home, in this manner. Lord Home gave to his younger son the lands of Tinningham, East Lothian. This gentleman proved a spendthrift and dissipated his estate, upon which Lord Home provided his grandchild, or nephew, in the lands of Ninewells as a patrimony. This, probably, is the reason why, in all the books of heraldry, we are styled to be cadets of Tinningham; and Tinningham was undoubtedly a cadet of Home. I was told by my grand-aunt, Mrs. Sinclair of Hermiston, that Charles earl of Home told her, that he had been looking over some old papers of the family, where the Lord Home designs Home of Ninewells either his grandson or nephew, I do not precisely remember which.

"The late Sir James Home of Blackadder showed me a paper, which he himself had copied a few days before from a gravestone in the churchyard of Hutton: the words were these—'Here lies John Home of Bell, son of John Home of Ninewells, son of John Home of Tinningham, son of John Lord Home, founder of Dunglas.'

"I find that this Lord Home, founder of Dunglas, was the very person whom Godscroft says went over to France with the Douglas, and was father to Tinningham: so thus the two stories tally exactly. He was killed either in the battle of Crevant or Verneuil, gained by the Duke of Bedford, the regent, against the French. Douglas fell in the same battle. I think it was the battle of Verneuil. All the French and English histories, as well as the Scotch, contain this fact. This Lord Home was your ancestor, and ours, lived in the time of James the First and Second of Scotland, Henrys the Fifth and Sixth of England.

"I have asked old Bell the descent of his family. He said he was really sprung from Ninewells, but that the lands fell to an heiress who married a brother of Polwarth's.

"By Godscroft's account, Tinningham was the third son of Home in the same generation that Wedderburn was the second, so that the difference of antiquity is nothing, or very inconsiderable.

"The readiest way of vouching these facts would be for you to take a jaunt to the churchyard of Hutton, and inquire for Bell's monument, and see whether the inscription be not obliterated; for it is above twenty-five years ago that I saw the paper in Sir James Home's hand, and he told us, at that time, that the inscription was somewhat difficult to be read. If it be still legible it would be very well done to take a copy of it in some authentic manner, and transmit it to Mr. Douglas, to be inserted in his volume. If it be utterly effaced, the next, but most difficult task would be to search for the paper above-mentioned in the family of Home: it must be some time about the year 1440 or 1450. If both these means fail, we must rest upon the tradition.

"I am not of the opinion of some, that these matters are altogether to be slighted. Though we should pretend to be wiser than our ancestors, yet it is arrogant to pretend that we are wiser than the other nations of Europe, who, all of them, except perhaps the English, make great account of their family descent. I doubt that our morals have not much improved since we began to think riches the sole thing worth regarding.[4:1]

"If I were in the country I should be glad to attend you to Hutton, in order to make the inquiry I propose. I doubt whether my brother will think of doing it: he has such an extreme aversion to every thing that savours of vanity, that he would not willingly expose himself to censure; but this is a justice that one owes to their posterity, for we are not certain that these matters will be always so little regarded.

"I shall farther observe to you, that the Lord Home, founder of Dunglas, married the heiress of that family, of the name of Pepdie, and from her we always bear the Pepingos in our arms.

"I find in Hall's Chronicle that the Earl of Surrey, in an inroad upon the Merse, made during the reign of Henry the Eighth, after the battle of Flouden, destroyed the castles of Hedderburn, West Nisgate, and Blackadder, and the towers of East Nisgate, and Winwalls. The names, you see, are somewhat disfigured; but I cannot doubt but he means Nisbet and Ninewells: the situation of the places leads us to that conjecture.

"I have reason to believe, notwithstanding the fact, as Ninewells lay very near Berwick, our ancestors commonly paid contributions to the governor of that place, and abstained from hostilities and were prevented from ravages. There is, in Hayne's State Papers, a very particular account of the ravages committed by an inroad of the English, during the minority of Queen Mary.[6:1] Not a village, scarce a single house in the Merse, but what is mentioned as burnt or overthrown, till you come to Whitwater. East of the river, there was not one destroyed. This reason will perhaps explain why, in none of the histories of that time, even the more particular, there is any mention made of our ancestors; while we meet with Wedderburn, Aiton, Manderston, Cowdenknows, Sprot, and other cadets of Home.

"I have learned from my mother, that my father, in a lawsuit with Hilton, claimed an old apprizing upon the lands of Hutton-Hall, upon which there had been no deed done for 140 years. Hilton thought that it must necessarily be expired; but my father was able to prove that, during that whole time there had not been forty years of majority in the family. He died soon after, and left my mother very young; so that there was near 160 years during which there was not forty years of majority.[6:2] Now we are upon this

subject, I shall just mention to you a trifle, with regard to the spelling of our name. The practice of spelling Hume is by far the most ancient and most general till about the Restoration, when it became common to spell Home contrary to the pronunciation. Our name is frequently mentioned in Rymer's Fœdera, and always spelt Hume. I find a subscription of Lord Hume in the memoirs of the Sidney family, where it is spelt as I do at present. These are a few of the numberless authorities on this head.

"I wish the materials I give you were more numerous and more satisfactory; but such as they are, I am glad to have communicated them to you.—I am," &c.[7:1]

A competent authority in such matters gives the following partly heraldic, partly topographical account of the Humes and their territory:—

"Hume of Ninewells, the family of the great historian, bore 'Vert a lion rampant, argent, within a bordure or, charged with nine wells, or springs, barry-wavy and argent.'

"The estate of Ninewells is so named from a cluster of springs of that number. Their situation is picturesque. They burst forth from a gentle declivity in front of the mansion, which has on each side a semicircular rising bank, covered with fine timber, and fall, after a short time, into the bed of the river Whitewater, which forms a boundary in the front. These springs, as descriptive of their property, were assigned to the Humes of this place, as a difference in arms from the chief of their house."[8:1]

The scenes amidst which Hume passed his boyhood, and many of the years of his later life, have subsequently, in the light of a national literature, become a classic land, visited by strangers, with the same feeling with which Hume himself trod the soil of Mantua. In his own days, the elements of this literature were no less in existence; but it was not part of his mental character to find any pleasing associations in spots, remarkable only for the warlike or adventurous achievements they had witnessed. Intellect was the material on which his genius worked: with it were all his associations and sympathies; and what had not been adorned by the feats of the mind had no charm in his eye. Had he been a stranger of another land, visiting at the present, or some later day, the scenes of the Lay and of Marmion, they would, without doubt,

like the land of Virgil, have lit in his mind some sympathetic glow; but the scenes illustrated solely by deeds of barbarous warfare, and by a rude illiterate minstrelsy, had nothing in them to rouse a mind, which was yet far from being destitute of its own peculiar enthusiasm. He had often, in his history, to mention great historical events that had taken place in the immediate vicinity of his paternal residence, and in places to which he could hardly have escaped, if he did not court occasional visits. About six miles from Ninewells, stands Norham castle. Three or four miles farther off, are Twisel bridge, where Surrey crossed the Till to engage the Scots, and the other localities connected with the battle of Flodden. In the same neighbourhood is Holiwell Haugh, where Edward I. met the Scottish nobility, when he professed himself to be the arbiter of the disputes between Bruce and Baliol. In his notices of these spots, in connexion with the historical events which he describes, he betrays no symptom of having passed many of his youthful days in their vicinity, but is as cold and general as when he describes Agincourt or Marston Moor; and it may safely be said, that in none of his historical or philosophical writings does any expression used by him, unless in those cases where a Scoticism has escaped his vigilance, betray either the district or the country of his origin.[9:1]

Hume tells us, in his short autobiography, "My family was not rich, and being myself a younger brother, my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and education of her children." He says no more of his education, than that he "passed through the ordinary course of education with success." In a document which will be immediately quoted at length, we find him speaking of having received the usual college education of Scotland, which terminates when the student is fourteen or fifteen years old. It is probable that he studied at the University of Edinburgh, in the matriculation book of which the name of

"David Home" appears, as intrant of the class of William Scott, Professor of Greek, on 27th February, 1723. Holding the year to commence on 1st January, which was then the practice in Scotland, though not in England, he would be at that time nearly twelve years old. The name does not appear in any of the subsequent matriculation lists: it was probably not then the practice for the student to be entered more than once, at the commencement of his curriculum; and neither the name of Hume, nor of Home, occurs in the list of graduates.

Of his method of studying, and of his habits of life, after he left the university, as of his literary aspirations and projects, we fortunately possess some curious notices in his correspondence. The earliest letter written by Hume, known to be extant, is in a scroll which has been apparently preserved by himself. It is addressed to Michael Ramsay, with whom it will be seen, from the letters quoted in the course of this work, that the friendship formed, when both were young, remained uninterrupted and vigorous during their mature years. I have been unable to discover any thing of the history of this Michael Ramsay, beyond what may be gathered from the internal evidence supplied by the correspondence. He must have been destined for the English Church, but he appears not to have taken orders; as in a letter from Hume, which, though undated, must have been written at an advanced period of both their lives, he is addressed "Michael Ramsay, Esq." Writing on 5th June, 1764, he says to Hume, "I continue in the old wandering way in which I have passed so much of my life, and in which it is likely I shall end it." He appears to have had many connexions well to do in the world, and to have died before the year 1779,

leaving his papers in the possession of a nephew having his own Christian name of Michael; which was also, it may be observed, the name of the Chevalier Ramsay, of whom Hume's correspondent was perhaps a relation.[12:1]

Hume to Michael Ramsay.

"July 4, 1727.

"D^r M.—I received all the books you writ of, and your Milton among the rest. When I saw it, I

perceived there was a difference betwixt preaching and practising: you accuse me of niceness, and yet practise it most egregiously yourself. What was the necessity of sending your Milton, which I knew you were so fond of? Why, I lent your's and can't get it. But would you not, in the same manner, have lent your own? Yes. Then, why this ceremony and good breeding? I write all this to show you how easily any action may be brought to bear the countenance of a fault. You may justify yourself very well, by saying it was kindness; and I am satisfied with it, and thank you for it. So, in the same manner, I may justify myself from your reproofs. You say that I would not send in my papers, because they were not polished nor brought to any form: which you say is nicety. But was it not reasonable? Would you have me send in my loose incorrect thoughts? Were such worth the transcribing? All the progress that I made is but drawing the outlines, on loose bits of paper: here a hint of a passion; there a phenomenon in the mind accounted for: in another the alteration of these accounts; sometimes a remark upon an author I have been reading; and none of them worth to any body, and I believe scarce to myself. The only design I had of mentioning any of them at all, was to see what you would have said of your own, whether they were of the same kind, and if you would send any; and I have got my end, for you have given a most satisfactory reason for not communicating them, by promising they shall be told vivâ voce—a much better way indeed, and in which I promise myself much satisfaction; for the free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any entertainment. Just now I am entirely confined to myself and library for diversion since we parted.

——ea sola voluptus,

Solamenque mali—[14:1]

And indeed to me they are not a small one: for I take no more of them than I please; for I hate task-reading, and I diversify them at pleasure—sometimes a philosopher, sometimes a poet—which change is not unpleasant nor disserviceable neither; for what will more surely engrave upon my mind a Tusculan disputation of Cicero's De Ægritudine Lenienda, than an eclogue or georgick of Virgil's? The philosopher's wise man and the poet's husbandman agree in peace of mind, in a liberty and independency on fortune, and contempt of riches, power, and glory. Every thing is placid and quiet in both: nothing perturbed or disordered.

At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita——

Speluncæ, vivique laci; at frigida Tempe,

Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somnos

Non absint.[14:2]

"These lines will, in my opinion, come nothing short of the instruction of the finest sentence in Cicero: and is more to me, as Virgil's life is more the subject of my ambition, being what I can apprehend to be

more within my power. For the perfectly wise man, that outbraves fortune, is surely greater than the husbandman who slips by her; and, indeed, this pastoral and saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now. I live like a king, pretty much by myself, neither full of action nor perturbation,—molles somnos. This state, however, I can foresee is not to be relied on. My peace of mind is not sufficiently confirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of fortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only in study and contemplation—this can alone teach us to look down on human accidents. You must allow [me] to talk thus, like a philosopher: 'tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day long of. But I know I must not trouble you. Wherefore I wisely practise my rules, which prescribe to check our appetite; and, for a mortification, shall descend from these superior regions to low and ordinary life; and so far as to tell you,

that John has bought a horse: he thinks it neither cheap nor dear. It cost six guineas, but will be sold cheaper against winter, which he is not resolved on as yet. It has no fault, but bogles a little. It is tolerably well favoured, and paces naturally. Mamma bids me tell you, that Sir John Home is not going to town; but he saw Eccles in the country, who says he will do nothing in that affair, for he is only taking off old adjudications, so it is needless to let him see the papers. He desires you would trouble yourself to inquire about the Earle's affairs, and advise us what to do in this affair.

"If it were not breaking the formal rule of connexions I have prescribed myself in this letter—and it did not seem unnatural to raise myself from so low affairs as horses and papers, to so high and elevate things as books and study—I would tell you that I read some of Longinus already, and that I am mightily delighted with him. I think he does really answer the character of being the great sublime he describes. He delivers his precepts with such force, as if he were enchanted with the subject; and is himself an author that may be cited for an example to his own rules, by any one who shall be so adventurous as to write upon his subject."[16:1]

This is certainly a remarkable letter to have been written by a youth little more than sixteen years old. If it had been written by one less distinguished by the

originality of his mature intellect, it might be looked upon as one of those illustrations of the faculty of imitation, for which some young persons display peculiar powers; but its grave and high-toned philosophical feeling is evidently no echo of other people's words, but the deeply felt sentiments of the writer. In some measure, perhaps, he deceived himself in believing that he had attuned his mind to pastoral simplicity, and had weeded it of all ambitious longings. If he had a sympathy with Virgil, it was not, as he has represented, with the poet's ideas of life, but with his realizations of it; not with the quiet sphere of a retired and unnoticed existence, but with the lustre of a well-earned fame. Through the whole, indeed, of the memorials of Hume's early feelings, we find the traces of a bold and far-stretching literary ambition; and though he believed that he had seared his mind to ordinary human influences, it was because this one had become so engrossing as to overwhelm all others. "I was seized very early," he tells us, in his 'own life,' "with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and a great source of my enjoyments." Joined to this impulse, we find a practical philosophy partaking far more of the stoical than of that sceptical school with which his metaphysical writings have identified him; a morality of self-sacrifice and endurance, for the accomplishment of great ends. In whatever light we may view his speculative opinions, we gather from the habits of his life, and from the indications we possess of his passing thoughts, that he devotedly acted up to the principle, that his genius and power of application should be laid out with the greatest prospect of permanent advantage to mankind. He was an economist of all his talents from early youth: no memoir of a literary

man presents a more cautious and vigilant husbandry of the mental powers and acquirements. There is no instance of a man of genius who has wasted less in idleness or in unavailing pursuits. Money was not his object, nor was temporary fame; though, of the means of independent livelihood, and a good repute among men, he never lost sight: but his ruling object of ambition, pursued in poverty and riches, in health and sickness, in laborious obscurity and amidst the blaze of fame, was to establish a permanent name, resting on the foundation of literary achievements, likely to live as long as human thought endured, and mental philosophy was studied.

There is among Hume's papers a fragment of "An Historical Essay on Chivalry and Modern Honour." It is evidently a clean copy from a corrected scrawl, written with great precision and neatness, and no despicable specimen of caligraphy. From the pains that appear to have been bestowed on the penmanship, and from many rhetorical defects and blemishes which do not appear in any of his published works, it may be inferred that this is a production of very early years, and properly applicable to this period of his life; although its matured thought, and clear systematic analysis, might, in other circumstances, have indicated it as the fruit of a mind long and carefully cultivated. It is scarcely necessary to frame an excuse for quoting such a document on the present occasion. It could not be legitimately incorporated with his works; because, whatever is given to the public in that shape, is presumed to consist of those productions which the author himself, or those entitled to represent him, have thought fit to lay before the public, as the efforts by which the full stretch and compass of his intellectual powers are to be tested. From such

collections, the editor who performs his functions with a kind and respectful consideration for the reputation of the illustrious dead, will exclude whatever is characterized by the crudeness of youth, or the feebleness of superannuation. To the reputation of Hume it would be peculiarly unjust to publish among his acknowledged and printed works, any productions of extreme youth; because, from his earliest years to an advanced period of his life, his mind was characterized by constant improvement, and he was every now and then reaching a point from which he looked back with regret and disapprobation at the efforts of earlier years.

But in a biographical work, where the chief object is the tracing the history of the author's mind, not the representation of its matured efforts, these early specimens of budding genius have their legitimate place, and receive that charitable consideration for the circumstances in which they were written, which their author's reputation demands.

The essay commences with a sketch of the decline of virtue, and the prevalence of luxury among the Romans; and describes their possession of the arts which they had learned in their better days, when not seconded by bravery and enterprise, as furnishing, like the fine clothes of a soldier, a temptation to hostile cupidity. He then represents the conquerors adapting themselves, after the manner peculiar to their own barbarous state, to the habits and ideas of the civilized people whom they had subdued. He represents the conquered people as sunk in indolence, but imperfectly preserving the arts and elegancies transmitted to them by their ancestors; and the conquerors full of energy and activity, as the sources of whatever impulse was thereafter given to

thought or action. They "came with freshness and alacrity to the business; and being encouraged both by the novelty of these subjects and by the success of their arms, would naturally ingraft some new kind of fruit on the ancient stock." He then proceeds with the following train of reflections:—

"'Tis observable of the human mind, that when it is smit with any idea of merit or perfection beyond what its faculties can attain, and in the pursuit of which it uses not reason and experience for its guide, it knows no mean, but as it gives the rein, and even adds the spur, to every florid conceit or fancy, runs in a moment quite wide of nature. Thus we find, when, without discretion, it indulges its devote terrors, that working in such fairy-ground, it quickly buries itself in its own whimsies and chimeras, and raises up to itself a new set of passions, affections, desires, objects, and, in short, a perfectly new world of its own, inhabited by different beings, and regulated by different laws from this of ours. In this new world 'tis so possessed that it can endure no interruption from the old; but as nature is apt still on every occasion to recall it thither, it must undermine it by art, and retiring altogether from the commerce of mankind, if it be so bent upon its religious exercise, from the mystic, by an easy transition, degenerate into the hermite. The same thing is observable in philosophy, which though it cannot produce a different world in which we may wander, makes us act in this as if we were different beings from the rest of mankind; at least makes us frame to ourselves, though we cannot execute them, rules of conduct different from those which are set to us by nature. No engine can supply the place of wings, and make us fly, though the

imagination of such a one may make us stretch and strain and elevate ourselves upon our tiptoes. And in this case of an imagined merit, the farther our chimeras hurry us from nature, and the practice of the world, the better pleased we are, as valuing ourselves upon the singularity of our notions, and thinking we depart from the rest of mankind only by flying above them. Where there is none we excel, we are apt to think we have no excellency; and self-conceit makes us take every singularity for an excellency.

"When, therefore, these barbarians came first to the relish of some degree of virtue and politeness beyond what they had ever before been acquainted with, their minds would necessarily stretch themselves into some vast conceptions of things, which, not being corrected by sufficient judgment and experience, must be empty and unsolid. Those who had first bred these conceptions in them could not assist them in their birth, as the Grecians did the Romans; but being themselves scarce half civilized, would be rather apt to entertain any extravagant misshapen conceit of their conquerors, than able to lick it into any form. 'Twas thus that that monster of romantic chivalry, or knight-errantry, by the necessary operation of the principles of human nature, was brought into the world; and it is remarkable that it descended from the Moors and Arabians, who, learning somewhat of the Roman civility from the province they conquered, and being themselves a southern people, which are commonly observed to be more quick and inventive than the northern, were the first who fell upon this vein of achievement. When it was once broken upon it ran like wild-fire over all the nations of Europe, who, being in the same situation with these nations, kindled with the least spark.

"What kind of monstrous birth this of chivalry must prove, we may learn from considering the different revolutions in the arts, particularly in architecture, and comparing the Gothic with the Grecian models of it. The one are plain, simple, and regular, but withal majestic and beautiful, which when these barbarians unskilfully imitated, they ran into a wild profusion of ornaments, and by their rude embellishments departed far from nature and a just simplicity. They were struck with the beauties of the ancient buildings; but, ignorant how to preserve a just mean, and giving an unbounded liberty to their fancy in heaping ornament upon ornament, they made the whole a heap of confusion and irregularity. For the same reason, when they would rear up a new scheme of manners, or heroism, it must be strangely overcharged with ornaments, and no part exempt from their unskilful refinements; and this we find to have been actually the case, as may be proven by running over the several parts of it."

He then inquires into the reason, why courage is the principal virtue of barbarous nations, and why they esteem deeds of heroism, however useless or mischievous, as far more meritorious than useful efforts of government or internal organization. He contrasts the heroism of the barbarous periods of the ancient world, with those of the dark ages of modern Europe; and finding the former selfish and aggrandizing, while the latter is characterized by the more generous features of chivalry, he thus accounts for this characteristic.

"The method by which these courteous knights acquired this extreme civility of theirs, was by mixing love with their courage. Love is a very generous passion, and well fitted both to that humanity and

courage they would reconcile. The only one that can contest with it is friendship, which, besides that it is too refined a passion for common use, is not by many degrees so natural as love, to which almost every one has a great propensity, and which it is impossible to see a beautiful woman, without feeling some touches of. Besides, as love is a capricious passion, it is the more susceptible of these fantastic forms, which it must take when it mixes with chivalry. Friendship is a solid and serious thing, and, like the love of their country in the Roman heroes, would dispel and put to flight all the chimeras, inseparable from this spirit of adventure. So that a mistress is as necessary to a cavalier or knight-errant, as a god or saint to a devotee. Nor would he stop here, or be contented with a submiss reverence and adoration to one of the sex, but would extend in some degree the same civility to the whole, and by a curious reversement of the order of nature, make them the superior. This is no more than what is suitable to that infinite generosity of which he makes profession. Every thing below him he treats with submission, and every thing above him, with contumacy. Thus he carries these double symptoms of generosity which Virgil makes mention of into extravagance.

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

Hence arises the knight-errant's strong and irreconcileable aversion to all giants, with his most humble and respectful submission to all damsels. These two affections of his, he unites in all his adventures, which are always designed to relieve distressed damsels from the captivity and violence of giants.

"As a cavalier is composed of the greatest warmth of love, tempered with the most humble submission

and respect, his mistress's behaviour is in every point the reverse of this; and what is conspicuous in her temper is the utmost coldness along with the greatest haughtiness and disdain; until at last, gratitude for the many deliverances she has met with, and the giants and monsters without number that he has destroyed for her sake, reduces her, though unwilling, to the necessity of commencing a bride. Here the chastity of women, which, from the necessity of human affairs, has been in all ages and countries an extravagant point of honour with them, is run into still greater extravagance, that none of the sexes may be exempt from this fantastic ornament.

"Such were the notions of bravery in that age, and such the fictions by which they formed models of it. The effects these had on their ordinary life and conversation was, first, an extravagant gallantry and adoration of the whole female sex, and romantic notions of extraordinary constancy, fidelity, and refined passion for one mistress. Secondly, the introduction of the practice of single combat. How naturally this sprung up from chivalry may easily be understood. A knight-errant fights, not like another man full of passion and resentment, but with the utmost civility mixed with his undaunted courage. He salutes you before he cuts your throat; and a plain man, who understood nothing of the mystery, would take him for a treacherous ruffian, and think that, like Judas, he was betraying with a kiss, while he is showing his generous calmness and amicable courage. In consequence of this, every thing is performed with the greatest ceremony and order; and whenever either chance or his superior bravery make either of them victorious, he generously gives his antagonist his life, and again embraces him as his friend. When these fantastic

practices have come in use, the amazed world, who, merely because there is nothing real in all this, must certainly imagine there is a great deal, could not but look upon such a courteous enmity as the most heroic and sublime thing in nature; and instead of punishing any murder that might ensue, as the law directs in such cases, would praise and applaud the murderer."[25:1]

Perhaps the reader of these passages will have come to the conclusion that the powers of reason displayed in them are as bold and original as the imagination is meagre and servile. The reflections on Gothic architecture are the commonplace opinions of the day, uttered by one who was singularly destitute of sympathy with the human intellect, in its early efforts to resolve itself into symmetry and elegance; whose mind shrunk from the contemplation of any work of man that did not bear the stamp of high intellectual culture. The same want of sympathy with man in his rude and grand, though inharmonious efforts, here attends both the chivalric manners and the solemn architecture of the dark ages. Of the former, he has made a cold, clear, unsympathizing, perhaps accurate estimate. The latter, unless a large proportion of the architectural enthusiasts of the present day have raised the taste of the age upon false foundations, he utterly misappreciated.

It must have been about his seventeenth year that Hume commenced, and abruptly relinquished the practical study of the law,—a curious episode in his history, which he thus describes in his "own life:" "My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an insurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring."

But this by no means gives the reader a full and faithful impression of his motives. The passage calls up the vision of a contemplative, gentle, unambitious youth, shrinking from the arid labours that lead to wealth and distinction, and content to dream away

his life in obscurity with the companionship of his favourite books. The document already referred to, and immediately to be quoted, shows that far other thoughts were in his mind; that he did not shrink from the professional labours of the bar, to sink into studious ease, but rejected them to encounter higher and more arduous toils—that he did not drop passively from the path of ambition opened to him, but deserted it for a higher and more adventurous course. He had indeed already before him the prospect of being a discoverer in philosophy, and his mind, crowded with the images of his new system, could see nothing else in life worthy of pursuit.

Without this clue, Hume's aversion to the study of the law would have been a problem not to be easily solved. Had he lived in the present day, when the mass of statute and precedent that have accumulated even within the narrow domain of Scottish law, have completely precluded those luxurious digressions into the field of speculation and theory, which characterized the legal practice of our ancestors, one might readily comprehend the aversion of his fastidiously cultivated logical mind to such hard and coarse materials. But a lawyer's library, in his days, consisted of the classics, the philosophers of mind, and the civilians. The advocate often commenced his pleadings with a quotation from the young philosopher's favourite poet Virgil, and then digressed into a speculative inquiry into the general principles of law and government: the philosophical genius of Themis long soaring sublime, until at last, folding her wings, she rested on some vulgar question about dry multures or an irritancy of a tailzie, to the settlement of which the wide principles so announced were applied. Surely that science, within the boundaries of which

the speculative spirit of Lord Kames had room for its flights, could not have been rejected on the ground that it cramped and restrained the faculty of generalizing.[28:1] Yet in a letter to Smith, of 12th April, 1759, which shows that Hume retained his antipathy to the study to an advanced period of his life, he says, "I am afraid of Kames' Law Tracts. A man might as well think of making a fine sauce by a mixture of wormwood and aloes, as an agreeable composition by joining metaphysics and Scottish law. However, the book I believe has merit, though few people will take the pains of inquiring into it."

In truth there appear to have been in Hume all the elements of which a good lawyer is made: clearness of judgment, power of rapidly acquiring knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic skill; and, if his mind had not been preoccupied, he might have fallen into that gulf in which many of the world's greatest geniuses lie buried—professional eminence, and might have left behind him a reputation limited to the traditional recollections of the Parliament House, or associated with important decisions. He was through life an able, clear-headed man of business, and I have seen several legal documents written in his own hand and evidently drawn by himself. They stand the test of general professional observation; and

their writer, by preparing documents of such a character on his own responsibility, showed that he had considerable confidence in his ability to adhere to the forms adequate for the occasion. He talks of it as "an ancient prejudice industriously propagated by the dunces in all countries, that a man of genius is unfit for business;"[29:1] and he showed, in his general conduct through life, that he did not choose to come voluntarily under this proscription.

His writings, however, bear but slight traces of his juridical studies. In analysing the foundations of our notions of property, he criticises some of the subtleties of the early civilians, but shows no more intimate acquaintance with their works than any well-informed scholar of the day might be supposed to exhibit. He shows no pleasure in dwelling on matters connected with this study, but rather appears disposed to release himself and his reader from a subject so little congenial to his taste. The particular law of Scotland is one of those subjects to which he would be careful to avoid a reference, as carrying with it that tone of provincial thought and education which he was always anxious to avoid. It may be perhaps an unfortunate result of this early prejudice against the study of jurisprudence, that in after life he failed to acquire that knowledge of the progress of the law of England, which would have made his history much less amenable than it has been to censorious criticism.

It is now time that the reader should be possessed of the document above alluded to, as throwing much light on Hume's early studies and habits of life; and it is here presented, without any introductory explanation, as it first appeared to me in going through the papers in the possession of the Royal Society.

A Letter to a Physician.

"Sir,—Not being acquainted with this handwriting, you will probably look to the bottom to find the subscription, and not finding any, will certainly wonder at this strange method of addressing to you. I must here in the beginning beg you to excuse it, and, to persuade you to read what follows with some attention, must tell you, that this gives you an opportunity to do a very good-natured action, which I believe is the most powerful argument I can use. I need not tell you, that I am your countryman, a Scotsman; for without any such tie, I dare rely upon your humanity even to a perfect stranger, such as I am. The favour I beg of you is your advice, and the reason why I address myself in particular to you, need not be told,—as one must be a skilful physician, a man of letters, of wit, of good sense, and of great humanity, to give me a satisfying answer. I wish fame had pointed out to me more persons, in whom these qualities are united, in order to have kept me some time in suspense. This I say in the sincerity of my heart, and without any intention of making a compliment; for though it may seem necessary, that, in the beginning of so unusual a letter, I should say some fine things, to bespeak your good opinion, and remove any prejudices you may conceive at it, yet such an endeavour to be witty, would ill suit with the present condition of my mind; which, I must confess, is not without anxiety concerning the judgment you will form of me. Trusting, however, to your candour and generosity, I shall, without further preface, proceed to open up to you the present condition of my health, and to do that the more effectually, shall give you a kind of history of my life, after which you will easily learn why I keep my name a secret.

"You must know then that, from my earliest infancy, I found always a strong inclination to books and letters. As our college education in Scotland, extending little further than the languages, ends commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some months; till at last, about the beginning of September, 1729, all my ardour seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no longer raise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such excessive pleasure. I felt no uneasiness or want of spirits, when I laid aside my book; and therefore never imagined there was any bodily distemper in the case, but that my coldness

proceeded from a laziness of temper, which must be overcome by redoubling my application. In this condition I remained for nine months, very uneasy to myself, as you may well imagine, but without growing any worse, which was a miracle. There was another particular, which contributed, more than any thing, to waste my spirits and bring on me this distemper, which was, that having read many books of morality, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, and being smit with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy, I undertook the improvement of my temper and will, along with my reason and understanding. I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, when joined with an active life, because the occasion being presented along with the reflection, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep impression; but in solitude they serve to little other purpose, than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim. This, however, I did not learn but by experience, and till I had already ruined my health, though I was not sensible of it. Some scurvy spots broke out on my fingers the first winter I fell ill, about which I consulted a very knowing physician, who gave me some medicine that removed these symptoms, and at the same time gave me a warning against the vapours, which, though I was labouring under at that time, I fancied myself so far removed from, and indeed from any other disease, except a slight scurvy, that I despised his warning. At last, about April 1730, when I was nineteen years of age, a symptom, which I had noticed a little from the beginning, increased

considerably; so that, though it was no uneasiness, the novelty of it made me ask advice; it was what they call a ptyalism or wateryness in the mouth. Upon my mentioning it to my physician, he laughed at me, and told me I was now a brother, for that I had fairly got the disease of the learned. Of this he found great difficulty to persuade me, finding in myself nothing of that lowness of spirit, which those who labour under that distemper so much complain of. However upon his advice I went under a course of bitters, and anti-hysteric pills, drank an English pint of claret wine every day, and rode eight or ten Scotch miles. This I continued for about seven months after.

"Though I was sorry to find myself engaged with so tedious a distemper, yet the knowledge of it set me very much at ease, by satisfying me that my former coldness proceeded not from any defect of temper or genius, but from a disease to which any one may be subject. I now began to take some indulgence to myself; studied moderately, and only when I found my spirits at their highest pitch, leaving off before I was weary, and trifling away the rest of my time in the best manner I could. In this way, I lived with satisfaction enough; and on my return to town next winter found my spirits very much recruited, so that, though they sank under me in the higher flights of genius, yet I was able to make considerable progress in my former designs. I was very regular in my diet and way of life from the beginning, and all that winter made it a constant rule to ride twice or thrice a-week, and walk every day. For these reasons, I expected, when I returned to the country, and could renew my exercise with less interruption, that I would perfectly recover. But in this I was much mistaken; for next summer, about May 1731, there grew upon me a very

ravenous appetite, and as quick a digestion, which I at first took for a good symptom, and was very much surprised to find it bring back a palpitation of heart, which I had felt very little of before. This appetite, however, had an effect very unusual, which was to nourish me extremely; so that in six weeks' time, I passed from the one extreme to the other; and being before tall, lean, and raw-boned, became on a sudden the most sturdy, robust, healthful-like fellow you have seen, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance. In excuse for my riding, and care of my health, I always said that I was afraid of consumption, which was readily believed from my looks, but now every body congratulated me upon my thorough recovery. This unnatural appetite wore off by degrees, but left me as a legacy the same palpitation of the heart in a small degree, and a good deal of wind in my stomach, which comes away easily, and without any bad goût, as is ordinary. However, these symptoms are little or no uneasiness to me. I eat well; I sleep well; have no lowness of spirits, at least never more than what one of the best health may feel from too full a meal, from sitting too near a fire, and even that degree I feel very seldom, and never almost in the morning or forenoon. Those who live in the same family with me, and see me at all times, cannot observe the least alteration in my humour, and rather think me a better companion than I was before, as choosing to pass more of my time with them. This gave me such hopes, that I scarce ever missed a day's riding, except in the winter time; and last summer undertook a very laborious task, which was to travel eight miles every morning, and as many in the forenoon, to and from a mineral well of some reputation. I renewed the bitter and anti-hysteric pills twice,

along with anti-scorbutic juice, last spring, but without any considerable effect, except abating the symptoms for a little time.

"Thus I have given you a full account of the condition of my body; and without staying to ask pardon, as I ought to do, for so tedious a story, shall explain to you how my mind stood all this time, which on every occasion, especially in this distemper, have a very near connexion together. Having now time and leisure to cool my inflamed imagination, I began to consider seriously how I should proceed in my philosophical inquiries. I found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity laboured under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and of happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend. This, therefore, I resolved to make my principal study, and the source from which I would derive every truth in criticism as well as morality. I believe it is a certain fact, that most of the philosophers who have gone before us, have been overthrown by the greatness of their genius, and that little more is required to make a man succeed in this study, than to throw off all prejudices either for his own opinions or for those of others. At least this is all I have to depend on for the truth of my reasonings, which I have multiplied to such a degree, that within these three years, I find I have scribbled many a quire of paper, in which there is nothing contained but my own inventions. This, with the reading most of the celebrated books in Latin, French, and English, and acquiring the Italian, you may think a sufficient

business for one in perfect health, and so it would had it been done to any purpose; but my disease was a cruel encumbrance on me. I found that I was not able to follow out any train of thought, by one continued stretch of view, but by repeated interruptions, and by refreshing my eye from time to time upon other objects. Yet with this inconvenience I have collected the rude materials for many volumes; but in reducing these to words, when one must bring the idea he comprehended in gross, nearer to him, so as to contemplate its minutest parts, and keep it steadily in his eye, so as to copy these parts in order,—this I found impracticable for me, nor were my spirits equal to so severe an employment. Here lay my greatest calamity. I had no hopes of delivering my opinions with such elegance and neatness, as to draw to me the attention of the world, and I would rather live and die in obscurity than produce them maimed and imperfect.

"Such a miserable disappointment I scarce ever remember to have heard of. The small distance betwixt me and perfect health makes me the more uneasy in my present situation. It is a weakness rather than a lowness of spirits which troubles me, and there seems to be as great a difference betwixt my distemper and common vapours, as betwixt vapours and madness. I have noticed in the writings of the French mystics, and in those of our fanatics here, that when they give a history of the situation of their souls, they mention a coldness and desertion of the spirit, which frequently returns; and some of them, at the beginning, have been tormented with it many years. As this kind of devotion depends entirely on the force of passion, and consequently of the animal spirits, I have often thought that their case and mine

were pretty parallel, and that their rapturous admirations might discompose the fabric of the nerves and brain, as much as profound reflections, and that warmth or enthusiasm which is inseparable from them.

"However this may be, I have not come out of the cloud so well as they commonly tell us they have done, or rather began to despair of ever recovering. To keep myself from being melancholy on so dismal a prospect, my only security was in peevish reflections on the vanity of the world and of all human glory; which, however just sentiments they may be esteemed, I have found can never be sincere, except in those who are possessed of them. Being sensible that all my philosophy would never make me contented in my present situation, I began to rouse up myself; and being encouraged by instances of recovery from worse degrees of this distemper, as well as by the assurances of my physicians, I began to think of something more effectual than I had hitherto tried. I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion; and that my whole time was spent betwixt the bad, with little or no share of the good. For this reason I resolved to seek out a more active life, and though I could not quit my pretensions in learning but with my last breath, to lay them aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them. Upon examination, I found my choice confined to two kinds of life, that of a travelling governor, and that of a merchant. The first, besides that it is in some respects an idle life, was, I found, unfit for me; and that because from a sedentary and retired way of living, from a bashful temper, and from a narrow fortune, I had been little accustomed to general

companies, and had not confidence and knowledge enough of the world to push my fortune, or to be serviceable in that way. I therefore fixed my choice upon a merchant; and having got recommendation to a considerable trader in Bristol, I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution to forget myself, and every thing that is past, to engage myself, as far as is possible, in that course of life, and to toss about the world, from the one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me.

"As I am come to London in my way to Bristol, I have resolved, if possible, to get your advice, though I should take this absurd method of procuring it. All the physicians I have consulted, though very able, could never enter into my distemper; because not being persons of great learning beyond their own profession, they were unacquainted with these motions of the mind. Your fame pointed you out as the properest person to resolve my doubts, and I was determined to have somebody's opinion, which I could rest upon in all the varieties of fears and hopes, incident to so lingering a distemper. I hope I have been particular enough in describing the symptoms to allow you to form a judgment; or rather, perhaps, have been too particular. But you know it is a symptom of this distemper, to delight in complaining and talking of itself. The questions I would humbly propose to you are: Whether, among all those scholars you have been acquainted with, you have ever known any affected in this manner? Whether I can ever hope for a recovery? Whether I must long wait for it? Whether my recovery will ever be perfect, and my spirits regain their former spring and vigour, so as to endure the fatigue of deep and abstruse thinking? Whether I have taken a right

way to recover? I believe all proper medicines have been used, and therefore I need mention nothing of them."

The history of this eventful period in the mental biography of Hume, is very briefly narrated in his "own life." Alluding to his adoption of the life of a student, he says, "My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering into a more active scene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with some recommendations to eminent merchants, but in a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me."

I am sure the reader will sympathize with me in esteeming it a high privilege to be the humble instrument of ushering into the world so curious a piece of literary autobiography as that which he has just perused. We are here admitted into the confessional. So secret is the communication of thought by the writer to the receiver, that the latter, who was made acquainted with so much of the internal meditations of the former, was not to be allowed to know with what outward man this mind of which he obtained a description was connected. The individual mind was fully and minutely described—to what individual man this mind belonged was to be preserved a profound secret. The writer shrunk from the admission of any man to a participation with him in his self-conferences, and he planned that by keeping his name a secret, the link which would connect this knowledge of the inner to an acquaintance with the outer man should be broken. We have surely in this an argument in favour of the candour and explicitness of his narrative. He felt that to be known, in the ordinary

acceptation of the term, by the person he addressed, would be a restraint on the freedom of his revelations—he threw off this restraint, and we are entitled to infer that his letter is a piece of full and candid self-examination. Every word of it, as it was originally written, is here printed, and it will perhaps be admitted that there is not one word of it that does not do honour to its writer. To Aristotle and others it is attributed that they taught esoteric doctrines to a chosen few—doctrines not to be promulgated to the world at large, because they were likely to have a dangerous influence on minds not skilfully trained for their reception. For any vestiges of these hidden doctrines the world searches, anticipating that in them will be found a nearer approach to that which the philosopher believed in his own mind, as distinct from that which he desired to inculcate on others. In all ages there has been a natural and a praiseworthy curiosity to know the hidden thoughts of great teachers. Mankind in general admit, that truth is what is valuable in all philosophy, and if a man entertained thoughts in his own mind in any way different from those which he taught, it has been a conclusion certainly quite legitimate, that truth is more likely to be found in the former than in the latter. But certainly there can hardly be found any other instance in which a document, so likely to be the honest impress of a philosopher's own mind, has been laid before the world; and it is an attestation of the sincerity with which the opinions then in the course of formation in his mind were believed.

But, independently of the philosophical value of the document, to be thus admitted into the secrecy of the thoughts of a man ambitious of high literary distinction, and who has attained his object, is a rare privilege. The revelation, notwithstanding its foreboding

tone, is calculated to give far more pleasure than pain. The future, which seemed to the desponding philosopher for a moment so dark, we know to have brightened on him. Hume was of the happy few who lived to see their airy castles substantially realized. Comparing what it reveals of the inner man, with the subsequent history of his achievements, the picture supplied by this fragment of autobiography is a happy one. We sympathize with the aspiring dreams of the young man, without feeling that they were afterwards doomed to disappointment. The immediate occasion of his earnest appeal is undoubtedly one of despondency; but it was preceded by hope, as we know it was followed by success; and notwithstanding this passing cloud, it may fairly be pronounced, that though Hume enjoyed through life more than the average portion of human happiness, he had no moments of purer felicity than those in which, in the retirement of his paternal home, he was sketching the airy outline of his subsequent career.

Perhaps the feature that will most forcibly strike the reader, is the evidence of the deep-rooted ambition to found a philosophical reputation, that seems to have filled the mind of the writer of this document. The consciousness that the receiver of the paper must at once perceive this circumstance, and the desire not to let a stranger penetrate his aspiring thoughts, must have been the reasons of his desire for secrecy: it was natural that one who had not entered the lists to struggle for literary distinction, should wish to conceal how strong and inextinguishable was his desire to obtain the prize. The intensity of his anxiety on this subject seems to have made him, in relation to his mind, what the ordinary hypochondriac is as to his physical constitution. The desire to preserve the elements of

distinction was so intense, that it disturbed him with vain fears for their disappearance. Feeling within him, at times, the consciousness of possessing an original genius,—that it should depart from him, and that his lot should be cast among that of ordinary mortals, with good physical health and commonplace abilities, appeared to him the most awful calamity which fate could have in store for him. Of the excellent physical health which accompanied these unpleasant variations of his mental capacity, he speaks with an almost sardonic scorn, as one who, in the bitterness of being bereft of what is all in all to him, talks of some paltry trifle which fortune in her sarcastic malice has chosen to leave untouched. In short, the manner in which he speaks of the departure of his cunning, must almost necessarily convey to the reader a considerable portion of that ludicrous character which is always presented by a scene in which a man appears to be dreadfully anxious about the safety of that which either is of no importance, or is not in danger.

It may be a question whether this strange letter was ever sent to its destination, as the version from which it is here printed is not a rough draught, but a neatly written copy, such as might have been prepared for transmission. But this does not afford so full a presumption in Hume's case, as it would in that of the average of literary men, as he seems to have felt a sort of enjoyment in his earlier years in having his papers neatly written out. The first name that suggested itself as that of the person to whom the paper was addressed was Arbuthnot, whose fine genius was just then flickering in the socket. But a more full consideration showed to my satisfaction that it must have been destined for Dr. George Cheyne,

and that it was suggested by that eminent physician's publication, in the preceding year, of "The English Malady; or, a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds, as Spleen, Vapours, Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal Distempers, &c." There is a certain unison of tone between Hume's letter and this book, that, added to other coincidences, strongly impresses on the mind their connexion with each other; and though it is perhaps necessary, before this is fully seen, to enter into the whole tenor and tone of Cheyne's book, the reader will perhaps find the following passage sufficient to render the conjecture probable:—

"It is a common observation, (and I think has great probability on its side,) that fools, weak or stupid persons, heavy and dull souls, are seldom much troubled with vapours or lowness of spirits. The intellectual faculty, without all manner of doubt, has material and animal organs, by which it mediately works, as well as the animal functions. What they are, and how they operate, as I believe very few know, so it is very little necessary to know them for my present purpose. As a philosophical musician may understand proportions and harmony, and yet never be in a condition to gratify a company with a fine piece of music, without the benefit of sounds from proper organs, so the intellectual operations (as long as the present union between soul and body lasts) can never be performed in the best manner without proper instruments. The works of imagination and memory, of study, thinking, and reflecting, from whatever source the principle on which they depend springs, must necessarily require bodily organs. Some have these organs finer, quicker, more agile, and sensible, and perhaps more numerous than others; brute animals have few or none, at least none that belong to reflection;

vegetables certainly none at all. There is no account to be given how a disease, a fall, a blow, a debauch, poisons, violent passions, astral and aerial influences, much application, and the like, should possibly alter or destroy these intellectual operations without this supposition. It is evident, that in nervous distempers, and a great many other bodily diseases, these faculties and their operations are impaired, nay, totally ruined and extinguished to all appearance; and yet, by proper remedies, and after recovery of health, they are restored and brought to their former state. Now, since this present age has made efforts to go beyond former times, in all the arts of ingenuity, invention, study, learning, and all the contemplative and sedentary professions, (I speak only here of our own nation, our own times, and of the better sort, whose chief employments and studies these are,) the organs of these faculties being thereby worn and spoiled, must affect and deaden the whole system, and lay a foundation for the diseases of lowness and weakness. Add to this, that those who are likeliest to excel and apply in this manner, are most capable and most in hazard of following that way of life which I have mentioned, as the likeliest to produce these diseases. Great wits are generally great epicures, at least, men of taste. And the bodies and constitutions of one generation are still more corrupt, infirm, and diseased, than those of the former, as they advance in time and the use of the causes assigned."

Then there are the farther coincidences, that Cheyne was a Scotsman, that he was an eminent man in his profession, and that he had bestowed some attention on mental philosophy. "I passed my youth," he tells us, "in close study, and almost constant application to the abstracted sciences, wherein my chief pleasure

consisted." "Having," he elsewhere says, "had a liberal education, with the instruction and example of pious parents, (who at first had designed me for the church,) I had preserved a firm persuasion of the great and fundamental principles of all virtue and morality: viz. the existence of a supreme and infinitely perfect Being, the freedom of the will, the immortality of the spirits of all intellectual beings, and the certainty of future rewards or punishments. These doctrines I had examined carefully, and had been confirmed in, from abstracted reasonings, as well as from the best natural philosophy, and some clearer knowledge of the material system of the world in general, and the wisdom, fitness, and beautiful contrivance of particular things animated and inanimated; so that the truth and necessity of these principles was so riveted in me, (which may be seen by the first edition of my 'Philosophical Principles,' published some years before that happened,[45:1]) as never after to be shaken in all my wanderings and follies."[45:2] It may

be mentioned also, as a circumstance likely to bring Cheyne's work early under Hume's observation, that it contains a long statement of the case of Dr. William

Cranstoun, an eminent medical man then residing at Jedburgh, in the same district of country with Ninewells.

FOOTNOTES:

[1:1] Old Style.

[1:2] He is entered in the list of members on 23d June, 1705, as "Mr. Joseph Hume of Ninewalls." It thus appears that the orthography of the name adopted by his son, and which will be found to have been so much the subject of dispute, was not a novelty to the family.

[2:1] Both the "Peerage" and the "Baronage" of Scotland, by Robert Douglas, are well known to Scottish genealogical antiquaries. The former was published in 1764. The latter, in which there is a brief account of the Ninewells' family, in 1798.

[4:1] In connexion with this, it is not uninteresting to view Hume's opinions on the philosophy of family pride. He says, in the Treatise of Human Nature, Book ii. p. i. sect. 9.—"'Tis evident that, when any one boasts of the antiquity of his family, the subjects of his vanity are not merely the extent of time and number of ancestors, but also their riches and credit, which are supposed to reflect a lustre on himself on account of his relation to them. He first considers these objects; is affected by them in an agreeable manner; and then returning back to himself, through the relation of parent and child, is elevated with the passion of pride, by means of the double relation of impressions and ideas. Since, therefore, the passion depends on these relations, whatever strengthens any of the relations must also increase the passion, and whatever weakens the relations must diminish the passion. Now 'tis certain the identity of the possession strengthens the relation of ideas arising from blood and kindred, and conveys the fancy with greater facility from one generation to another, from the remotest ancestors to their posterity, who are both their heirs and their descendants. By this facility the impression is transmitted more entire, and excites a greater degree of pride and vanity."

[6:1] The document is quoted in Book ii. of Robertson's History of Scotland.

[6:2] A tragic incident occurred in the year 1683, in which Hume of Ninewells, and Johnston of Hilton, were victims to the revengeful passions of a brother of the Earl of Home, vented under circumstances of singular treachery and inhospitality. It is thus narrated in Law's Memorials, p. 259. "December, 1683, about the close of that moneth, the Earl himself being from home, the Lairds of Hilton and Nynhools came to make a visit to the Earl of Home his house, and went to dice and cards with Mr. William Home, the Earl's brother. Some sharp words fell amongst them at their game, which were not noticed, as it seemed to them; yet, when the two gentlemen were gone to their bed-chambers, the foresaid Mr. William comes up with his sword and stabs Hilton with nine deadly wounds, in his bed, that he dies immediately; and wounds Nynhools mortally, so that it was thought he could not live, and immediately took horse and fled into England—a treacherous and villanous act done to two innocent gentlemen, the fruits of dicing and card gaming."

"Joseph Johnstone of Hilton was stabbed by Mr. William, brother to Charles earle of Hume. Hilton being of a lofty temper, had given Mr. Hume bad words in his own house of Hilton, and a box on the ear. . . . And William Hume made his escape to England, on Hilton's horse. He was after killed himself in the wars abroad."—Lord Fountainhall's Diary, p. 33.

The editor of Law, Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, appends the following farther notices of this incident:—

"Before his death he is said to have returned to Scotland, smitten with remorse, and anxious to obtain pardon of a near male relation of Johnstone's, then residing in Edinburgh. This gentleman, in the dusk of the evening, was called forth to the outside stairs of the house, to speak with a stranger muffled in a cloak. As he proceeded along the passage, the door being open, he recognised the murderer; and immediately drawing his sword, rushed towards him, on which the other leapt nimbly down from the stairs into the street, and was never again seen in Scotland." These events were made the subject of an amusing sketch in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 569.

[7:1] Copy MS. communicated by Dr. Vallange, Portobello.

[8:1] Hist. and Allus. Arms, p. 400, where the information is derived from Douglas's Baronage.

[9:1] Unless such allusions as the following be held as an exception: "The north of England abounds in the best horses of all kinds which are perhaps in the world. In the neighbouring counties, north side of the Tweed, no good horses of any kind are to be met with." Essay on National Characters. But he speaks fully as distinctly and specifically of local matters in France or Spain.

The remarks in the text may probably be considered superfluous, being applicable to by far the greater portion of literary men—as those who have attempted to trace, from the internal evidence of their works, the birthplaces of authors not commemorated by their contemporaries, can testify. Thomson, also a borderer, and a poet of rural life, has scarcely any allusion that bears a distinct reference to the scenery of his childhood, and celebrates the heroism of almost every land but his own. In that age, however, to be national in Scotland was to be provincial in Britain; and unless an author chose to aim at the restricted reputation of a Ramsay or a Pennecuik, he must carefully shun allusions to his native country. But the very existence of this, as a general characteristic, seems to render it worthy of notice in this instance, which must certainly be held, like Thomson's, a peculiarly marked illustration of this feature in literary history. Hume had frequently to record events which had taken place close to his home; and the whole of the surrounding district was full of traditional lore, about the wild life of the borderers in the seventeenth century, which would have afforded valuable materials for his history, and some of his other works, had he been one of those who derive their knowledge from men as well as from books. But these volumes will afford ample opportunity for observing, that he required to place no great restraint on his pen to keep it free of provincial allusions; and that, even in his most familiar letters, though he often speaks of the friends of his youth, he says nothing of the places in which he spent his early days.

[12:1] Among the Hume Papers in the possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, there is a letter from the chevalier, addressed to "Monsieur de Ramsay, à l'Hôtel de Provence, Rue de Condé, Faubourg St. Germain," dated 1st September, 1742. The receiver of this letter was probably the correspondent of Hume, to whom it may have been sent, under the impression that he was the person connected with the Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough, a book now well known to have been put into shape by Hooke, the historian of Rome. The letter is in English; and it shows that there are works of genius which the author of "The Travels of Cyrus" had not taste to appreciate. He says:—

"I have read the first book of 'The History of Joseph Andrews,' but don't believe I shall be able to finish the first volume. Dull burlesque is still more insupportable than dull morality. Perhaps my not understanding the language of low life in an English style is the reason of my disgust; but I am afraid your Britannic wit is at as low an ebb as the French. I hope to find some more amusement in my Lady Duchess of Marlborough's adventures. They say a friend of ours has some hand in them. I pity his misfortune, if he is obliged to stoop below his fine genius and talents, to please an old rich dowager, that neither deserves apology nor praise, and that would be too much honoured for her merit by an ingenious fine satyr. I long to be in a condition to travel, that I may see and embrace you, make acquaintance with your amiable young Lord, and assure you both of the tender zeal, friendship, and attachment with which I am your most humble and most obedient servant,

"The Ch. Ramsay."

Perhaps the criticism on Fielding may not be thought inconsistent with the man who pronounced Locke a shallow writer.

[14:1] Virg. Æn. iii. 660.

[14:2]

At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita,

Dives opum variarum: at latis otia fundis,

Speluncæ, vivique lacus; at frigida Tempe,

Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somni

Non absunt.

Virg. Georg. ii. 467 et seq.

In the course of the correspondence which follows, there will be found several quotations from the Latin classics. Hume's handwriting is so distinct, that we can seldom have any doubt of the individual letters written by him. At the same time, as he appears to have always quoted from memory, there is sometimes a greater difference than even that exhibited above, between the original and his version of it. I have thought, that were I to attempt to correct his quotations, I would be removing valuable data from which the reader may form an estimate of his mental powers and his education. It will perhaps be allowed, that in some instances he shows a fertile invention in substituting words for those which his memory has failed to retain; while in others, as in the above quotation, the fastidious critics of England will perhaps detect traces of the more slovenly classical education of Scotland. In his published works, Hume appears to have anxiously collated his quotations. But in his letters he seems to have been always more anxious about the judicious choice of his own expressions, than the accurate transcription of the words of others. His letters appear to have been carefully composed. He wrote in constant dread of falling into slovenly colloquialisms of style, and was not ashamed to leave on his letters the marks of this anxiety, in corrections and interlineations. This peculiarity must be admitted to be at variance with the received canon of the learned world, which excuses mistakes and clumsy expressions in the vernacular language of a writer, but has no mercy for irregularities in the use of the dead languages.

[16:1] From a scroll in the MSS. bequeathed by Baron Hume to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

An account of these MSS. will be found in the Preface. Henceforth, for the sake of brevity, they will be referred to thus—MS. R.S.E. A part of the above letter has been already printed in the Literary Gazette for 1821, p. 762.

[25:1] It may be interesting to compare these extracts with his method of treating the same subject at a later period of his life. The following is taken from his Essay on the Feudal and Anglo-Norman Government and Manners, in the two volumes of his History, first published in 1762.

"The feudal institutions, by raising the military tenants to a kind of sovereign dignity, by rendering personal strength and valour requisite, and by making every knight and baron his own protector and avenger, begat that martial pride and sense of honour, which, being cultivated and embellished by the poets and romance writers of the age, ended in chivalry. The virtuous knight fought not only in his own quarrel, but in that of the innocent, of the helpless, and, above all, of the fair, whom he supposed to be for ever under the guardianship of his valiant arm. The uncourteous knight, who, from his castle, exercised robbery on travellers, and committed violence on virgins, was the object of his perpetual indignation; and he put him to death without scruple, or trial, or appeal, whenever he met with him. The great independence of men made personal honour and fidelity the chief tie among them, and rendered it the capital virtue of every true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry. The solemnities of single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every thing unfair or unequal in rencounters, and maintained an appearance of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their engagement. The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notions of giants, enchanters, spells, and a thousand wonders, which still multiplied during the time of the crusades, when men, returning from so great a distance, used the liberty of imposing every fiction on their believing audience. These ideas of chivalry infected the writings, conversations, and behaviour of men during some ages; and even after they were in a great measure banished by the revival of learning, they left modern gallantry, and the point of honour, which still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those ancient affectations."

[28:1] Perhaps few authors afford so many curious illustrations of the substitution of fanciful analogy for the severe logic of a practical lawyer, as Lord Kames—e. g. when, in his essays on British antiquities, he identifies hereditary descent with the law of gravitation, and the inclination of the mind to continue downwards in a straight line, as a stone falls from a height; so that, "in tracing out a family, the mind descends by degrees from the father, first to the eldest son, and so downwards in the order of age:" pleasant enough speculations, yet not likely to serve any good purpose in practical law.

[29:1] Essay on Eloquence.

[45:1] Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, 1705, 8vo.

[45:2] The English Malady, p. 330-331. I have run my eye over Cheyne's "Natural Method of Curing Diseases of the Body and Mind," 1742, 8vo,—the only work I am aware of his having published subsequently to the date of Hume's letter, but I have found in it no trace of a reference to Hume's case. Cheyne's works are perhaps better known to the public in general, than any medical books of the same period, and their curious discursive contents amply repay perusal. Their science is of course held to be completely superseded, but the unscientific reader cannot help thinking that there is much sagacious good counsel in his advice, notwithstanding the eccentric garrulity with which it is uttered. His account of his own experiences, in experimenting on himself, is the most interesting department of his medical observations. He describes every thing with a sort of rude eloquence, infinitely more pleasing to an ordinary reader than scientific precision; and the recklessness with which he appears to have submitted his own carcass to the most violent changes of regimen, inclines one to think that he had applied towards it the fiat experimentum in compore vili. He tells us that he was disposed to "corpulence by the whole race of one side" of his family. In the quotation given above, he represents himself as having been studious in his youth. He began to practise his profession in London, of which he says—"The number of fires, sulphurous and bituminous; the vast expense of tallow and fœtid oil in candles and lamps, under and above ground; the clouds of stinking breaths and perspiration, not to mention the ordure of so many diseased, both intelligent and unintelligent animals; the crowded churches, churchyards, and burying places, with putrifying bodies, the sinks, butcher houses, stables, dunghills, and the necessary stagnation, fermentation, and mixture of all variety of all kinds of atoms, are more than sufficient to putrify, poison, and infect the air, for twenty miles round it." Having come from the fresh air of the country into so hopeful an atmosphere, he seems to have resolved that his habit of living should be an equally great contrast to his previous studious abstinence. "Upon my coming to London, I all of a sudden changed my whole manner of living. I found the bottle-companions, the younger gentry, and free-livers, to be the most easy of access, and most quickly susceptible of friendship and acquaintance,—nothing being necessary for that purpose but to be able to eat lustily, and swallow down much liquor; and being naturally of a large size, a cheerful temper, and tolerable lively imagination; and having, in my country retirement, laid in store of ideas and facts,—by these qualifications I soon became caressed by them, and grew daily in bulk, and in friendship with these gay gentlemen and their acquaintances. I was tempted to continue this course, no doubt, from a liking, as well as to force a trade, which method I had observed to succeed with some others: and thus constantly dining and supping in taverns, and in the houses of my acquaintances of taste and delicacy, my health was in a few years brought into great distress, by so sudden and violent a change. I grew excessively fat, short-breathed, lethargic, and listless."

The consequences were "a constant, violent headach, giddiness, lowness, anxiety, and terror," and he went about "like a malefactor condemned, or one who expected every moment to be crushed by a ponderous instrument of death hanging over his head." These evil symptoms prompted him to abandon suppers and restrict himself to a small quantity of animal food and of fermented liquors. He very naturally found that on this abrupt change all his "bouncing, protesting, and undertaking companions" forsook him, and "dropped off like autumnal leaves," leaving him to vegetate in temperate dreariness, while they "retired to comfort themselves with a cheer-up cup," so that he pathetically tells us, "I was forced to retire into the country quite alone, being reduced to the state of Cardinal Wolsey, when he said, that if he had served his Maker as faithfully and warmly as he had his prince, he would not have forsaken him in that extremity."

It would be difficult to follow out the multitudinous course of remedies he adopted, commencing with "volatiles, foetids, bitters, chalybeats, and mineral waters," and how he took twenty grains of "what is called the prince's powder," and "had certainly perished under the operation, but for an over-dose of laudanum after it," having thus experienced something like the good fortune of the man of Thessaly who leaped into a quickset hedge. Under these circumstances he felt his body "melting away like a snow-ball in summer." Having tried the Bath waters, he appears to have somewhat revived, whereupon by increasing his quantity of "animal food and strong liquors," he was "heated so," that he "apprehended a hectic." His next change was to a milk diet, in which experiment he was confirmed by a visit to Dr. Taylor of Croydon, its apostle, whom he found "at home, at his full quart of cow's milk, which was all his dinner." He found in consequence of this change, that he "increased in spirits, strength, appetite and gaiety," until, the old Adam struggling within him, he "began to find a craving and insufferable longing for more solid and toothsome food, and for higher and stronger liquors." Hereupon we have him getting more generous in his diet, but still, as he counts it, "sober, moderate, and plain," in so far as he "drank not above a quart or three pints at most of wine any day." Under this regimen, he says, "I swelled to such an enormous size, that upon my last weighing I exceeded thirty-two stones." Then came fits of various kinds, and a dreary period of hypochondria, with recurrences to the low diet system, and then such startling revulsions from it as the following: "I resolved to change my half pint of port at dinner, into the same quantity of Florence. I ate, at the same time, a good deal of more butter with my vegetables, and plenty of old rich cheese; and likewise nuts extremely—I procured from abroad and at home, great plenty of all kinds, as filberts, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, &c., eating them in great quantities after dinner by way of dessert," but in pity to the digestive sympathies of the reader this subject must be dropped. Dr. Cheyne is—not the martyr, but the hero of dyspepsia, and Mrs. Radcliffe could not have drawn him through a longer series of horrors than his inventive genius seems to have created for himself.

CHAPTER II.

1734-1739. Æt. 23-27.

Hume leaves Bristol for France—Paris—Miracles at the Tomb of the Abbé Paris—Rheims—La Flêche—Associations with the Abbé Pluche and Des Cartes—Observations on French Society and Manners—Story of La Roche—Return to Britain.—Correspondence with Henry Home—Publication of the first and second volume of The Treatise of Human Nature—Character of that Work—Its Influence on mental Philosophy.

We have no account of Hume's sojourn in Bristol, except his own very brief statement, that "in a few months," he "found that scene totally unsuitable" to him.[48:1] He must have proceeded to France about the middle of the year 1734, and he thus describes in his "own life," his motives and intentions. "I went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there laid that plan of life, which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my

deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature."

His subsequent letters show that he proceeded in the first instance to Paris, where he remained for a short time. Not long before his arrival there, some occurrences had taken place which were afterwards prominently referred to in his philosophical writings. A Jansenist, distinguished by his sanctity and the wide circle of his charities—the Abbé Paris, having died, a tomb was erected over his remains in the cemetery of St. Médard. Thither the poor, whom the good man had succoured in life, repaired to bless his memory and pray for the state of his soul. But it was discovered that this devotion was speedily rewarded; for the sick were cured, the blind saw, all manner of miracles were performed; and the evidence of their genuineness was considered so satisfactory, that the Jesuits were never able to impugn them—an instance which it might be well for every one to recall to mind who is told of phenomena out of the ordinary course of nature being authenticated by the testimony of respectable and enlightened people. At length, this series of miracles became offensive to the government—there was no saying how far the matter might proceed. It was resolved that there should be no more miracles performed at the tomb of the Abbé Paris: the gates of the cemetery were closed, and the miracles necessarily came to an end. This occurred in the year 1732, just two years before Hume's visit; and it will easily be imagined that the references to these wonderful events which he would hear in conversation, suggested many trains of thought to the young philosopher. It was not long afterwards, and probably while all this

was very fresh in his memory, that the principal theory of his Essay on Miracles was suggested to him. In that Essay he says:

"Many of the miracles of Abbé Paris were proved immediately by witnesses before the officialty or bishop's court at Paris, under the eye of Cardinal Noailles, whose character for integrity and capacity was never contested even by his enemies.

"His successor in the archbishopric was an enemy to the Jansenists, and for that reason promoted to the see by the court. Yet twenty-two rectors or curés of Paris, with infinite earnestness, press him to examine those miracles, which they assert to be known to the whole world, and indisputably certain. But he wisely forbore."

And farther on:—

"No less a man than the Duc de Chatillon, a duke and peer of France, of the highest rank and family, gives evidence of a miraculous cure, performed upon a servant of his, who had lived several years in his house with a visible and palpable infirmity.

"I shall conclude with observing, that no clergy are more celebrated for strictness of life and manners than the secular clergy of France, particularly the rectors or curés of Paris, who bear testimony to these impostures."

An illustration of his notice of what was passing around him in Paris, occurs in the following passage in his "Natural History of Religion."

"I lodged once at Paris in the same hotel with an ambassador from Tunis, who, having passed some years at London, was returning home that way. One day I observed his Moorish excellency diverting himself under the porch, with surveying the splendid equipages that drove along; when there chanced to

pass that way some Capucin friars, who had never seen a Turk, as he, on his part, though accustomed to the European dresses, had never seen the grotesque figure of a Capucin: and there is no expressing the mutual admiration with which they inspired each other. Had the chaplain of the embassy entered into a dispute with these Franciscans, their reciprocal surprise had been of the same nature. Thus all mankind stand staring at one another; and there is no beating it into their heads, that the turban of the African is not just as good or as bad a fashion as the cowl of the European.—'He is a very honest man,' said the Prince of Sallee, speaking of De Ruyter; 'it is a pity he were a Christian.'"

After leaving Paris, he resided at Rheims in the province of Champagne, about eighty miles north-east of the metropolis. Thence he addressed to his friend Michael Ramsay the following letter, full of observation and thought.

Hume to Michael Ramsay.

"Rheims, September 12, 1734.

"My Dear Michael,—I suppose you have received two letters from me, dated at Paris, in one of which was enclosed a letter to my Lord Stair. I am now arrived at Rheims, which is to be the place of my abode for some considerable time, and where I hope both to spend my time happily for the present, and lay up a stock for the future. It is a large town, containing about forty thousand inhabitants, and has in it about thirty families that keep coaches, though, by the appearance of the houses, you would not think there was one. I am recommended to two of the best families in town, and particularly to a man, who

they say is one of the most learned in France.[52:1] He is just now in the country, so that I have not yet seen him; though, if I had seen him, it would be some time

before I could contract a friendship with him, not being yet sufficient master of the language to support a conversation; which is a great vexation to me, but which I hope in a short time to get over. As I have little more than this to say about business, I shall use the freedom to entertain you with any idle thoughts that come into my head, hoping at least you will excuse them, if not be pleased with them, because they come from an absent friend.

"When I parted from Paris, the Chevalier Ramsay gave me as his advice, to observe carefully, and imitate as much as possible, the manners of the French. For, says he, though the English, perhaps, have more of the real politeness of the heart, yet the French certainly have the better way of expressing it. This gave me occasion to reflect upon the matter, and in my humble opinion it is just the contrary: viz., that the French have more real politeness, and the English the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high but low; in so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves; so that I have not yet seen one quarrel in France, though they are every where to be met with in England.[53:1] By the expressions of politeness, I

mean those outward deferences and ceremonies which custom has invented, to supply the defect of real politeness or kindness, that is unavoidable towards strangers, or indifferent persons, even in men of the best dispositions in the world. These ceremonies ought to be so contrived, as that, though they do not deceive nor pass for sincere, yet still they please by their appearance, and lead the mind by its own consent and knowledge into an agreeable delusion. One may err by running into either of the two extremes; that of making them too like truth or too remote from it: though we may observe, that the first is scarce possible, because whenever any expression or action becomes customary, it can deceive nobody. Thus, when the Quakers say, 'your friend,' they are as easily understood, as another, that says, 'your humble servant.' The French err in the contrary extreme, that of making their civilities too remote from truth,

which is a fault, though they are not designed to be believed; just as it is a transgression of rules in a dramatic poet to mix any improbabilities with his fable, though 'tis certain that, in the representation, the scenes, lights, company, and a thousand other circumstances, make it impossible he can ever deceive.

"Another fault I find in the French manners, is that, like their clothes and furniture, they are too glaring. An English fine gentleman distinguishes himself from the rest of the world, by the whole tenor of his conversation, more than by any particular part of it; so that though you are sensible he excels, you are at a loss to tell in what, and have no remarkable civilities and compliments to pitch on as a proof of his politeness. These he so smooths over, that they pass for the common actions of life, and never put you to[55:1] trouble of returning thanks for them. The English politeness is always greatest where it appears least.

"After all, it must be confessed that the little niceties of French behaviour, though troublesome and impertinent, yet serve to polish the ordinary kind of people, and prevent rudeness and brutality. For in the same manner as soldiers are found to become more courageous in learning to hold their muskets within half an inch of a place appointed; and your devotees feel their devotion increase by the observance of trivial superstitions, as sprinkling, kneeling, crossing, &c.; so men insensibly soften towards each other in the practice of these ceremonies. The mind pleases itself by the progress it makes in such trifles, and while it is so supported, makes an easy transition to something more material. And I verily believe it is for this reason that you scarce ever meet with a clown or an ill-bred man in France.

"You may perhaps wonder that I, who have stayed so short time in France, and who have confessed that I am not master of their language, should decide so positively of their manner. But you will please to observe, that it is with nations as with particular men, where one trifle frequently serves more to discover the character, than a whole train of considerable actions. Thus, when I compare our English phrase of 'humble servant,' which likewise we omit upon the least intimacy, with the French one of 'the honour of being your most humble servant,' which they never forget,—this, compared with other circumstances, lets me clearly see the different humours of the nations. This phrase, of the honour of doing or saying such a thing to you, goes so far, that my washing-woman to-day told me, that she hoped she would have the honour of serving me while I staid at Rheims; and what is still more absurd, it is said by people to those who are very much their inferiors.

"Before I conclude my letter, I must tell you that I hope you will excuse my rudeness, if I use the freedom (?)[56:1] to desire of you that, the next time you do me the honour of writing to me, you will be so good as to sit down a day before the post goes away; for I cannot help being afraid that, in your haste, you have omitted many things, which otherwise I would have had the honour and satisfaction of hearing from you. When you are so good as to condescend to write, please to direct so:—'A Monsieur—Monsieur David Hume, gentilhomme, Ecossois, chez Monsieur Mesier, au Peroquet verd, proche la porte au Ferron, Rheims.'"[56:2]

Hume states, in his "own life," that he passed

"three years" very agreeably in France. We find from a letter to Principal Campbell,[57:1] that two of these years were spent at La Flêche, and that he had some communication with the members of the Jesuits' College there. He says, "It may perhaps amuse you to learn the first hint, which suggested to me that argument which you have so strenuously attacked. I was walking in the cloisters of the Jesuits' College of La Flêche, a town in which I passed two years of my youth, and engaged in a conversation with a Jesuit of some parts and learning, who was relating to me, and urging some nonsensical miracle performed lately in their convent, when I was tempted to dispute against him; and as my head was full of the topics of my Treatise of Human Nature, which I was at that time composing, this argument immediately occurred to me, and I thought it very much gravelled my companion; but at last he observed to me, that it was impossible for that argument to have any solidity, because it operated equally against the Gospel as the Catholic miracles;—which observation I thought proper to admit as a sufficient answer. I believe you will allow, that the freedom at least of this reasoning makes it somewhat extraordinary to have been the produce of a convent of Jesuits, though perhaps you may think the sophistry of it savours plainly of the place of its birth."

This same Jesuits' College of La Flêche, is familiar to the philosophical reader as the seminary in which Des Cartes was educated. The place which Hume had just left, has been seen to be associated with the birth and residence of a distinguished opponent of

the Cartesian theory. We now find him perfecting his work in that academic solitude, where Des Cartes himself was educated, and where he formed his theory of commencing with the doubt of previous dogmatic opinions, and framing for himself a new fabric of belief. The coincidence is surely worthy of reflective association, and it is perhaps not the least striking instance of Hume's unimaginative nature, that in none of his works, printed or manuscript, do we find an allusion to the circumstance, that while framing his own theories, he trod the same pavement that had upwards of a century earlier borne the weight of one whose fame and influence on human thought was so much of the same character as he himself panted to attain.

It is to Hume's early sojourn in France that we must assign the time and the scene of Mackenzie's pleasant fiction, called the "Story of La Roche," published in the Mirror of 1779. It is generally admitted that the writer's materials were merely the character and habits of the philosopher, and that there was no groundwork for the narrative in any incident that had actually occurred. But the story must be taken as the observations of an acute perception, and a finely adjusted taste, upon Hume's character; and our reliance on the accuracy of the picture is enhanced by the circumstance that Smith, deceived by its air of reality, expressed his wonder that Hume had never told him of the incident.[58:1]

The opening description is in these words:—

"More than forty years ago, an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterwards induced to remain there, from having found in this retreat, where the connexions even of nature and language were avoided, a perfect seclusion and retirement, highly favourable to the development of abstract subjects, in which he excelled all the writers of his time.

"Perhaps in the structure of such a mind as Mr. ——'s, the fine and more delicate sensibilities are seldom known to have place; or, if originally implanted there, are in a great measure extinguished by the exertions of intense study and profound investigation. Hence the idea of philosophy and unfeelingness being united, has become proverbial; and, in common language, the former word is often used to express the latter. Our philosopher had been censured by some, as deficient in warmth and feeling: but the mildness of his manners has been allowed by all; and it is certain, that if he was not easily melted into compassion, it was at least not difficult to awaken his benevolence."

The impression of the actions of a kind, charitable, and tolerant disposition, conveyed by the circumstances of the narrative, cannot be represented without incorporating it in full; and it will probably be thought that one or two passing sketches of character, such as the above, are all that should be taken into a work like the present, from a book accessible to every reader. Thus, when the housekeeper comes with the account of the distresses of the poor protestant clergyman and his daughter:

"Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and broke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His night-gown was exchanged for a coat, and he followed his gouvernante to the sick man's apartment."

Again,—

"La Roche found a degree of simplicity and gentleness in his companion, which is not always annexed to the character of a learned or a wise man. His daughter, who was prepared to be afraid of him, was equally undeceived. She found in him nothing of that self-importance which superior parts, or great cultivation of them, is apt to confer. He talked of every thing but philosophy or religion; he seemed to enjoy every pleasure and amusement of ordinary life, and to be interested in the most common topics of discourse: when his knowledge or learning at any time appeared, it was delivered with the utmost plainness, and without the least shadow of dogmatism."

And not less distinctly are the following sentences the echo of Mackenzie's own observations of the character and habits of the philosopher, that they are put in the varied shape of dialogue and narrative.

"You regret, my friend," said [La Roche,] "when my daughter and I talk of the exquisite pleasure derived from music, you regret your want of musical powers and musical feelings; it is a department of soul, you say, which nature has almost denied you, which, from the effects you see it have on others, you are sure must be highly delightful. Why should not the same thing be said of religion? Trust me, I feel it in the same way, an energy, an inspiration, which I would not lose for all the blessings of sense or enjoyments of the world. . . . . . And it would have been inhuman in our philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief.

"His discourse was very remote from metaphysical disquisition or religious controversy. Of all men I ever knew, his ordinary conversation was the least tinctured with pedantry or liable to dissertation. With La Roche and his daughter it was perfectly familiar. The country round them, the manners of the villagers, the comparison of both with those of England, remarks on the works of favourite authors, or the sentiments they conveyed, and the passions they excited, with many other topics in which there was an equality, or alternate advantage among the speakers, were the subjects they talked on."

Nor can one, after having quoted so much, avoid giving the concluding sentence, in which the philosopher contemplates the old clergyman's grief for the loss of his daughter, and at the same time that he perceives its bitterness and intensity, is made aware of the consolations which the bereaved old man finds in religion, and "rejoices that such consolation" is his.

"Mr. ——'s heart was smitten; and I have heard him long after confess, that there were moments when the remembrance overcame him even to weakness; when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical discovery, and the pride of literary fame, he recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished that he had never doubted."

The account of his sojourn in France is thus given in his "own life:"—"During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Flêche, in Anjou, I composed my 'Treatise of Human Nature.' After passing three years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737."

We must now follow him to London, where we find him occupied in carrying his "Treatise of Human Nature," through the press. One of his early friends

was his namesake Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kames, who pursued, but with unequal step, the same path with himself. Home was fifteen years the elder of the two, and had joined the bar in 1723. He had already published some of his professional works; but it was at a subsequent period of his life, and when he perhaps became emulous of the fame of his friend, that he attempted works in ethics, metaphysics, and criticism. During many years of continued intimacy, these two distinguished men enjoyed each other's mutual respect; but, in their early intercourse, when his senior had for some time occupied a prominent position in the eye of the public, we naturally find Hume writing about his great project in a tone of modest deference.

Hume to Henry Home.

"London, December 2, 1737.

"Dear Sir,—I am sorry I am not able to satisfy your curiosity by giving you some general notion of the plan upon which I proceed. But my opinions are so new, and even some terms I am obliged to make use of, that I could not propose, by any abridgment, to give my system an air of likelihood, or so much as make it intelligible. It is a thing I have in vain attempted already, at a gentleman's request in this place, who thought it would help him to comprehend and judge of my notions, if he saw them all at once before him. I have had a greater desire of communicating to you the plan of the whole, that I believe it will not appear in public before the beginning of next winter. For, besides that it would be difficult to have it printed before the rising of the parliament, I must confess I am not ill pleased with a little delay, that it may appear with as few

imperfections as possible. I have been here near three months, always within a week of agreeing with my printers; and you may imagine I did not forget the work itself during that time, where I began to feel some passages weaker for the style and diction than I could have wished. The nearness and greatness of the event roused up my attention, and made me more difficult to please, than when I was alone in perfect tranquillity in France. But here I must tell you one of my foibles. I have a great inclination to go down to Scotland this spring to see my friends; and have your advice concerning my philosophical discoveries; but cannot overcome a certain shamefacedness I have to appear among you at my years, without having yet a settlement, or so much as attempted any. How happens it that we philosophers cannot as heartily despise the world as it despises us? I think in my conscience the contempt were as well founded on our side as on the other.

"Having a franked letter, I was resolved to make use of it; and accordingly enclose some 'Reasonings concerning Miracles,'[63:1] which I once thought of publishing with the rest, but which I am afraid will give too much offence, even as the world is disposed at present. There is something in the turn of thought, and a good deal in the turn of expression, which will not perhaps appear so proper, for want of knowing the context: but the force of the argument you'll be judge of, as it stands. Tell me your thoughts of it. Is not the style too diffuse? though, as that was a popular argument, I have spread it out much more than the other parts of the work. I beg of you to

show it to nobody, except to Mr. Hamilton, if he pleases; and let me know at your leisure that you have received it, read it, and burnt it. Your thoughts and mine agree with respect to Dr. Butler, and I would be glad to be introduced to him. I am at present castrating my work, that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which, I could not pretend to put it into the Doctor's hands. This is a piece of cowardice, for which I blame myself, though I believe none of my friends will blame me. But I was resolved not to be an enthusiast in philosophy, while I was blaming other enthusiasms. If ever I indulge myself in any, 'twill be when I tell you that I am, dear Sir, yours."[64:1]

Butler, to whom Hume is thus found desiring an introduction, had, in the immediately preceding year, published "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature;" and it appears that Hume courted the attention of the author of that clear logical work to those speculations of his own, which, in the opinion of the world in general, have so opposite a tendency to that of the "Analogy." The following letter, acknowledging an introduction from Home, and dated 4th March, 1738, tells its own tale.

"I shall not trouble you with any formal compliments or thanks, which would be but an ill return for the kindness you have done me in writing in my behalf, to one you are so little acquainted with as Dr. Butler; and, I am afraid, stretching the truth in favour of a friend. I have called upon the Doctor,

with a design of delivering him your letter, but find he is at present in the country. I am a little anxious to have the Doctor's opinion. My own I dare not trust to; both because it concerns myself, and because it is so variable, that I know not how to fix it. Sometimes it elevates me above the clouds; at other times, it depresses me with doubts and fears; so that, whatever be my success, I cannot be entirely disappointed. Somebody has told me that you might perhaps be in London this spring. I should esteem this a very lucky event; and notwithstanding all the pleasures of the town, I would certainly engage you to pass some philosophical evenings with me, and either correct my judgment, where you differ from me, or confirm it where we agree. I believe I have some need of the one, as well as the other; and though the propensity to diffidence be an error on the better side, yet 'tis an error, and dangerous as well as disagreeable.—I am, &c.

"I lodge at present in the Rainbow Coffeehouse, Lancaster Court."[65:1]

The transactions between authors and booksellers are seldom accompanied by any formidable array of legal formalities; but Hume and his publishers seem to have thought it necessary to bind each other in the most stringent manner, to the performance of their respective obligations, by "articles of agreement, made, concluded, and agreed, upon the 26th day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight, and in the twelfth year of the reign of our sovereign lord King George the Second,—between David Hume of Lancaster Court of the one part, and John Noone of Cheapside,

London, bookseller, of the other part." By this very precise document, it is provided, that "the said David Hume shall and will permit and suffer the said John Noone to have, hold, and enjoy, the sole property, benefit, and advantage of printing and publishing the first edition of the said book, not exceeding one thousand copies thereof." The author, in return, receives £50, and twelve bound copies of the book.[66:1] The transaction is on the whole creditable to the discernment and liberality of Mr. Noone. It may be questioned, whether, in this age, when knowledge has spread so much wider, and money is so much less valuable, it would be easy to find a bookseller, who, on the ground of its internal merits, would give £50 for an edition of a new metaphysical work, by an unknown and young author, born and brought up in a remote part of the empire. These articles refer to the first and second of the three volumes of the "Treatise of Human Nature;" and they were accordingly published in January, 1739. They include "Book I. Of the Understanding," and "Book II. Of the Passions."

It has been generally and justly remarked, that the Treatise is among the least systematic of philosophical works—that it has neither a definite and comprehensive plan, nor a logical arrangement. It was, indeed, so utterly deficient in the former—there was so complete a want of any projected scope of subject which the author was bound to exhaust in what he wrote—that an attempt to divide and subdivide the matter after it had been written, according to a logical arrangement, would only, as a sort of experimentum crucis, have exposed the imperfect character of the original plan. The author, therefore,

very discreetly allowed his matter to be arranged as the subjects of which he treated had respectively suggested themselves, and bestowed on his work a title rather general than comprehensive,—a title, of which all that can be said of its aptness to the subject is, that no part of his book can be said to be wholly without it, while he might have included an almost incalculable multitude of other subjects within it. He called it simply "A Treatise of Human Nature;" and by a subsidiary title, explanatory rather of his method than definitive of his matter, he called it "an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects."

The purely metaphysical,[67:1] and, at the same time, the most original portion of the work, and that which has most conspicuously rendered itself a constituent part of the literature of intellectual philosophy, is "Book I. Of the Understanding." "Book II. Of the Passions," contains mixed metaphysics and ethics, with occasional notices of phenomena, which, though Hume does not, other writers would be likely to connect with physiological inquiries. The third book, "Of Virtue and Vice in General," published a year later, is of an ethical character, being an inquiry into the origin and proper system of morals, and an application of the system to government and politics.

The "Treatise of Human Nature" afforded materials for the criticism of two very distinct classes of writers. The one consisted of men imbued with a spirit of inquiry kindred to that of Hume, and a genius capable of appreciating his services in the cause of truth; who, as the teachers of systems of which they were themselves the architects, had to attack or to defend the principles promulgated in the Treatise, according as these differed from or corresponded with their own. It is in the writings of these men that the true immortality of Hume as a philosopher consists. Whether they find in him great truths to acknowledge, or subtle and plausible errors to attack, they are the vital evidence of the originality of his work, of the genius that inspired it, and of its great influence on human thought and action. The other class of critics are those who, in pamphlets, or works more ambitious but not rising in real solidity above that fugitive class, or in occasional digressions from other topics, have endeavoured to prejudice the minds of their readers against the principles of the Treatise, by exaggeration, or by the misapplication of their metaphysical doctrines to the proceedings of every-day life,—a set of literary efforts of quick production and as quick decay.

To the former class of authors, it is of course not within the scope of the present writer's ambition to belong, and he sees no occasion to attempt to imitate the latter. In a work, however, which professes to give a life of David Hume, it is necessary to say something about the "Treatise of Human Nature;" and as a preliminary to such an attempt, it may be well to mark the boundaries within which the writer conceives that the duty he has assumed calls on him for a description of the work, neither impugning nor defending any of the opinions it sets forth.

It seems to be right that some attempt should be made to describe the character and strength of the author's intellect, and the method of its operations; and to give a view of the fundamental characteristic principles by which he professes to distinguish his own philosophy from that of other writers on metaphysical subjects. An attempt should also be made to tell in what respect Hume has made incidental suggestions which have either been admitted as new truths in metaphysics, or have, as original but perhaps fallacious suggestions, afforded to other thinkers the means of establishing truths. These being the general objects to be kept in view, there is no intention to take them in any precise order, or to exhaust them in remarks on this one work. To attempt an analysis of the work would be out of place. There can be no more repulsive matter for reading than condensed metaphysics; and probably there is nothing less instructive than those abridgments, which, necessarily suppressing the author's discursive arguments, appeal almost entirely to the memory. To seize on and give a descriptive rather than an analytical account of the prominent features of the system, will be the chief aim of these remarks. Moreover, the Treatise bears on subjects which are nearly all recalled in its author's subsequent works; and while there are some things in the critical history of Hume's opinions which may be appropriately viewed in connexion with his first publication, there are others which it may be more expedient to examine when he is found reconsidering the subjects in his later works; and again, others which may be viewed in a general attempt to describe the extent of his literary achievements.

The Treatise has been already spoken of as embracing two great objects, metaphysics and ethics; or three, if

politics be considered as distinct from ethics. The great leading principle of the metaphysical department, and a principle which is never lost sight of in any part of the book, is, that the materials on which intellect works are the impressions which represent immediate sensation, whether externally as by the senses, or internally as by the passions, and ideas which are the faint reflections of these impressions. Thus to speak colloquially, when I see a picture, or when I am angry with some one, there is an impression; but when I think about this picture in its absence, or call to recollection my subsided anger, what exists in either case is an idea. Hume looked from words to that which they signified, and he found that where they signified any thing, it must be found among the things that either are or have been impressions. The whole varied and complex system of intellectual machinery he found occupied in the representation, the combination, or the arrangement of these raw materials of intellectual matter. If I say I see an object, I give expression to the fact, that a certain impression is made on the retina of my eye. If I convey to the person I am speaking to an accurate notion of what I mean, I awaken in his mind ideas left there by previous impressions, brought thither by his sense of sight.[70:1] Thus, in the particular case of the external senses, when they are considered as in direct communication between the mind and any object, there are impressions: when the senses are not said

to be in communication with the object, the operations of the mind in connexion with it, are from vestiges which the impressions have left on the mind; and these vestiges are called ideas, and are always more faint than the original impressions themselves. And a material circumstance to be kept in view at the very threshold of the system is, that there is no specific and distinct line drawn between impressions and ideas. Their difference is in degree merely—the former are stronger, the latter weaker. There is no difference in kind; and there is sometimes doubt whether that which is supposed to be an impression may not be a vivid idea, and that which is supposed to be an idea a faint impression.

When Hume examined, with more and more minuteness, the elements of the materials on which the mind works, he could still find nothing but these impressions and ideas. Looking at language as a machinery for giving expression to thought, he thus established for himself a test of its adaptation to its right use,—a test for discovering whether in any given case it really served the purpose of language, or was a mere unmeaning sound. As he found that there was nothing on which thought could operate but the impressions received through sensation, or the ideas left by them, he considered that a word which had not a meaning to be found in either of these things, had no meaning at all. He looked upon ideas as the goods with which the mind was stored; and on these stores, as being of the character of impressions, while they were in the state of coming into the mind. When any one, then, in reasoning, or any other kind of literature, spoke of any thing as existing, the principle of his theory was, that this storehouse of idealized impressions should be searched for one corresponding to the term made use

of. If such an impression were not found, the word was, so far as our human faculties were concerned, an unmeaning one. Whether there was any existence corresponding to its meaning, no one could say: all that the sceptical philosopher could decide was, that, so far as human intellect was put in possession of materials for thought, it had nothing to warrant it in saying, that this word represented any thing of which that intellect had cognizance.

This limitation of the material put at the disposal of the mind, was largely illustrated in the course of the work; and the illustrations assumed some such character as this:—Imaginative writers present us with descriptions of things which never, within our own experience, have existed,—of things which, we believe, never have had existence. Yet, however fantastic and heterogeneous may be the representations thus presented to our notice, there is no one part, of which we form a conception, that is any thing more than a new arrangement of ideas that have been left in the mind by impressions deposited there by sensation. The most extravagant of eastern or classical fictions there find their elements. If it be a three-headed dog, a winged horse, a fiery dragon, or a golden palace, that is spoken of, the reader who forms a conception of the narrative puts it together with the ideas left in his mind by impressions conveyed through the external senses. If a spectre is said to be raised, it may be spoken of as not denser than the atmosphere, yet the attributes that bring a conception of it to the intellect are the form and proportions of a human being,—expression, action, and habiliments: all elements the ideas of which the mind has received through the impressions of the senses. If words were used in a book of fiction which did not admit of being thus realized by the

mind putting together a corresponding portion of the ideas stored up within it—supplying, as it were, the described costume from this wardrobe—then, according to Hume's philosophy, the word would be a sound without meaning. He maintained a like rule as to books of philosophy. If the authors used terms which were not thus represented in the storehouse of the matter of thought and language, they were not reasoning on what they knew; they were not using words as the signs of things signified, but printing unmeaning collections of letters, or uttering senseless sounds.

The system, if it were to be classed under the old metaphysical divisions, was one of nominalism. Such words as shape, colour, hardness, roughness, &c. the author of the Treatise could only admit to have a meaning in as far as they signified ideas in the mind; and these ideas could only be there as the relics of impressions derived through the senses. Thus, general terms, such as the categories of Aristotle, could have no existence except in so far as they represented and called up particulars. Of the abstract term colour, our notion is derived solely from the ideas left in the mind by the actual impressions made through the senses. Heat, cold, and largeness, so far as these words represent what is really in the mind, have no other foundation.

The application of this system to the mathematics, and to natural philosophy, was so startling as to afford to some readers almost a reductio ad absurdum. The infinite divisibility of matter was arraigned by Hume as so far from being a truth, that it was not even capable of being conceived by the mind, which had never yet received any impressions through the senses corresponding to the expression. Every man had seen matter divided—some into smaller fragments

than others; but where our ideas, derived from actual experiment, stopped in minuteness of division, the conception of divisibility stopped also. The truth of geometrical demonstration, as applicable to practice, he did not deny; but he maintained, or rather seemed to maintain, for his reasoning here is of a highly subtle order, that we have a conception of these operations only in as far as they concur with really existing things, or, more properly speaking, with the ideas in the mind conveyed thither by the senses. Of the point, which has no breadth, depth, or length; of the straight line, which is deficient in the first and second, and not in the last of these qualities, he denied that we could have an idea, unless that idea were just as much the representative of an actual existence as any other idea is.

Infinity of space was an expression to which he had an objection on similar grounds; it had no idea corresponding to it lodged in the mind. Of space finite in various quantities, the mind possessed ideas stored up from repeated impressions, and by adding these ideas together, more or less vastness in the conception of finite space was afforded. But any thing beyond this definitive increase, attested as it was by the senses, the mind had no means of conceiving. Whatever might be in another intellectual world, there was no idea corresponding to infinity of space in the mind of man. It thence followed, that space unoccupied was a conception of which the mind was incapable, because the impressions originally conveyed to the mind were the medium through which the conception of space existed, and where there were no ideas of such impressions, an aggregate idea of space was wanting. In the same manner it was held, that it was in a succession of impressions, with ideas corresponding, that

the conception of time consisted, and that without such a succession, time would be a thing unknown and unconceived. Our ideas of numbers he found to be but the collected ideas of the impressions of the units of which the senses have received distinct impressions; and in confirmation of this he appealed to the distinctness of our notion of small numbers, which our mind has been accustomed to find represented by units, and our imperfect conception of those large numbers, which we have never had presented to us in detail. How readily we have a notion of six, but how imperfectly the mind receives the conception of six millions; how clearly we perceive, in units, the difference between six and twelve, but how imperfect is our notion of the difference between six millions and twelve millions.[75:1]

All human consciousness being of these two materials, impressions and ideas, the answer to the question, What knowledge have we of an external world, resolved itself into this, that there were certain impressions and ideas which we supposed to relate to it—further we knew not. When we turn, according to this theory, from the external world, and, looking into ourselves, ask what certainty we have of separate self-existence, we find but a string of impressions and ideas, and we have no means of linking these together into any notion of a continuous existence. Such is that boasted thing the human intellect, when its elements are searched out by a rigid application of the sceptical philosophy of Hume. Not a thing separate and self-existent, which was, and is, and shall continue; but a succession of mere separate entities, called in one view impressions, in another ideas.[76:1]

It may make this brief sketch more clear, to notice a circumstance in the history of philosophy, which, perhaps, serves better in an incidental manner to mark the boundaries of the field of Hume's inquiry, than many pages of discursive description. The transcendentalists took him up as having examined the materials solely, on which pure reason operates;

not pure reason itself. They said that he had examined the classes of matter which come before the judge, but had omitted to describe the judge himself, the extent of his jurisdiction, and his method of enforcing it. They maintained, that all these things, which with Hume appeared to be the constituent elements of philosophy, were nothing but the materials on which philosophy works,—that to presume them to be of service presupposed a reason which could make use of them,—that Hume himself, while thus speculating and telling us that his mind consisted but of a string of ideas, left behind by certain impressions, was himself making use of that pure reason which was in him before the ideas or impressions existed, and was through that power adapting the impressions and ideas to use. He characterized his system as "an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects:" but they said that there was another and a preliminary matter of inquiry—the faculty, to speak popularly, which suggested what experiments should be made, and judged of their results.

Hume may be found indirectly lamenting the fate of his own work on metaphysics, in his remarks on other works of a kindred character; and in these criticisms we have a clue to the expectations he had formed. In his well-known rapid criticism on the literature of the epoch of the civil wars, he says of Hobbes: "No author in that age was more celebrated both abroad and at home than Hobbes. In our times, he is much neglected: a lively instance how precarious all reputations founded on reasoning and philosophy! A pleasant comedy which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, owes commonly its

success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality, than its weakness is discovered."

Like the majority of literary prophecies dictated by feeling and not by impartial criticism, this one, whether as it refers to "The Leviathan," of which it is ostensibly uttered, or to the "Treatise of Human Nature," the fate of which doubtless suggested it, has proved untrue. The influence of Hobbes has revived, as that of the Treatise remained undiminished from the time when it was first fully appreciated. And in both cases their influence has arisen from that element which seems alone to be capable of giving permanent value to metaphysical thought. It is not that in either case the fundamental theory of the author is adopted, as the disciples of old imbibed the system of their masters, but that each has started some novelties in thought, and, either by themselves sweeping away prevailing fallacies, or suggesting to others the means of doing so, have cleared the path of philosophy. As a general system, the philosophy of Hobbes has been perhaps most completely rejected at those times when its incidental discoveries and suggestions made it most serviceable to philosophy, and were the cause of its being most highly esteemed. "Harm I can do none," says Hobbes, when speaking of the metaphysicians who preceded him, "though I err not less than they, for I leave men but as they are, in doubt and dispute." There is indeed nothing in the later history of metaphysical writing to show that the triumphs in that department of thought are to stretch beyond the establishment of incidental truths, the removal of fallacies, and the suggestion of theories that may teach men to think. The field is a republic: incidental merit has its praise, and is allowed its pre-eminence; but no one mind, it may safely be pronounced, holds

in it that monarchical sway which Adam Smith retains over the empire of political economy. The ancient systems anterior to Christianity allowed of such empire. The pupil did not follow his master merely in this and that incidental truth developed, but adopted the system in all its details and proportions as his system and his creed. In later times it would probably be found that the most devoted admirers of great writers on metaphysics do not adopt their opinions in the mass; and it seems that men must now go elsewhere than to the produce of human reason, for the grand leading principles of the philosophy of belief and disbelief.

To those who hold that the writings of the great metaphysicians are thus to be esteemed on account, not of their fundamental principles, but of the truths they bring out in detail, a new theory is like a new road through an unfrequented country, valuable, not for itself, but for the scenery which it opens up to the traveller's eye. The thinker who adopts this view, often wonders at the small beginnings of philosophical systems—wonders, perhaps, at the circumstance of Kant having believed that his own system started into life at one moment as he was reading Hume's views of Cause and Effect. But the solution is ready at hand. We feel that the philosopher of Königsberg had in his mind the impulses that would have driven him into a new path had no Hume preceded him. We owe it to the Essay on Cause and Effect that it was the starting-point at which he left the beaten track; but, had it not attracted his attention, his path would have been as original, though not, perhaps, in the same direction. And so of Hume himself. If the main outline of his theory had never occurred to him, he would still have been a great philosopher; for in some form or other he would have

found his way to those incidental and subsidiary discoveries, which are admitted to have reality in them by many who repudiate his general theory.

Of all the secondary applications of the leading principle of the Treatise, none has perhaps exercised so extensive an influence on philosophy, as this same doctrine of cause and effect. Looking to those separate phenomena, of which in common language we call the one the cause of the other, and the other the effect of that cause, he could see no other connexion between them than that the latter immediately followed the former. He found that the mind, proceeding on the inductive system, when it repeatedly saw two phenomena thus conjoined, expected, when that which had been in use to precede the other made its appearance, that the other would follow; and he found that by repeated experiment this expectation might be so far strengthened, that people were ready to stake their most important temporal interests on the occurrence of the phenomenon called the effect, when that called the cause had taken place. But if there were any thing else but this conjunction, of which a knowledge was demanded—if the unsatisfied investigator sought for some power in the one phenomenon which enabled it to be the fabricator of the other—the sceptical reasoner would answer, that for all he could say to the contrary such a thing might be, but he had no clue to that knowledge—no impression of any such quality passed into his intellect through sensation—his mind had no material committed to it by which the existence or non-existence of any such thing could be argued.

The vulgar notion of this theory was, that it destroyed all our notions of regularity and system in the order of nature; that it made no provision for

unseen causes, and contemplated only the application of the doctrines of cause and effect to things which were palpably seen following each other. But the inventor of the theory never questioned the regularity of the operations of nature as established by the inductive philosophy; he only endeavoured to show how far and within what limits we could acquire a cognizance of the machinery of that regularity. He denied not that when the spark was applied, the gunpowder would ignite, or that when the ball was dropped, it would proceed to the earth with the accelerated motion of gravitation; but he denied that we could see any other connexion between the cause and effect in either case, than that of uniform sequence. When it was scientifically adopted, the theory was found to be productive of the most important results. The view that when any effect was observed, that phenomenon which was most uniform in its precedence was the one entitled to be termed the cause, was a salutary incentive to close and patient investigation, by laying before the philosopher the simple, numerical question—what was that phenomenon which, by the uniformity of its precedence, was entitled to be termed the cause?[81:1] The test became of the simplest kind; and, if the experimentalist had at a particular time considered some phenomenon as a cause,—if the farther progress of patient and unprejudiced inquiry showed that

another, by the occurrence of instances in which it preceded the effect while the former did not, had a preferable title to be termed the cause, the mind in its unbiassed estimate of numbers at once admitted the claim. But when, according to the antagonist system,[82:1] it became settled that any given phenomenon had in it the power of bringing into existence another, that power was viewed as a quality of the object. When things are admitted to have qualities, it is not easy for the mind at once to assent to their non-existence and to admit that others have the proper title to these qualities. Analogy, the great source of fallacies, comes to increase the difficulty, by a confusion of what are termed the qualities of bodies, and those endowments with which we invest our fellow-creatures. In this respect Hume's theory of cause and effect has been of great service to inductive philosophy.

It was an objection to it that it made no allowance for unseen causes; but it was part of its author's system, that the uniformity which our observation teaches us, proceeds unseen in those cases to which our observation cannot penetrate. It was part of the theory, that where there is a want of the absolute uniformity in the sequence of two phenomena, they are not respectively cause and effect. This principle is of vital importance in physical science. It is a notion with the vulgar, and one that sometimes perhaps lurks unseen in scientific operations, that the cause sometimes does not produce its effect by reason of some failure in the operating power. It is from a vague amplification of this heresy, that the popular

notion of chance is derived. Hume's theory nips the bud of such a fallacy by denying, whenever there is a break in the sequence, that the phenomena which have in other instances followed each other, really are cause and effect. It is perhaps in the unscientific application of therapeutics, that the popular fallacy is most widely and most dangerously exemplified. The whole of the complexity of that wondrous science consists in the immediate causes and effects being unseen—in the phenomena immediately conjoined not being ascertained, but in attempts being made to estimate them through the connexion between those external causes to which the internal causes may have had the relation of effects, and those external effects of which these internal effects may have been the causes. The character of unseen causes was aptly illustrated by Hume himself, from the throwing of a die. The vulgar mind can see no cause and effect in the operation, because there is a series of causes and effects, which are hidden from the sight, in the interior of the box; but the philosopher knows not the less, that those laws of motion, which induction has established to him as truths, are taking place; and that there is no turn made by the die, which is not as much the effect of some cause, as the turning of the hands of a watch, or the parallel motion in a steam engine.

It is one of the peculiar features of the history of mental philosophy, that there is scarcely ever a new principle, associated with the name of a great author, but it is shown that it has been anticipated, in some oracular sentence, probably by an obscure writer. Joseph Glanvill is pretty well known as the author of "Saducismus Triumphatus," a vindication of the belief in witches and apparitions, which must have been perused by all the curious in this species of lore.

Glanvill was the author of various tracts on biblical subjects, but it was not generally known that he wrote a book on sceptical philosophy, called "Scepsis Scientifica, or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science," until it was unearthed by the persevering inquiries of Mr. Hallam. In that book there is the passage, "all knowledge of causes is deductive, for we know none by simple intuition, but through the medium of their effects; so that we cannot conclude any thing to be the cause of another but from its continual accompanying it, for the causality itself is insensible."[84:1] This is an addition

to the many instances where writers have almost, as it were by chance, laid down principles, of which

they show, by neglecting to follow them to their legitimate conclusions, that they have not understood their full meaning; if it do not rather illustrate the view already noticed, that in metaphysics our assent is secured, not to general propositions as such, but to their particular applications; and that it is not in the laying down of first principles that important truths are exhibited to the world, but in those subsidiary expositions by which the discoverer endeavours to show their application.

The subsequent history of Hume's theory of Cause and Effect, is a marked illustration of the danger of bringing forward as an argument against theories purely metaphysical, the statement that they are dangerous to religion. It is difficult to see where there is a difference between adducing that argument in the sphere of natural philosophy, from which it has been long scouted by common consent, and bringing it forward as an answer to the theories of the metaphysician. In either case it is a threat, which, in the days of Galileo, bore the terror of corporal punishment, and in the present day carries the threat of unpopularity, to the person against whom it is used.[86:1] If any one should

suppose that he finds lurking in the speculations of some metaphysical writer, opinions from which it may be inferred that he is not possessed of the hopes and consolations of the Christian, humanity to the unhappy author should suggest that he ought rather to be pitied than condemned, and respect for the religious feelings of others should teach that there is no occasion to endeavour, by a laborious pleading, to demonstrate that a man who has said nothing against religion is in reality an enemy to Christianity. They are surely no enlightened friends to religion, who maintain that the suppression of inquiry as to the material or the immaterial world, is favourable to the cause of revealed truth. The blasphemer who raises his voice offensively and contentiously against what his fellow citizens hold sacred, invokes the public wrath, and is no just object of sympathy. The extent of his punishment is regretted only when, by its vindictive excess, it is liable to excite retaliatory attacks from the same quarter. But the speculative philosopher, who does not directly interfere with the religion of his neighbours, should be left to the peaceful pursuit of his inquiries; and those who, instead of meeting him by fair argument, cry out irreligion, and call in the mob to their aid, should reflect first, whether it is absolutely certain that they are right in their conclusion, that his inquiries, if carried out, would be inimical to religion—whether some mind more acute and philosophical than their own, may not either finally confute the sceptical philosopher's argument, or prove

that it is not inimical to religion; and secondly, whether they are not likely to be themselves the greatest foes to religion, by holding that it requires such defence, and the practical blasphemers, by proclaiming that religion is in danger?

Kant, the most illustrious opponent of Hume, in allusion to those who have appealed against him to our religious feelings, asks, what the man is doing that we should meddle with him; says he is but trying the strength of human reason, and bids us leave him to combat with those who are giving him specimens of the fabric on which to try his skill—tells us to wait and see who will produce one too strong to be broken to pieces—and not cry treason, and appeal to the angry multitude, who are strangers to these refined reasonings, to rush in. Shall we ask reason to give us lights, and prescribe beforehand what they are to show us?[88:1] "The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume himself, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." A solemn saying, and characteristic of one who has done more than any other man to show the feebleness of poor human reason, and to teach man that he is not all sufficient to himself.

Those revelations in astronomy and geology, the first glimmerings of which made the timid if not doubting friends of their cause tremble, have enlarged year by year in rapid progression; but revealed religion is not less firm on her throne; and many of those who held that Hume's theory of Cause and Effect was inimical to revelation, lived to see how startlingly that argument could be turned against themselves. It has been well observed by Dugald

Stewart, that this theory is the most effectual confutation of the gloomy materialism of Spinoza, "as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs." "The cardinal principle," he says, "on which the whole of that system turns is, that all events, physical and moral, are necessarily linked together as causes and effects; from which principle all the most alarming conclusions adopted by Spinoza follow as unavoidable and manifest corollaries. But if it be true, as Mr. Hume contends, and as most philosophers now admit, that physical causes and effects are known to us merely as antecedents and consequents; still more if it be true that the word necessity, as employed in this discussion, is altogether unmeaning and insignificant, the whole system of Spinoza is nothing better than a rope of sand, and the very proposition which it professes to demonstrate is incomprehensible by our faculties."[89:1]

It will be remembered how signally, in the question in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as to Sir John Leslie's professorship, the argument of irreligion was retaliated; and it was shown that, in the theory of an existing machinery in nature enabling the universe to proceed in its regular course, the cause having within it the adequate power for producing its effect, the omnipresence of a Deity was dispensed with, and there was substituted for the all-pervading influence of a superior wisdom, a mere material machine, having within itself the elements of its own regular motion. Thus, in instances where writers have claimed credit for having aided the cause of religion by carrying out the principles of natural theology, this merit has in many cases, and among certain classes of devout religious thinkers,

been sternly denied them; and it has been said that their labours are rather adverse than favourable to revealed religion, because, through their tendency to make people believe in an established order in nature, by which causes produce their effects according to a fixed system, they have the effect of making mankind forget the existence of a revealed, omnipresent Deity, whose all-competent superintendence regulates the world, and they supply a religion independent of the religion of revelation.

Perhaps in this little history we may find an illustration of the view, that the greatest service which the Treatise has done to philosophy is that purely incidental one of teaching human reason its own weakness—of showing how easily the noblest fabric of human thought may be undermined, by a destroying agency of power not greater than that of the constructive genius which has raised it. In this respect it has done to philosophy the invaluable service of teaching philosophers their own fallibility. In all the departments of thought, and not only in the world of thought but in that of action, the spirit of human infallibility is the greatest obstacle to truth and goodness. Whether it appear to protect a system which the thinker has framed for himself, or assume the more modest shape of maintaining, that among conflicting systems he has made choice of that which is absolutely and certainly right, while all others which in any way differ from it are as absolutely and certainly wrong; this offspring of the pride of human intellect is an equally dangerous enemy of human improvement; and to have contributed to its downfal is of itself no small achievement for one mind.

Such are a few remarks on the matter of the first

part of the "Treatise of Human Nature"—given not by any means as an analysis of the doctrines there taught, but merely as an attempt to characterize them by their prominent features. It will naturally be expected that a similar attempt should be made to characterize the form in which these doctrines were promulgated. As to the style of the Treatise, it possesses the clearness, flexibility, and simplicity that distinguish the maturity of its author's literary career, though not quite in all the perfection in which they afterwards attended his pen. There are occasional Scoticisms—a defect which he took infinite pains to cure, but of which he was never entirely rid. He uses a few obsolete and now harsh sounding forms of expression, from which he afterwards abstained: such as the elliptical combination 'tis, for it is. Here, and in the first editions of his History, he frequently neglects the increment on the perfect tense, as by saying, "I have forgot," instead of, I have forgotten; "I have wrote," instead of I have written.

The Treatise has that happy equality of flight, which distinguishes the author's maturer productions. There is no attempt to soar, and none of those ambitious inequalities which often deform the works of young authors. His imagination and language seem indeed to have been kept permanently chained down by the character of his inquiries. His constant aim is to make his meaning clear; and in the subtleties of a new and intricate system of metaphysics, he seems to have felt that there lay upon him so heavy a responsibility to make use on all occasions of the clearest and simplest words, that any flight of imagination or eloquence would be a dangerous experiment.

There is a corresponding absence of pedantic ornament. A young writer who has read much, is

generally more anxious to show his learning and information than his own power of thought. With many the defect lasts through maturer years, and they write as if to find a good thing in some unknown author, were more meritorious than to have invented it. Montesquieu, whom Hume has been accused of imitating, carried this defect to a vice, and often distorted the order of his reasoning, that he might introduce an allusion to something discovered in the course of his peculiar learning. That Hume had read much in philosophy before he undertook his great work, cannot be doubted, but he does not drag his readers through the minutiæ of his studies, and is content with giving them results. In many respects, indeed, one would have desired to know more of his appreciation of his predecessors. The name of Aristotle is, it is believed, not once mentioned in the work, and there are only some indirect allusions to him, and these not very respectful, in casual remarks on the opinions of the Peripatetics. One would have expected from Hume a kindred sympathy with the great master of intellectual philosophy, and a respectful appreciation of one whose inquiries were conducted with a like acute severity, but whose mind took so much more wide and comprehensive a grasp of the sources of human knowledge.

It has been often observed, that a person so original in his opinions as Hume, ought to have made a new nomenclature for the new things which he taught. But he has no philosophical nomenclature; he appears indeed to have despised that useful instrument of method, and means of communicating clear ideas to learners. This want has prevented his system from being clearly and fully learned by the student, while it has at the same time probably made his works less repulsive to the

general reader. He seems indeed hardly to have been conscious of the advantage to all philosophy, of uniformity of expression. Using the words "force," "vivacity," "solidity," "firmness," and "steadiness," all with the same meaning, he speaks of this usage as a "variety of terms which may seem so unphilosophical;" and then observes, more in the style of one who is tired of philosophical precision than of a philosopher, "Provided we agree about the thing, 'tis needless to dispute about the terms."

This is a kindred defect to that absence of method which has been already taken notice of. A fixed nomenclature is a beacon against repetition and discursiveness. But the Treatise has no pretension to be a work of which he who omits paying attention to any part, thereby drops a link in a chain, the loss of which will make the whole appear broken and inconsistent. There are, it is true, places where the essential parts of the author's philosophy are developed, the omission of which would render that which follows hard to be understood, but in general each department of the work is intelligible in itself. Its author appears to have composed it in separate fragments; holding in view, while he was writing each part, the general principle of his theory, but not taking it for granted that the reader is so far master of that principle, as not to require it to be generally explained in connexion with the particular matter under consideration. He seems indeed rather desirous to dwell on it, as something that the reader may have seen in the earlier part of the work, but may have neglected to keep in his mind while he reads the other parts. Perhaps the true model of every philosophical work is to be found in the usual systems of geometry, where, whatever is once proposed and proved, is held a

fixed part of knowledge, and is never repeated; but as far as psychological reasoning is from the certainty of geometrical, so distant perhaps, will ever be the precision of its method from that of geometry.

It may safely be pronounced, that no book of its age presents itself to us at this day, more completely free from exploded opinions in the physical sciences. With the exception perhaps of occasional allusions to "animal spirits," as a moving influence in the human body, the author's careful sifting sceptical mind seems, without having practically tested them, to have turned away from whatever doctrines were afterwards destined to fall before the test of experiment and induction. It was not that he was so much of a natural philosopher himself as to be able to test their truth or falsehood, but that with a wholesome jealousy, characteristic of the mind in which the Disquisition on Miracles was working itself into shape, he avoided them as things neither coming within the scope of his own analysis, nor bearing the marks of having been satisfactorily established by those whose more peculiar province it was to investigate their claims to be believed. At a later date, his friend D'Alembert admitted judicial astrology and alchemy as branches of natural philosophy in his "Systême Figuré des Connoissances Humaines." Cudworth, and even the scrutinizing Locke, dealt gravely with matters doomed afterwards to be ranked among popular superstitions, and Sir Thomas Browne, in some respects a sceptic, eloquently defended more "vulgar errors" than he exposed. Hobbes was, in the midst of the darkest scepticism, a practical believer in the actual presence of the spirits of the air; and Johnson, whose name, however, it may scarcely be fair to class in this list, as he did not profess, except for conversational triumph, to be a reducer

and demolisher of unfounded beliefs, along with his partial admission of the existence of spectres, has left behind him many dogmatic announcements of physical doctrines, which the progress of science has now long buried under its newer systems.

It is by no means maintained that Hume was beyond his age—or even on a par with its scientific ornaments, in physical knowledge; but merely that he showed a judicious caution in distinguishing, in his published work, those parts of physical philosophy which had been admitted within the bounds of true and permanent science, from those which were still in a state of mere hypothesis. His knowledge of physical science was probably not very extensive. A small portion of a collection of his notes on subjects that attracted his attention bear on this subject. The collection from which they are taken will be noticed in the next chapter; but as those which are set apart from the others, and are headed "Natural Philosophy," seem to have been written at an earlier period than the rest of the collection, and are appropriate to the present subject, they are here given. It is not expected that they will awaken in the natural philosopher any great respect for the extent of Hume's inquiries in this department of knowledge.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

"A ship sails always swiftest when her sides yield a little.

"Two pieces of timber, resting upon one another, will bear as much as both of them laid across at the distance of their opening.

"Calcined antimony more heavy than before.[95:1]

"A proof that natural philosophy has no truth in it, is, that it has only succeeded in things remote, as the heavenly bodies; or minute, as light.

"'Tis probable that mineral waters are not formed by running over beds of minerals, but by imbibing the vapours which form these minerals, since we cannot make mineral waters with all the same qualities.

"Hot mineral waters come not a-boiling sooner than cold water.

"Hot iron put into cold water soon cools, but becomes hot again.

"There falls usually at Paris, in June, July, and August, as much rain as in the other nine months.

"This seems to be a strong presumption against medicines, that they are mostly disagreeable, and out of the common use of life. For the weak and uncertain operation of the common food, &c. is well known by experience. These others are the better objects of quackery."

The system of philosophy to which the foregoing remarks apply, was published when its author was twenty-six years old, and he completed it in voluntary exile, and in that isolation from the counsel and sympathy of early friends, which is implied by a residence in an obscure spot in a foreign country. While he was framing his metaphysical theory, Hume appears to have permitted no confidential adviser to have access to the workings of his inventive genius; and as little did he take for granted any of the reasonings and opinions of the illustrious dead, as seek counsel of the living. Nowhere is there a work of genius more completely authenticated, as the produce of the solitary labour of one mind; and when we reflect on the boldness and greatness of the undertaking, we have a

picture of self-reliance calculated to inspire both awe and respect. The system seems to be characteristic of a lonely mind—of one which, though it had no enmity with its fellows, had yet little sympathy with them. It has few of the features that characterize a partaker in the ordinary hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, of humanity; little to give impulse to the excitement of the enthusiast; nothing to dry the tear of the mourner. It exposes to poor human reason her own weakness and nakedness, and supplies her with no extrinsic support or protection. Such a work, coming from a man at the time of life when our sympathies with the world are strongest, and our anticipations brightest, would seem to indicate a mind rendered callous by hardship and disappointment. But it was not so with Hume. His coldness and isolation were in his theories alone; as a man he was frank, warm, and friendly. But the same impulses which gave him resolution to adopt so bold a step, seem at the same time to have armed him with a hard contempt for the opinions of the rest of mankind. Hence, though his philosophy is sceptical, his manner is frequently dogmatical, even to intolerance; and while illustrating the feebleness of all human reasoning, he seems as if he felt an innate infallibility in his own. He afterwards regretted this peculiarity; and in a letter, written apparently at an advanced period of life, we find him deprecating not only the tone of the Inquiry, but many of its opinions. He says:—

"Allow me to tell you, that I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that any thing might arise without a cause. I only maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor demonstration, but from another

source. That Cæsar existed, that there is such an island as Sicily,—for these propositions, I affirm, we have no demonstration nor intuitive proof,—would you infer that I deny their truth, or even their certainty? There are many different kinds of certainty; and some of them as satisfactory to the mind, though perhaps not so regular as the demonstrative kind.

"Where a man of sense mistakes my meaning, I own I am angry; but it is only with myself, for having expressed my meaning so ill, as to have given occasion to the mistake.

"That you may see I would no way scruple of owning my mistakes in argument, I shall acknowledge (what is infinitely more material) a very great mistake in conduct, viz. my publishing at all the 'Treatise of Human Nature,' a book which pretended to innovate in all the sublimest paths of philosophy, and which I composed before I was five-and-twenty; above all, the positive air which prevails in that book, and which may be imputed to the ardour of youth, so much displeases me, that I have not patience to review it. But what success the same doctrines, better illustrated and expressed, may meet with, adhuc sub judice lis est. The arguments have been laid before the world, and by some philosophical minds have been attended to. I am willing to be instructed by the public; though human life is so short, that I despair of ever seeing the decision. I wish I had always confined myself to the more easy parts of erudition; but you will excuse me from submitting to a proverbial decision, let it even be in Greek."[98:1]

The reader, who passes from the first book of the Treatise, on "the Understanding," to the second, on "the Passions," will, in many instances, feel like one who is awakened from a dream, or as if, after penetrating in solitude and darkness into the unseen world of thought, he had come forth to the cheerful company of mankind, and were holding converse with a shrewd and penetrating observer of the passing world. As Hume was never totally insensible to the elements of social enjoyment, but had indeed an ample sympathy with the joys and sorrows of his fellow men, he appears occasionally, in the midst of his most subtle speculations, to experience a desire to burst from the dark prison of solitude, into which he had voluntarily immured himself, and bask in the sunshine of the world. "Man," he says, in his Treatise, "is the creature of the universe who has the most ardent desire of society, and is fitted for it by the most advantages. We can form no wish which has not a reference to society. A perfect solitude is, perhaps, the greatest punishment we can suffer. Every pleasure languishes when enjoyed apart from company, and every pain becomes more cruel and intolerable." In a remarkable passage, in which, after having long proceeded in enthusiasm with his solitary labours, he seems to have stopped for a moment, and recalling within himself the feelings and sympathies of an ordinary man, to have reflected on the scope and tendency of the system in which he was involving himself, he thus expresses himself, regarding its gloomy tendency, and the effect it has in destroying, in the mind of its fabricator, those stays of satisfactory belief in which it is so comfortable for the wearied intellect to find a resting-place:—

Before I launch out into those immense depths of philosophy which lie before me, I find myself inclined to stop a

moment in my present station, and to ponder that voyage which I have undertaken, and which undoubtedly requires the utmost art and industry to be brought to a happy conclusion. Methinks I am like a man, who, having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances. My memory of past errors and perplexities makes me diffident for the future. The wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the faculties, I must employ in my inquiries, increase my apprehensions. And the impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties, reduces me almost to despair, and makes me resolve to perish on the barren rock, on which I am at present, rather than venture myself upon that boundless ocean which runs out into immensity. This sudden view of my danger strikes me with melancholy; and, as 'tis usual for that passion, above all others, to indulge itself, I cannot forbear feeding my despair with all those desponding reflections which the present subject furnishes me with in such abundance.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who, not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Fain would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth, but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join me, in order to make a company apart, but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads that storm which beats upon me from every side. I have exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declared my disapprobation of their systems; and can I be surprised if they should express a hatred of mine and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me;

though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning.

For with what confidence can I venture upon such bold enterprises, when, beside those numberless infirmities peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human nature? Can I be sure that, in leaving all established opinions, I am following truth? and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune should at last guide me on her footsteps? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it, and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view under which they appear to me.[101:1]

Occasionally, seduced by some impulse of playful candour, we find him giving us admission as it were into the chamber of his thoughts, and desiring that some one would drag him into the common circle of the world. When there, he consents for a short time to comport himself as a man, is social and sympathetic with his kind, and pleased with what is passing around; when anon the ambition which had prompted his solitary musings stirs his soul, tells him that in active life and the world at large, the sphere of his true greatness is not placed, and prompts him to reimprison himself, and pursue the great aim of his existence.

But what have I here said, that reflections very refined and metaphysical have little or no influence upon us? This opinion I can scarce forbear retracting, and condemning from my present feeling and experience. The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my

existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

Here, then, I find myself absolutely and necessarily determined to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life. But notwithstanding that my natural propensity, and the course of my animal spirits and passions reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the world, I still feel such remains of my former disposition, that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy. For those are my sentiments in that splenetic humour which governs me at present. I may, nay I must yield to the current of nature, in submitting to my senses and understanding; and in this blind submission I show most perfectly my sceptical disposition and principles. But does it follow that I must strive against the current of nature, which leads me to indolence and pleasure; that I must seclude myself, in some measure, from the commerce and society of men, which is so agreeable; and that I must torture my brain with subtilties and sophistries, at the very time that I cannot satisfy myself concerning the reasonableness of so painful an application, nor have any tolerable prospect of arriving by its means at truth and certainty? Under what obligation do I

lie of making such an abuse of time? And to what end can it serve, either for the service of mankind, or for my own private interest? No: if I must be a fool, as all those who reason or believe any thing certainly are, my follies shall at least be natural and agreeable. Where I strive against my inclination, I shall have a good reason for my resistance; and will no more be led a-wandering into such dreary solitudes, and rough passages, as I have hitherto met with.

These are the sentiments of my spleen and indolence; and indeed I must confess, that philosophy has nothing to oppose to them, and expects a victory more from the returns of a serious good-humoured disposition, than from the force of reason and conviction. In all the incidents of life, we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise. Nay, if we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon sceptical principles, and from an inclination which we feel to the employing ourselves after that manner. Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some propensity, it ought to be assented to. Where it does not, it never can have any title to operate upon us.

At the time, therefore, that I am tired with amusement and company, and have indulged a reverie in my chamber, or in a solitary walk by a river side, I feel my mind all collected within itself, and am naturally inclined to carry my view into all those subjects, about which I have met with so many disputes in the course of my reading and conversation. I cannot forbear having a curiosity to be acquainted with the principles of moral good and evil, the nature and foundation of government, and the cause of those several passions and inclinations which actuate and govern me. I am uneasy to think I approve of one object, and disapprove of another; call one thing beautiful, and another deformed; decide concerning truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without knowing upon what principles I proceed. I am concerned for the condition of the learned world, which lies under such a deplorable ignorance in all these particulars. I feel an ambition to arise in me of contributing to the instruction of mankind, and of acquiring a name by my inventions and discoveries. These sentiments spring up naturally in my present disposition;

and should I endeavour to banish them, by attaching myself to any other business or diversion, I feel I should be a loser in point of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy.[104:1]

The acuteness which the solitary metaphysician brought to his aid when he chose to contemplate mankind, is not the least interesting feature in his book. That he could have seen much of men, since his life had been but brief and his converse with books great, is not probable; yet Chesterfield and Rochefoucauld did not observe men more clearly and truly, though they may have done so more extensively. The following sketch of the mental features of a vain man, would not have been unworthy of Theophrastus.

Every thing belonging to a vain man is the best that is any where to be found. His houses, equipage, furniture, clothes, horses, hounds, excel all others in his conceit; and 'tis easy to observe, that from the least advantage in any of these, he draws a new subject of pride and vanity. His wine, if you'll believe him, has a finer flavour than any other; his cookery is more exquisite; his table more orderly; his servant more expert; the air in which he lives more healthful; the soil he cultivates more fertile; his fruits ripen earlier, and to greater perfection; such a thing is remarkable for its novelty; such another for its antiquity: this is the workmanship of a famous artist; that belonged to such a prince or great man; all objects, in a word, that are useful, beautiful, or surprising, or are related to such, may, by means of property, give rise to this passion. These agree in giving pleasure, and agree in nothing else. This alone is common to them, and therefore must be the quality that produces the passion, which is their common effect.[104:2]

FOOTNOTES:

[48:1] A literary friend suggests that Hume has a quiet allusion to the intellectual faculties of the people of Bristol, in the description of James Naylor's attempts to personify our Saviour, where it is said, "he entered Bristol mounted on a horse—I suppose from the difficulty in that place of finding an ass." Retrospect of manners &c., at the end of the History of the Commonwealth.

[52:1] It is not improbable that the person here alluded to is the Abbé Pluche, a native of Rheims, the greatest literary ornament of that city, and one who filled no small place in the lettered aristocracy of France, where he held in many respects the position which Paley occupied in England. He filled successively the chairs of Humanity and Rhetoric, in the University of Rheims. His promotion in the Church was checked by his partiality for Jansenism. He had the rare merit of uniting to a firm belief in the great truths of Christianity a wide and full toleration for the conscientious opinions of others; and he enjoyed, what is no less rarely possessed by those who meddle in theological disputes, the good opinion of his opponents. He was a great scholar, and wrote some works on etymological and archæological subjects; but he is chiefly known for his writings on natural theology, celebrated for their clear and animated enunciation of the harmonies of nature, and not only popular in their own country, but translated into most of the European languages. His "Spectacle de la Nature," written in a series of dialogues, was sketched while he acted as instructor to the son of Lord Stafford; and the master and pupil, with the father and mother of the latter, are the interlocutors. One of its main objects is, by tracing effects in the operations of nature to their causes, to prove and illustrate the beneficence and wisdom of the Deity. This work has been a treasure to many an English schoolboy, in its well-known translation, with the title, "Nature Displayed." An answer by Pluche to some esprits forts, who wondered why a philosopher could believe so much, has been preserved by his contemporaries: "It is more reasonable," he said, "to believe in the dictates of the Supreme Being than to follow the feeble lights of a reason bounded in its operations and subject to error."

It must be granted that what Hume calls the association of contrariety has in some measure caused this digression, and that the Abbé Pluche would not have been so amply discussed as the possible learned man that Hume had an introduction to, had there not been so much that is common in the subjects treated of by both, and so much that is contrasted in the mode of treatment. Pluche was an opponent of Des Cartes, and thus a name far greater than his, and as many will hold greater than Hume's, is introduced into the circle of these local associations.

[53:1] The following passage in a recent work, Mrs. Shelley's "Rambles in Germany and Italy," seems appropriate to this observation:—

"By this time I became aware of a truth which had dawned on me before, that the French common people have lost much of that grace of manner which once distinguished them above all other people. More courteous than the Italians they could not be; but, while their manners were more artificial, they were more playful and winning. All this has changed. I did not remark the alteration so much with regard to myself, as in their mode of speaking to one another. The 'Madame,' and 'Monsieur,' with which stable boys, and old beggar women, used to address each other with the deference of courtiers, has vanished. No trace of it is to be found in France; a shadow faintly exists among the Parisian shopkeepers when speaking to their customers, but only there is the traditional phraseology still used: The courteous accent, the soft manner, erst so charming, exists no longer. I speak of a thing known and acknowledged by the French themselves. . . . . . Their phraseology, once so delicately and even to us more straightforward people, amusingly deferential (not to superiors only, but toward one another,) is become blunt, and almost rude. The French allege several causes for this change, which they date from the Revolution of 1830: some say it arises from every citizen turning out as one of the national guard in his turn, so that they all get a ton de garnison: others attribute it to their imitation of the English. Of course, in the times of the ancien regime, the courtly tone found an echo and reflexion, from the royal anti-chambers down to the very ends of the kingdom. This has faded by degrees, till the Revolution of 1830 gave it the coup-de-grâce."

[55:1] Sic in MS.

[56:1] This word is nearly obliterated. The passage appears to be a sort of caricatured pompous politeness.

[56:2] MS. R.S.E.

[57:1] Dated 7th January, 1762, and written in relation to a copy of Campbell's "Dissertation on Miracles," sent to him by Dr. Blair.

[58:1] It may be said, that, as Mackenzie's description of Hume's character, this subject belongs to a later period of his life—the time when Mackenzie was acquainted with him. But Mackenzie intended it to be a true view of Hume's character as a young man; and it appears that it properly belongs to that chronological period to which its author assigned it.

[63:1] See above, p. [50]. These reasonings appeared probably in a shape more consonant with the author's later views in the "Philosophical Essays," 1748.

[64:1] Tytler, Life of Kames, i. 84.

[65:1] Tytler, Life of Kames, i. 88.

[66:1] Original MS. R.S.E.

[67:1] According to some acceptations of the word metaphysical, which seem to make it synonymous with transcendental, and referable solely to the operations of pure reason, to the rejection of whatever is founded on experiment, none of Hume's works are properly metaphysical; and by the very foundation he has given to his philosophy, he has made it empirical and consequently not metaphysical. The word metaphysical is, however, here used in its ordinary, and, as it may be termed, popular acceptation, and as applicable to any attempt to analyze mind or describe its elements,—a subject in relation to which the word ontology is also sometimes used.

[70:1] The term "ideas," in the philosophical nomenclature of Hume, is thus used in a sense quite distinct from its previous current acceptations, and as different from its vernacular use by Plato, in reference to the archetypes of all the empirical objects of thought, as from its employment by Locke, who used it to express "whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks."

[75:1] "If we take as the utmost bounds of this system the orbit Uranus, we shall find that it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in extent. The mind fails to form an exact notion of a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest race-horse ever known, had begun to traverse it at full speed, at the time of the birth of Moses, he could only as yet have accomplished half his journey."—Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, pp. 1-2. Here an attempt is made to give a conception of abstract numbers, by calling up in the mind the ideas deposited there from actual impressions. Hume had, in the application of his theory to mathematics, to struggle with the fact that no truths had a clearer and more distinct existence in the mind than the abstract truths of the exact sciences; and feeling the difficulty he thus had to encounter, he did not recur in his subsequent works to this part of the sceptical theory. Kant seems to have filled up the blank for him, by treating those truths as synthetical intuitions anterior to experience in their abstract existence, though depending on experience in the knowledge of their concrete application; but it may be observed, that at the beginning of sect. 4. of his Inquiry, Hume seems to have nearly anticipated some such principle.

[76:1] "If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives: since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations, succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea. . . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception."—Treatise, B. i. p. iv. sect. 6.

[81:1] One cannot escape a feeling of astonishment on finding so great a philosopher as Reid saying, (Active Powers, ch. ix.) that on this theory day and night might be called mutually the cause and effect of each other, on account of their mutual sequence: as if the observation of those who have gone so far in civilisation as just to have seen ignited bodies, had not data for concluding that that phenomenon which most uniformly preceded the ramification of rays of light, was the appearance of a luminous body.

[82:1] This refers to the notion, which may now be termed obsolete, at least in philosophy, of an inherent power in the cause to produce the effect—not to Kant's theory, which does not appear to be inconsistent with the scientific application of Hume's.

[84:1] "Scepsis Scientifica; or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science, in an essay of the vanity of dogmatizing and confident opinion." By Joseph Glanvill, M.A. 1665, 4to, p. 142. See this coincidence commented on in the Penny Cyclopædia, art. Scepticism. The style of Glanvill's work, in its rich variety of logical imagery and its powerful use of antithesis, is formed on that of Sir Thomas Browne, whose "Vulgar Errors" had been first published fifteen years earlier. That one who wrote a book so full of wisdom—so bold, original, and firm in its attacks on received fallacies, should also have been the champion of belief in witchcraft, in which his prototype, Sir Thomas Browne, was also a believer, is one of those inconsistencies in poor human nature, which elicit much wonder, but no explanation. The following passages from this curious and rare book are offered for the reader's amusement:—

"We conclude many things impossibilities, which yet are easie feasables. For by an unadvised transiliency, leaping from the effect to its remotest cause, we observe not the connexion through the interposal of more immediate causalities, which yet at last bring the extremes together without a miracle. And hereupon we hastily conclude that impossible which we see not in the proximate capacity of its efficient."—pp. 83-84.

"From this last-noted head ariseth that other of joyning causes with irrelevant effects, which either refer not at all unto them, or in a remoter capacity. Hence the Indian conceived so grossly of the letter that discovered his theft; and that other who thought the watch an animal. From hence grew the impostures of charmes and amulets, and other insignificant ceremonies; which to this day impose upon common belief, as they did of old upon the barbarism of the uncultivate heathen. Thus effects unusual, whose causes run under ground, and are more remote from ordinary discernment, are noted in the book of vulgar opinion with digitus Deî, or Dæmonis; though they owe no other dependence to the first than what is common to the whole syntax of beings, nor yet any more to the second than what is given it by the imagination of those unqualified judges. Thus, every unwonted meteor is portentous; and the appearance of any unobserved star, some divine prognostick. Antiquity thought thunder the immediate voyce of Jupiter, and impleaded them of impiety that referred it to natural causalities. Neither can there happen a storm at this remove from antique ignorance, but the multitude will have the Devil in it."—pp. 84-85.

On the Influence of Education.

"We judge all things by our anticipations; and condemn or applaud them, as they agree or differ from our first receptions. One country laughs at the laws, customs, and opinions of another as absurd and ridiculous; and the other is as charitable to them in its conceit of theirs."—pp. 93-94.

"Thus, like the hermite, we think the sun shines nowhere but in our cell, and all the world to be darkness but ourselves. We judge truth to be circumscribed by the confines of our belief, and the doctrines we were brought up in; and, with as ill manners as those of China, repute all the rest of the world monoculous. So that, what some astrologers say of our fortunes and the passages of our lives, may, by the allowance of a metaphor, be said of our opinions—that they are written in our stars, being to the most as fatal as those involuntary occurrences, and as little in their power as the placits of destiny. We are bound to our country's opinions as to its laws; and an accustomed assent is tantamount to an infallible conclusion. He that offers to dissent shall be an outlaw in reputation; and the fears of guilty Cain shall be fulfilled on him—whoever meets him shall slay him."—pp. 95-96.

"We look with superstitious reverence upon the accounts of preterlapsed ages, and with a supercilious severity on the more deserving products of our own—a vanity which hath possessed all times as well as ours; and the golden age was never present. . . . We reverence gray-headed doctrines, though feeble, decrepit, and within a step of dust: and on this account maintain opinions which have nothing but our charity to uphold them."—p. 102.

[86:1] "Had I done but half as much as he [Hume] in labouring to subvert principles which ought ever to be held sacred, I know not whether the friends of truth would have granted me any indulgence, I am sure they ought not. Let me be treated with the lenity due to a good citizen no longer than I act as becomes one."—Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, &c. p. 20.

On this Priestley says, "Certainly the obvious construction of this passage is, that Mr. Hume ought not to be treated with the indulgence and lenity due to a good citizen, but ought to be punished as a bad one. And what is this but what a Bonner and a Gardiner might have put into the preamble of an order for his execution. . . I for my part am truly pleased with such publications as those of Mr. Hume, and I do not think it requires any great sagacity or strength of mind, to see that such writings must be of great service to religion, natural and revealed. They have actually occasioned the subject to be more thoroughly canvassed, and consequently to be better understood than ever it was before, and thus vice cotis funguntur."[86:A]

[86:A] Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry, &c. Dr. Beattie's Essay, &c. and Dr. Oswald's Appeal, &c. 1774, pp. 191-193.

[88:1] Critik der reinen Vernunft, (Methodenlehre,) 7th ed. p. 571.

[89:1] Preliminary Dissertation to the Encyclopædia Britannica, 210.

[95:1] A scientific friend observes, that this is the germ of the theory of oxidation.

[98:1] I have been favoured by Mr. Chambers with an old copy of this letter, in which it is titled as a letter to Gilbert Stuart. The original is among the MSS. R.S.E. where there is a note in Baron Hume's handwriting, with a supposition that it was addressed to Dr. Traill.

[101:1] B. i. part iv. sect. 7.

[104:1] B. i. part iv. sect. 7.

[104:2] B. ii. part i. sect. 10.

CHAPTER III.

1739-1741. Æt. 27-29.

Letters to his friends after the publication of the first and second volume of the Treatise—Returns to Scotland—Reception of his Book—Criticism in "The Works of the Learned"—Charge against Hume of assaulting the publisher—Correspondence with Francis Hutcheson—Seeks a situation—Connexion with Adam Smith—Publication of the third volume of the Treatise—Account of it—Hume's notes of his reading—Extracts from his Note books.

Immediately after the publication of his work we find Hume thus writing to Henry Home:—

"London, February 13, 1739.

"Sir,—I thought to have wrote this from a place nearer you than London, but have been detained here by contrary winds, which have kept all Berwick ships from sailing. 'Tis now a fortnight since my book was published; and, besides many other considerations, I thought it would contribute very much to my tranquillity, and might spare me many mortifications, to be in the country while the success of the work was doubtful. I am afraid 'twill remain so very long. Those who are accustomed to reflect on such abstract subjects, are commonly full of prejudices; and those who are unprejudiced are unacquainted with metaphysical reasonings. My principles are also so remote from all the vulgar sentiments on the subject, that were they to take place, they would produce almost a total alteration in philosophy; and you know, revolutions of this kind are not easily brought about. I am young enough to see what will become of the

matter; but am apprehensive lest the chief reward I shall have for some time will be the pleasure of studying on such important subjects, and the approbation of a few judges. Among the rest, you may believe I aspire to your approbation; and next to that, to your free censure and criticism. I shall present you with a copy as soon as I come to Scotland; and hope your curiosity, as well as friendship, will make you take the pains of perusing it.

"If you know any body that is a judge, you would do me a sensible pleasure in engaging him to a serious perusal of the book. 'Tis so rare to meet with one that will take pains on a book, that does not come recommended by some great name or authority, that I must confess I am as fond of meeting with such a one as if I were sure of his approbation. I am, however, so doubtful in that particular, that I have endeavoured all I could to conceal my name; though I believe I have not been so cautious in this respect as I ought to have been.

"I have sent the Bishop of Bristol[106:1] a copy, but could not wait on him with your letter after he had arrived at that dignity. At least I thought it would be to no purpose after I began the printing. You'll excuse the frailty of an author in writing so long a letter about nothing but his own performances. Authors have this privilege in common with lovers; and founded on the same reason, that they are both besotted with a blind fondness of their object. I have been upon my guard against this frailty; but perhaps this has rather turned to my prejudice. The reflection on our caution is apt to give us a more implicit

confidence afterwards, when we come to form a judgment. I am," &c.[107:1]

To the same year we must attribute a letter from Hume to Michael Ramsay, bearing no more precise date than 27th February. He says:—"As to myself, no alteration has happened to my fortune: nor have I taken the least step towards it. I hope things will be riper next winter; and I would not aim at any thing till I could judge of my success in my grand undertaking, and see upon what footing I shall stand in the world. I am afraid, however, that I shall not have any great success of a sudden. Such performances make their way very heavily at first, when they are not recommended by any great name or authority."

In the same letter he speaks of Ramsay as being then a tutor in the Marchmont family, and offers him this sage and business-like advice:—"Should a living fall to the gift of the Duchess of Marlborough, or any other of your friends and patrons, 'twould have but an ill air to say that the gentleman was in the South of France, and that he should be informed of the matter. Besides, you know how necessary a man's presence is to quicken his friends, to make them unite their interests, and to save them the trouble of contriving and thinking about his affairs. Many a one may endeavour to serve you when you point out the service you desire of them, who would not take the pains to find it out themselves."[107:2]

Early in the year 1739, desiring apparently to await in retirement the effect of his work on the mind of the public, he proceeded to Scotland, and took up

his residence at Ninewells, whence we find him writing to Henry Home on 1st June.

"Dear Sir,—You see I am better than my word, having sent you two papers instead of one. I have hints for two or three more, which I shall execute at my leisure. I am not much in the humour of such compositions at present, having received news from London of the success of my Philosophy, which is but indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book, and if I may believe my bookseller. I am now out of humour with myself; but doubt not, in a little time, to be only out of humour with the world, like other unsuccessful authors. After all, I am sensible of my folly in entertaining any discontent, much more despair, upon this account, since I could not expect any better from such abstract reasoning; nor, indeed, did I promise myself much better. My fondness for what I imagined new discoveries, made me overlook all common rules of prudence; and, having enjoyed the usual satisfaction of projectors, 'tis but just I should meet with their disappointments. However, as 'tis observed with such sort of people, one project generally succeeds another, I doubt not but in a day or two I shall be as easy as ever, in hopes that truth will prevail at last over the indifference and opposition of the world.

"You see I might at present subscribe myself your most humble servant with great propriety: but, notwithstanding, shall presume to call myself your most affectionate friend as well as humble servant."[108:1]

His account of the success of his work in his "own

life," is contained in these well-known sentences: "Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my 'Treatise of Human Nature.' It fell dead born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." But he was never easily satisfied with the success of his works; and we know that this one was not so entirely unnoticed by the periodical press, such as it then was, but that it called forth a long review in the number for November, 1739, of The History of the Works of the Learned, a periodical which may be said to have set the example in England, of systematic reviews of new books. This review is written with considerable spirit, and has a few pretty powerful strokes of sarcasm—as where, in relation to Hume's sceptical examination of the results of the demonstrations of the geometricians, the writer says, "I will have nothing to do in the quarrel; if they cannot maintain their demonstrations against his attacks, they may even perish." The paper is of considerable length, and it has throughout a tone of clamorous jeering and vulgar raillery that forcibly reminds one of the writings of Warburton. But it is the work of one who respects the adversary he has taken arms against; and, before leaving the subject, the writer makes a manly atonement for his wrath, saying of the Treatise,—"It bears, indeed, incontestable marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young and not yet thoroughly practised. The subject is vast and noble as any that can exercise the understanding; but it requires a very mature judgment to handle it as becomes its dignity and importance: the utmost prudence, tenderness, and delicacy are requisite to this desirable issue. Time and use may ripen these qualities in our author; and we shall probably have reason to consider this,

compared with his later productions, in the same light as we view the juvenile works of Milton, or the first manner of a Raphael or other celebrated painter."

Immediately after Hume's death, there appeared in The London Review, the following account of the manner in which he had acknowledged the article in The Works of the Learned: "It does not appear our author had acquired, at this period of his life, that command over his passions of which he afterwards makes his boast. His disappointment at the public reception of his 'Essay on Human Nature,' had, indeed, a violent effect on his passions in a particular instance; it not having dropped so dead born from the press but that it was severely handled by the reviewers of those times, in a publication entitled The Works of the Learned. A circumstance this which so highly provoked our young philosopher, that he flew in a violent rage to demand satisfaction of Jacob Robinson, the publisher, whom he kept, during the paroxysm of his anger, at his sword's point, trembling behind the counter lest a period should be put to the life of a sober critic by a raving philosopher."[110:1]

This statement is in a note to a Review of Hume's "own life," and it has after it the letters "Rev." which serve to give it the attestation of William Shakespeare Kenrick, the editor of The London Review, and a man whose sole title to literary remembrance rests on the hardy effrontery and deadly spite of his falsehoods. There is nothing in the story to make it in itself incredible—for Hume was far from being that docile mass of imperturbability, which so large a portion of the world have taken him for. But the anecdote requires authentication; and has it

not. Moreover, there are circumstances strongly against its truth. Hume was in Scotland at the time when the criticism on his work was published: he did not visit London for some years afterwards; and, to believe the story, we must look upon it not as a momentary ebullition of passion, but as a manifestation of long-treasured resentment,—a circumstance inconsistent with his character, inconsistent with human nature in general, and not in keeping with the modified tone of dissatisfaction with the criticism, evinced in his correspondence.

While Hume was preparing for the press the third part of his "Treatise of Human Nature,"—on the subject of Morals, Francis Hutcheson, then professor of moral philosophy in the university of Glasgow, was enjoying a reputation in the philosophical world scarcely inferior to that of either of his great contemporaries, Berkeley and Wolff. From the following correspondence it will be seen that Hume submitted the manuscript of his forthcoming volume to Hutcheson's inspection; and he shows more inclination to receive with deference the suggestions of that distinguished man, than to allow himself to be influenced from any other quarter. But still, it will be observed that it is only in details that he receives instruction, and that he vigorously supports the fundamental principles of his system. The correspondence illustrates the method in which he held himself as working with human nature—not as an artist, but an anatomist, whose minute critical examinations might be injured by any bursts of feeling or eloquence.[111:1] The letters show how far he saw into the depths of the utilitarian system; and prove that it was more

completely formed in his mind than it appeared in his book. Notions of prudence appear to have restrained him, at that time, from issuing so full a development of the system as that which he afterwards published; but he soon discovered that it was not in that department of his works that he stood on the most dangerous ground.

Hume to Francis Hutcheson.

"Ninewells, 17th Sept. 1739.

"Sir,—I am much obliged to you for your reflections on my papers. I have perused them with care, and find they will be of use to me. You have mistaken my meaning in some passages, which, upon examination, I have found to proceed from some ambiguity or defect in my expression.

"What affected me most in your remarks, is your observing that there wants a certain warmth in the cause of virtue, which you think all good men would relish, and could not displease amidst abstract inquiries. I must own this has not happened by chance, but is the effect of a reasoning either good or bad. There are different ways of examining the mind, as well as the body. One may consider it either as an anatomist or as a painter: either to discover its most secret springs and principles, or to describe the grace and beauty of its actions. I imagine it impossible to conjoin these two views. Where you pull off the skin, and display all the minute parts, there appears something trivial, even in the noblest attitudes and most vigorous actions; nor can you ever render the object graceful or engaging, but by clothing the parts again with skin and flesh, and presenting only their bare outside. An anatomist, however, can give very

good advice to a painter or statuary. And, in like manner, I am persuaded that a metaphysician may be very helpful to a moralist, though I cannot easily conceive these two characters united in the same work. Any warm sentiment of morals, I am afraid, would have the air of declamation amidst abstract reasonings, and would be esteemed contrary to good taste. And though I am much more ambitious of being esteemed a friend to virtue than a writer of taste, yet I must always carry the latter in my eye, otherwise I must despair of ever being serviceable to virtue. I hope these reasons will satisfy you; though at the same time I intend to make a new trial, if it be possible to make the moralist and metaphysician agree a little better.

"I cannot agree to your sense of natural. 'Tis founded on final causes, which is a consideration that appears to me pretty uncertain and unphilosophical. For, pray, what is the end of man? Is he created for happiness, or for virtue? for this life, or for the next? for himself, or for his Maker? Your definition of natural depends upon solving these questions, which are endless, and quite wide of my purpose. I have never called justice unnatural, but only artificial. 'Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et æqui,'[113:1] says one of the best moralists of antiquity. Grotius and Puffendorf, to be consistent, must assert the same.

"Whether natural abilities be virtue, is a dispute of words. I think I follow the common use of language; virtus signified chiefly courage among the Romans. I was just now reading this character of Alexander VI. in Guicciardin. 'In Alessandro sesto fu solertia et sagacità singulare: consiglio eccellente, efficacia a

persuadere maravigliosa, et a tutte le faccende gravi, sollicitudine, et destrezza incredibile. Ma erano queste virtù avanzate di grande intervallo da vitii.'[114:1] Were benevolence the only virtue, no characters could be mixed, but would depend entirely on their degrees of benevolence. Upon the whole, I desire to take my catalogue of virtues from 'Cicero's Offices,' not from 'The Whole Duty of Man.' I had indeed the former book in my eye in all my reasonings.

"I have many other reflections to communicate to you; but it would be troublesome. I shall therefore conclude with telling you, that I intend to follow your advice in altering most of those passages you have remarked as defective in point of prudence; though, I must own, I think you a little too delicate. Except a man be in orders, or be immediately concerned in the instruction of youth, I do not think his character depends upon his philosophical speculations, as the world is now modelled; and a little liberty seems requisite to bring into the public notice a book that is calculated for few readers. I hope you will allow me the freedom of consulting you when I am in any difficulty, and believe me," &c.

"P.S.—I cannot forbear recommending another thing to your consideration. Actions are not virtuous nor vicious, but only so far as they are proofs of certain qualities or durable principles in the mind. This is a point I should have established more expressly than I have done. Now, I desire you to consider if

there be any quality that is virtuous, without having a tendency either to the public good or to the good of the person who possesses it. If there be none without these tendencies, we may conclude that their merit is derived from sympathy. I desire you would only consider the tendencies of qualities, not their actual operations, which depend on chance. Brutus riveted the chains of Rome faster by his opposition; but the natural tendency of his noble dispositions—his public spirit and magnanimity—was to establish her liberty.

"You are a great admirer of Cicero as well as I am. Please to review the fourth book De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum: where you find him prove against the Stoics, that if there be no other goods but virtue, 'tis impossible there can be any virtue, because the mind would then want all motives to begin its actions upon; and 'tis on the goodness or badness of the motives that the virtue of the action depends. This proves, that to every virtuous action there must be a motive or impelling passion distinct from the virtue, and that virtue can never be the sole motive to any action. You do not assent to this: though I think there is no proposition more certain or important. I must own my proofs were not distinct enough and must be altered. You see with what reluctance I part with you, though I believe it is time I should ask your pardon for so much trouble."

In the mean time we find Hume anxious to be employed in the capacity of a travelling governor or tutor, and writing to Mr. George Carre of Nisbet, intimating his readiness to officiate to that gentleman's cousins, Lord Haddington and Mr. Baillie, if there are no favoured candidates for the situation. There

is nothing in the letter to excite much interest.[116:1] He says, he hears the young gentlemen are proposing to travel; observes that he has the honour to be their relation, "which gives a governor a better air in attending his pupils," and that he has some leisure time. In his letter to a physician, in the preceding chapter, we find him mentioning this office as one of the few to which his prospects were limited, and, at the same time, as one for which his knowledge of the world scarcely fitted him. His six years' farther experience of life had perhaps in his own opinion provided him with opportunities of better qualifying himself for the duties of this office. It was held by many able and accomplished men at that time, and appears to have been the profession of his friend Michael Ramsay. There are no traces of the manner in which his application was received.

From such matters as these, one readily turns with interest to the most trifling notices connected with his literary history. On 4th March, 1740, we find him thus writing to Hutcheson.

"My bookseller has sent to Mr. Smith a copy of my book, which I hope he has received, as well as your letter. I have not yet heard what he has done with the abstract; perhaps you have. I have got it printed in London, but not in The Works of the Learned, there having been an article with regard to my book, somewhat abusive, printed in that work, before I sent up the abstract."[116:2]

The "Smith" here mentioned as receiving a copy of the Treatise, we may fairly conclude, notwithstanding the universality of the name, to be Adam Smith, who was then a student in the university of Glasgow,

and not quite seventeen years old.[117:1] It may be inferred from Hume's letter, that Hutcheson had mentioned Smith as a person on whom it would serve some good purpose to bestow a copy of the Treatise: and we have here, evidently, the first introduction to each other's notice, of two friends, of whom it can be said, that there was no third person writing the English language during the same period, who has had so much influence upon the opinions of mankind as either of these two men.

The correspondence with Hutcheson is continued as follows:

Hume to Francis Hutcheson.

"16th March,1740.

"Dear Sir,—I must trouble you to write that letter you was so kind as to offer to Longman the bookseller. I concluded somewhat of a hasty bargain with my bookseller, from indolence and an aversion to bargaining: as also because I was told that few or no bookseller would engage for one edition with a new author. I was also determined to keep my name a secret for some time, though I find I have failed in that point. I sold one edition of these two volumes for fifty guineas, and also engaged myself heedlessly in a clause, which may prove troublesome, viz. that upon printing a second edition I shall take all the copies remaining upon hand at the bookseller's price at the time. 'Tis in order to have some check upon my bookseller, that I would willingly engage with another: and I doubt not but your recommendation would be very serviceable to me, even though you be not personally acquainted with him.

"I wait with some impatience for a second edition,

principally on account of alterations I intend to make in my performance. This is an advantage that we authors possess since the invention of printing, and renders the nonum prematur in annum not so necessary to us as to the ancients. Without it I should have been guilty of a very great temerity, to publish at my years so many novelties in so delicate a part of philosophy; and at any rate, I am afraid that I must plead as my excuse that very circumstance of youth which may be urged against me. I assure you, that without running any of the heights of scepticism, I am apt in a cool hour to suspect, in general, that most of my reasonings will be more useful by furnishing hints and exciting people's curiosity, than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge, that must pass to future ages.[118:1] I wish I could discover more fully the particulars wherein I have failed. I admire so much the candour I have observed in Mr. Locke, yourself, and a very few more, that I would be extremely ambitious of imitating it, by frankly confessing my errors. If I do not imitate it, it must proceed neither from my being free from errors nor want of inclination, but from my real unaffected ignorance. I shall consider more carefully all the particulars you mention to me: though with regard to abstract ideas, 'tis with difficulty I can entertain a doubt on that head, notwithstanding your authority. Our conversation together has furnished me a hint, with which I shall augment the second edition. 'Tis this—the word simple idea is an abstract term, comprehending different individuals that are similar. Yet the point of their similarity, from the very nature of such ideas, is not distinct nor separable from the rest. Is not this a proof, among many others, that

there may be a similarity without any possible separation even in thought.

"I must consult you in a point of prudence. I have concluded a reasoning with these two sentences: 'When you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing but that, from the particular constitution of your nature, you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat, and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind. And this discovery in morals, like that other in physics, is to be regarded as a mighty advancement of the speculative sciences, though like that too it has little or no influence on practice.'[119:1]

"Is not this laid a little too strong? I desire your opinion of it, though I cannot entirely promise to conform myself to it. I wish from my heart I could avoid concluding, that since morality, according to your opinion, as well as mine, is determined merely by sentiment, it regards only human nature and human life. This has been often urged against you, and the consequences are very momentous. If you make any alterations in your performances, I can assure you, there are many who desire you would more fully consider this point, if you think that the truth lies on the popular side. Otherwise common prudence, your character, and situation, forbid you [to] touch upon it. If morality were determined by reason, that is the same to all rational beings; but

nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments are the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings? How can we ascribe to them any sentiments at all? They have implanted those sentiments in us for the conduct of life like our bodily sensations, which they possess not themselves. I expect no answer to these difficulties in the compass of a letter. 'Tis enough if you have patience to read so long a letter as this.—I am." &c.

The third volume of the "Treatise of Human Nature" being the part relating to morals, was published by Thomas Longman in 1740. It is not so original as the metaphysical part of the work, nor are its principles so clearly and decidedly laid down. Its author's metaphysical theories were rather modified than confirmed in his subsequent works. But his opinions on ethical subjects, only indistinctly shadowed forth in his early work, were afterwards reduced to a more compact system, and were more clearly and fully set forth.

The metaphysical department of the Treatise is a system with a great leading principle throughout, of which its author intended that all the details should be but the individual applications. If his reasoning in that department of his work be accurate, he sweeps away all other systems of the foundation of knowledge, and substitutes another in their stead. But the third book, "on Morals," like the second, on "the Passions," has no such pretension. The leading principles of the metaphysical department are certainly kept in view, but the details are not necessarily parts of it. They have a separate existence of their own: they are an analysis of phenomena which we witness in our daily life; and the reader assents or dissents as the several

opinions expressed correspond with or diverge from his own observation of what he sees passing in the world around him, without, in that mental operation, either receiving or rejecting any general theory. In short, it is to a considerable extent a series of observations of human conduct and character; and as such they are admitted or denied, are sympathized with or contemned, according to the previous feelings and opinions of the reader. Among the prominent features of the theoretical part of this book, is the admission of a moral sense,[121:1] but the negation of an abstract code of morality, separately existing, and independent of the position of the persons who are applying this sense. The work in some measure foreshadows the systems which have been respectively called the utilitarian and the selfish; the former applying as the scale of moral excellence the extent to which an action is beneficial or hurtful to the human race; the latter referring the actions of mankind, whether good or bad, interested or disinterested, to self, and to impulses which are always connected with the individual in whom they act, and his passions or desires.

In this respect it had its influence, when joined to other hints thrown out by philosophers, in supplying the texts on which Helvetius, Beccaria, and Bentham discoursed at greater length and with a clearer application to definite systems. The utilitarian principle Hume afterwards extended and rendered systematic, in pursuance of the views announced in his correspondence with Hutcheson. In connexion with what is

called the "selfish system" of morals, he went no farther than to point out that the source of every impulse must have its relation to the individual person on whom that impulse acts. If it be the sordid impulse of the miser, it must be because the man who feels it loves gold; if it be the profuse impulse of the spendthrift, it must be because the individual who spends has a corresponding desire within himself; if it be the charitable impulse of the person who feeds the poor, it must be because that person is under the influence of inducements which incline him rather to do so than not do so. If the principle be applied to a martyr suffering for conscience sake, or to a soldier who prefers death to submission, it is still because the person who acts fulfils impulses acting on himself. But this is a subject from which Hume appears to have shrunk in his subsequent works. He seems to have disliked the character of being connected with "the selfish school;" and he thus failed to revert to a subject on which his rigid and clear examination would have been a matter of greater interest, than his merely arguing against self-interest being the proper rule of action—an argument that with him amounts to nothing more than a protest against that vulgarization of the system, which charges it with such a doctrine for the purpose of rendering it odious. We shall afterwards find that he had a correspondence on this subject with Helvetius, who wished to bring him over to the admission of his own opinions.

In this department of the Treatise there are some inquiries into the first principles of law and government. Here, if any where, he shows the influence over his mind of his reading in the works of the civilians. His own utilitarian principle, when carried out on these subjects, shows that the best government

is that which is most conducive to the welfare of the community. But he occasionally mixes up this principle with elements totally heterogeneous to it—as in those instances where he considers the privilege of governing as held by the same tenure with the right of property, and views the question whether any particular government is good or bad, in its effect upon the persons governed, as secondary to the question whether it is or is not held by a good tenure when it is considered as if it were a matter of private property. But, notwithstanding these inconsistencies, which he afterwards amended when he had more fully investigated the principles of politics, the general aim of his observations on the sources of government is to show that they are to be found in reason, and to dispel the various irrational and superstitious notions of political authority, which are comprehended in the use of the term Divine Right. Indeed, the observations which he makes with a practical application to governments, are a partial anticipation of the clear good sense which distinguished his subsequent political essays. In connexion with the motives of that insurrection which occurred within eight years after the publication of the Treatise, and with the partiality for high monarchical principles with which Hume's name is so much associated, the following remarks are interesting and instructive.

Whoever considers the history of the several nations of the world, their revolutions, conquests, increase and diminution, the manner in which their particular governments are established, and the successive right transmitted from one person to another, will soon learn to treat very lightly all disputes concerning the rights of princes, and will be convinced that a strict adherence to any general rules, and the rigid loyalty to particular persons and families, on which

some people set so high a value, are virtues that hold less of reason than of bigotry and superstition. In this particular, the study of history confirms the reasonings of true philosophy, which, showing us the original qualities of human nature, teaches us to regard the controversies in politics as incapable of any decision in most cases, and as entirely subordinate to the interests of peace and liberty. Where the public good does not evidently demand a change, 'tis certain that the concurrence of all those titles, original contract, long possession, present possession, succession, and positive laws, forms the strongest title to sovereignty, and is justly regarded as sacred and inviolable. But when these titles are mingled and opposed in different degrees, they often occasion perplexity, and are less capable of solution from the arguments of lawyers and philosophers, than from the swords of the soldiery. Who shall tell me, for instance, whether Germanicus or Drusus ought to have succeeded Tiberius, had he died while they were both alive, without naming any of them for his successor? Ought the right of adoption to be received as equivalent to that of blood, in a nation where it had the same effect in private families, and had already, in two instances, taken place in the public? Ought Germanicus to be esteemed the eldest son, because he was born before Drusus; or the younger, because he was adopted after the birth of his brother? Ought the right of the elder to be regarded in a nation, where the eldest brother had no advantage in the succession to private families? Ought the Roman empire at that time to be esteemed hereditary, because of two examples; or ought it, even so early, to be regarded as belonging to the stronger, or the present possessor, as being founded on so recent an usurpation? Upon whatever principles we may pretend to answer these and such-like questions, I am afraid we shall never be able to satisfy an impartial inquirer, who adopts no party in political controversies, and will be satisfied with nothing but sound reason and philosophy.[124:1]

Some of Hume's notes, of matters which have occurred to him in the course of his reading as worthy of observation, or of remarkable thoughts passing through

his mind, have been preserved.[125:1] They appear to be merely a few stray leaves, which have accidentally survived the loss of many others, as the number of subjects to which they refer is limited in comparison with the wide compass of knowledge embraced in Hume's various works. The specimens so preserved, appear generally to have been written at this period of his life, with the exception, perhaps, of those which are printed above, and which have reference to physical science.[125:2] They are set down with clearness and precision, as if by one who knew both the step in a series of reasoning to which each of them belongs, and the form in which it should be expressed. They are written on long sheets of paper; and unless the few that appear under the head "Natural Philosophy," and some which have the general heading "Philosophy," they appear to have been subjected to no system of pre-arrangement, such as that which Locke suggested, but to have been set down according as the fruits of the annotator's reading or thought presented themselves to him. A few specimens are here given: they will be found to have been chiefly made use of in the "Natural History of Religion," and in the "Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations," while a few of them—as for instance that relating to Gustavus Vasa—make their appearance in the little volume of "Essays, Moral and Political," published in 1741.[125:3] A considerable proportion of them have not been made use of in Hume's printed works, and some of them

contain information which is embodied in Smith's "Wealth of Nations." It is an occurrence quite characteristic of the friendship of these two great men, that either of them should have supplied the other with facts or ideas applicable to the subjects on which he might be engaged.

EXTRACTS FROM A COLLECTION OF MEMORANDUMS.

Perhaps the custom of allowing parents to murder their infant children, though barbarous, tends to render a state more populous, as in China. Many marry by that inducement; and such is the force of natural affection, that none make use of that privilege but in extreme necessity.

A pound of steel, when manufactured, may become of £10,000 value.

No hospitals in Holland have any land or settled revenue, and yet the poor better provided for than any where else in the world.

The Romans had two ways chiefly of levying their taxes,—by public lands, which were all dissipated by popular tribunes about the end of the republic; or by customs upon importation, which were different in different places; in some the fortieth part of the value; in Sicily the twentieth.

They had also a kind of excise, which began with the emperors, and was the two-hundredth or one-hundredth part of the value of all goods sold, the fiftieth of slaves.

Beside this, they had pretty early, even in the time of the republic, duties upon mines and salt; and in order to levy the former more easily, they forbid all mines in Italy. Their mines near Carthagena

yielded them 25,000 drachms a-day. Burman de Vict. Rom.

In the time of the monarchy, the kings had the sole power of imposing taxes. In the time of the republic, 'tis strange to see this power belonging sometimes to the magistrates, sometimes to the senate, or to the people. We learn from Livy, in the second Punic War, that the senate could contract debt alone. Polybius says, that all money matters belonged to the senate. The censors levied all the taxes, and farmed them out to the Roman knights. The Romans could be no great politicians; since the senate could not gain the sovereignty, nor the censors the supreme magistracy, notwithstanding these advantages.

All French projectors take it for granted that 'tis equally dangerous to make the people too easy as to oppress them too much. Comte de Boulainvilliers.

The charter governments in America, almost entirely independent of England.

Those north of Virginia interfere most with us in manufactures, which proceeds from the resemblance of soil and climate.

Gustavus Vasa is perhaps the only instance of a prince who humbled the clergy while he aspired to arbitrary power.

From 1729 to 1730, imported of corn into Ireland to the value of £274,000,—ascribed to the want of a drawback by the Irish House of Commons.

The exchange to Holland always against us. Craftsman. Not true.

Our exports no rule to judge of our trade: masters enter more than they export, to persuade others that their ship is near full.

The East India Company have offered to pay all the duties upon tea, provided it may be sold duty free.

The interest the crown has in seizures thought to be the cause why they were refused.—Never asked; because afterwards they cannot expect the execution of the laws against foreign tea.

The government of England perhaps the only one, except Holland, wherein the legislature has not force enough to execute the laws without the good-will of the people. This is an irregular kind of check upon the legislature.

Men have much oftener erred from too great respect to government than from too little.

The French sugar colonies supplied entirely with provisions from our northern colonies.

Hogsheads of tobacco exported to France at £20 a hogshead; at £5.

The gross produce of the English customs £3,000,000 a-year; the neat produce £1,800,000.

In all the British Leeward Islands, the muster-roll exceeded not two thousand five hundred men a few years ago, and yet there are twenty thousand blacks in Antigua alone.

The French fish on the coasts of Newfoundland in the winter, which gives them an advantage above us.

Our bustle about the Ostend company, the cause of the great progress of the French company.

The East India Company have desired to have China raw silk put upon the same footing as to duty with the Italian, but have been refused.

The reason why the court has a greater superiority among the Lords than Commons, beside the bishops, is that the court gives places to the Lords, chiefly for their interest among the Commons.

Eighteen hundred children put upon the parishes at Dublin in five years, of which, upon inquiry, there remained only twenty-eight.

Ninety-five thousand seamen computed to be in France; only sixty thousand in England.

Ships formerly lasted twenty-seven years in the English navy; now only thirteen.

Within the last two thousand years, almost all the despotic governments of the world have been improving, and the free ones degenerating; so that now they are pretty near a par.

There must be a balance in all governments; and the inconvenience of allowing a single person to have any share is, that what may be too little for a balance in one hand will be too much in another.

The fiars of wheat, in 1400, were fixed at Edinburgh, 6 sh. 7 p. Scots money.

Banks first invented in Sweden on account of their copper money.

There is not a word of trade in all Machiavel, which is strange, considering that Florence rose only by trade.

About twenty thousand tun of wine imported into England about the time of the first Dutch war.—Sir Josiah Child.

One per cent. in interest, worse than two per cent. in customs; because ships pay the interest, not the customs.

Eight hundred thousand Jews chased from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic.—Geddes.[129:1]

About 100,000 Moors condemned for apostacy, by the Inquisition, in forty years. 4000 burned.—Id.

Near a million of Moors expelled Spain.—Id.

The Commons of Castile, in taking arms against Charles the Fifth, among other things petition, that no sheep nor wool shall be allowed to go out of the kingdom.—Id.

The interest in Rome reduced to six per cent. under Tiberius.—Tacit.

The laws of Arragon required a public trial for the subjects: but allowed the king a kind of despotic power over his servants and ministers, in order to render the great men less fond of court preferment.—Geddes.

'Twould be more easy for the English liberties to recover themselves than the Roman, because of the mixed government. The transition is not so violent.

The farms were large among the ancients. The Leontine farms in Sicily contained 130,000 acres, and were farmed to eighty-three farmers.—Cicero in Verrem.

After the conquest of Egypt by Augustus, the prices of every thing doubled in Rome.

The Roman colonies, in the time of Augustus, voted in their colonies, and sent their votes to Rome.

The Romans very exact in their book-keeping; in so much, that a crime, such as bribery or poisoning, could be proved or refuted from their books.—Cic. pro Cluentio.

They also kept commentaries or ephemerides, wherein every action or word was wrote down; at least Augustus practised this with his daughters and nieces.—Sueton.

In Nero's time, 30,000 buried in one autumn, while there was a plague.

Machiavel makes it a question, whether absolute power is best founded on the nobility or the people. In my opinion, a subject who usurps upon a free state, cannot trust the nobles, and must caress the people. This was the case with the Roman emperors. But an established monarchy is better founded on the nobles.

When the Lex Licinia was promulgated, the senate voted that it should be binding from that moment, as if it had been voted by the people.

In 1721, the English and Dutch drew more money from Spain than France did.—Dict. de Com.

There is computed to be 3000 tun of gold in the bank of Amsterdam, at 100,000 florins a tun.—Id.

A ship of 50 or 60 tun has commonly seven hands, and increases a man every 10 tun.—Id.

The French commerce sunk much about the middle of the seventeenth century, by reason of their infidelity in their goods.—Id.

There seems to have been a very bad police in Rome; for Cicero says, that if Milo had waylaid Clodius, he would have waited for him in the neighbourhood, where his death might have been attributed to robbers, by reason of the commonness of the accident; and yet Clodius had above sixty servants with him, all armed.

Thirty-eight holidays in the year in France.—Vauban. One hundred and eighty working days at a medium.—Id.

The people commonly live poorest in countries which have the richest natural soil.

600 slaves, working in the silver mines of Athens, yielded a mina a-day to their master Xenophon. He computes that 10,000 slaves would produce a revenue of 100 talents a-year.

The holidays in Athens made two months in the year.—Salmasius.

The public in Athens paid 20 per cent. for money.—Xenophon.

Many of the chief officers of the army were named by the people in old Rome.—Liv. lib. ix. and lib. vii.

The Roman senate were obliged by law to give

their authority to the Comitia Centuriata before the suffrages were called.—Id. lib. viii. cap. 12.

The Pontifices of old Rome suppressed the records of their religion on purpose, as well as those of new Rome.—Id. lib. ix.

Every part of the office of the senate could be brought before the people; even the distribution of provinces. An evident part of the executive.—Id. lib. x. cap. 24.

£60,000 sterling amassed beforehand for building the Capitol.—Id. lib. i.

Plays, a part of religious service for a pestilence.—Id. lib. vii.

The senators were forbid trade among the Romans.—Id. lib. viii. cap. 63.

In the Roman government, there was a great restraint on liberty, since a man could not leave his colony, or live where he pleased.—Id. lib. xxxix. cap. 3.

External superstition punished by the Romans.—Id. lib. xxxix. cap. 16.

They were very jealous of the established religion.—Id. lib. xl. cap. 29.

Robbers established in legal companies in Egypt; and such captains as Jonathan Wyld established.—Diodorus Siculus.

Whoever consecrated the tenth of their goods to Hercules, was esteemed sure of happiness by the Romans.—Id.

Jupiter, according to the Cretan tradition, was a pious worshipper of the gods; a clear proof that those people had a preceding religion.—Id. lib. v.

Gradenigo's change of the Venetian republic was made in 1280.—St. Didier.

The clergy are chosen by a popular call.—Id.

Vossius says he saw in Rome, that, digging forty foot underground, they found the tops of columns buried.

Horses were very rare among the ancients, (before the Romans,) and not employed in any thing but war. 1st, In the retreat of the ten thousand, 'twould have been easy to have mounted the whole army, if horses had been as common as at present. 2d, They had about fifty horses, which, instead of increasing, diminished during the road, though very useful. 3d, In the spoils of villages, Xenophon frequently mentions sheep and oxen; never horses. 4th, Cleombrotus' army, in lib. v. Hist. made use of asses for the carriages.

Demosthenes tells the Athenians, that a very honest man of Macedonia, who would not lie, told him such and such things of Philip's situation: a kind of style that marks but bad intelligence, and little communication among the different states.—Olynth. 2.

The 30 tyrants killed about 1500 citizens untried.—Æschines.

Thrasybulus restoring the people, and Cæsar's conquest, the only instances in ancient history of revolutions without barbarous cruelty.

There seems to be a natural course of things which brings on the destruction of great empires. They push their conquests till they come to barbarous nations, which stop their progress by the difficulty of subsisting great armies. After that, the nobility and considerable men of the conquering nation and best provinces withdraw gradually from the frontier army, by reason of its distance from the capital, and barbarity of the country in which they quarter. They forget the use of war. Their barbarous soldiers become their masters. These have no law but their

sword, both from their bad education, and from their distance from the sovereign to whom they bear no affection. Hence disorder, violence, anarchy, tyranny, and a dissolution of empire.

Perseus's ambassadors to the Rhodians spoke a style like the modern, with regard to the balance of power, but are condemned by Livy.—Lib. xlii. cap. 46.

Herodotus makes a scruple of so much as delivering an account of the difference of religion among foreigners, lest he should give offence.—Lib. ii.

The Egyptians more careful of preserving their cats than their houses in time of fire.—Id.

Plutarch says, that the effect of the naval power of Athens, established by Themistocles, was to render their government more popular: and that husbandmen and labourers are more friends to nobility than merchants and seamen are.—In Vita Themist.

Solon is the first person mentioned in history to have raised the value of money, which, says Plutarch, was a benefit to the poor in paying their debts, and no loss to the rich.—In Vita Solon.

PHILOSOPHY.

Men love pleasure more than they hate pain.—Bayle.

Men are vicious, but hate a religion that authorizes vice.—Id.

The accounts we have of the sentiments of the ancient philosophers not very distinct nor consistent. Cicero contradicts himself in two sentences: in saying that Thales allowed the ordering of the world by a mind, and in saying that Anaxagoras was the first.

Strato's atheism the most dangerous of the

ancient—holding the origin of the world from nature, or a matter endued with activity. Bayle thinks there are none but the Cartesians can refute this atheism.

A Stratonician could retort the arguments of all the sects of philosophy. Of the Stoics, who maintained their God to be fiery and compound; and of the Platonicians, who asserted the ideas to be distinct from the Deity. The same question,—Why the parts or ideas of God had that particular arrangement?—is as difficult as why the world had.

Some pretend that there can be no necessity, according to the system of atheism, "because even matter cannot be determined without something superior to determine it."—Fenelon.

Three proofs of the existence of a God: 1st, Some thing necessarily existent, and what is so is infinitely perfect. 2d, The idea of infinite must come from an infinite being. 3d, The idea of infinite perfection implies that of actual existence.

There is a remarkable story to confirm the Cartesian philosophy of the brain. A man hurt by the fall of a horse, forgot about twenty years of his life, and remembered what went before in a much more lively manner than usual.

FOOTNOTES:

[106:1] Dr. Butler was consecrated bishop, 3d December, 1739, and was afterwards translated to the see of Durham, 16th October, 1750. He died 16th June, 1752, in the 60th year of his age.

[107:1] Tytler's Life of Kames, i. 90.

[107:2] MS. R.S.E.

[108:1] Tytler's Life of Kames, i. 93.

[110:1] London Review, v. 200.

[111:1] See above, p. [91].

[113:1] Horat. Lib. i. Sat. iii. l. 98.

[114:1] Edit. 1636, p. 5. "Alexander the Sixth was endowed with wonderful cunning and extraordinary sagacity; had a surprising genius in suggesting expedients in the cabinet, and uncommon efficacy in persuading; and in all matters of consequence an incredible earnestness and dexterity."—Goddard's Translation.

[116:1] Dated, 12th November, 1739. MS. R.S.E.

[116:2] MS. R.S.E.

[117:1] He was born on 5th June, 1723.

[118:1] See above, p. [78].

[119:1] See this passage in the "Treatise of Human Nature," Book iii. part i. sect. 1. where it appears with no other variation than the substitution of the word "considerable," for mighty. It thus appears that whatever remarks Hutcheson made on the passage, they were not such as to induce the author materially to alter it.

[121:1] It may be questioned if any reader of Hume's works has been able to reconcile this admission of the existence of a moral sense, which, according to his own account of it is an intuition, with his metaphysical theory of impressions and ideas, notwithstanding his ingenuity in ranking it among the impressions.

[124:1] Book iii. part ii. sect. 10.

[125:1] In the MSS. R.S.E.

[125:2] See p. [95].

[125:3] This circumstance, showing that a portion of the manuscript has been written before the publication of these essays, points to the present as the period to which a collection of extracts from the notes will most aptly apply, although some of them may have been made at a later date.

[129:1] Miscellaneous Tracts, by Michael Geddes. 1730.

CHAPTER IV.

1741-1745. Æt. 30-34.

Publication of the Essays, Moral and Political—Their Character—Correspondence with Home and Hutcheson—Hume's Remarks on Hutcheson's System—Education and Accomplishments of the Scottish Gentry—Hume's Intercourse with Mure of Caldwell and Oswald of Dunnikier—Opinions on a Sermon by Dr. Leechman—Attempts to succeed Dr. Pringle in the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh.

A small duodecimo volume, the first of the "Essays Moral and Political," was published at Edinburgh in 1741, and the second was published in 1742. The publication was anonymous; and it is remarkable that, although thus shielded, Hume appears to have, at that early period, been so anxious to disconnect himself with the authorship of the Treatise, that, in the advertisement, he addresses his readers as if he were then appearing as an author for the first time. "Most of these essays," he says, "were wrote with a view of being published as weekly papers, and were intended to comprehend the designs both of the Spectators and Craftsmen. But, having dropt that undertaking, partly from laziness, partly from want of leisure, and being willing to make trial of my talents for writing before I ventured upon any more serious compositions, I was induced to commit these trifles to the judgment of the public. Like most new authors, I must confess I feel some anxiety concerning the success of my work; but one thing makes me more secure,—that the reader may condemn my abilities, but must approve of my moderation and impartiality in my method of handling political subjects; and, as long as my moral character is in safety,

I can, with less anxiety, abandon my learning and capacity to the most severe censure and examination."

Some of the subjects of these essays were not less untrodden at the time when they appeared, than they are hackneyed in the present day. Of these may be cited, "The Liberty of the Press;" "The Parties of Great Britain;" "The Independency of Parliament." When they are compared with the Craftsman, with Mist's Journal, and with the other periodicals of the day, which had set the example of discussing such subjects, these essays as little resemble their precursors, as De Lolme's "Remarks on the British Constitution" do the articles in a daily London party paper. Whatever he afterwards became, Hume was at that time no party politician. He retained the Stoic severity of thought with which we have found that he had sixteen years previously invested himself; and would allow the excitements or rewards of no party in the state to drag him out of the even middle path of philosophical observation. There is consequently a wonderful impartiality in these essays, and an acuteness of observation, which to the reader, who keeps in view how little the true workings of the constitution were noticed in that day, is not less remarkable. How completely, for instance, has the wisdom of the following observations in the essay on "The Liberty of the Press," been justified by the experience of a century.

We need not dread from this liberty any such ill consequences as followed from the harangues of the popular demagogues of Athens and tribunes of Rome. A man reads a book or pamphlet alone and coolly. There is none present from whom he can catch the passion by contagion. He is not hurried away by the force and energy of action. And should he be wrought up to never so seditious a humour, there

is no violent resolution presented to him by which he can immediately vent his passion. The liberty of the press, therefore, however abused, can scarce ever excite popular tumults or rebellion. And as to those murmurs or secret discontents it may occasion, 'tis better they should get vent in words, that they may come to the knowledge of the magistrate before it be too late, in order to his providing a remedy against them. Mankind, 'tis true, have always a greater propension to believe what is said to the disadvantage of their governors than the contrary; but this inclination is inseparable from them whether they have liberty or not. A whisper may fly as quick, and be as pernicious as a pamphlet. Nay, it will be more pernicious, where men are not accustomed to think freely, or distinguish betwixt truth and falsehood.

It has also been found, as the experience of mankind increases, that the people are no such dangerous monster as they have been represented, and that 'tis in every respect better to guide them like rational creatures, than to lead or drive them like brute beasts. Before the United Provinces set the example, toleration was deemed incompatible with good government; and 'twas thought impossible that a number of religious sects could live together in harmony and peace, and have all of them an equal affection to their common country and to each other. England has set a like example of civil liberty; and though this liberty seems to occasion some small ferment at present, it has not as yet produced any pernicious effects; and it is to be hoped that men, being every day more accustomed to the free discussion of public affairs, will improve in their judgment of them, and be with greater difficulty seduced by every idle rumour and popular clamour.

'Tis a very comfortable reflection to the lovers of liberty, that this peculiar privilege of Britain is of a kind that cannot easily be wrested from us, and must last as long as our government remains in any degree free and independent. 'Tis seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal in upon them by decrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in order to be received. But if the liberty of the press ever be lost, it must

be lost at once. The general laws against sedition and libelling are at present as strong as they possibly can be made. Nothing can impose a farther restraint but either the clapping an imprimatur upon the press, or the giving very large discretionary powers to the court to punish whatever displeases them. But these concessions would be such a barefaced violation of liberty, that they will probably be the last efforts of a despotic government. We may conclude that the liberty of Britain is gone for ever when these attempts shall succeed.

The opinion generally acceded to at the present day, that ministerial and judicial functions should be intrusted to responsible individuals, and not to bodies of men who may individually escape from a joint responsibility, is anticipated in the following passage:—"Honour is a great check upon mankind; but where a considerable body of men act together, this check is in a great measure removed, since a man is sure to be approved of by his own party for what promotes the common interest, and he soon learns to despise the clamour of adversaries."[139:1] The Grenville Act, and the subsequent measures for reducing the number of the judges on controverted elections, are a practical commentary on the truth of this remark.

It has often been observed, that foreigners have been the first to remark the leading peculiarities of the British constitution, and of the administration of justice in this country, in a manner rational and unimpassioned, yet so as to give them greater prominence, and a more full descriptive development than they obtain from our own impassioned party writers—an observation attested by the character which the works of Montesquieu and De Lolme held in the preceding century, and those of Thierry, Cottu, Meyer, and Raumer, have obtained in the present.

The reason of this superiority is to be sought in the circumstance that the acuteness of these foreign observers was not obscured, or their feelings excited, by any connexion with the workings of the systems they have described; and the isolation from active life in which Hume was placed, appears to have in some measure given him like qualifications for the examination of our political institutions. He expresses a general partiality for the monarchical government of Britain, but it is a partiality of a calm utilitarian character, which would not be inconsistent with an equally great esteem for a well-ordered republic. On his philosophical appreciation of its merits, the monarchy has no stronger claims than these—that to have an individual at the head of the government who is merely the name through which other persons act, and who is not amenable to any laws, while the real actors are personally responsible for what they do in his name, is an expedient arrangement. That it is very convenient to have some fixed criterion such as the hereditary principle, which shall obviate the trouble and danger of a competition for this elevated station. But that these are all recommendations on the ground of expediency, which may be outweighed by others, and the misconduct of a weak or tyrannical prince will justify an alteration in that arrangement, which convenience only, and the avoidance of occasions for turbulence and anarchy, have sanctioned.

It may be observed, that in the edition of these essays which he directed to be published after his death, many of those passages which bear a democratic tendency are suppressed. Such was the fate of the passage in "The Liberty of the Press" quoted above, and of the remarks put within brackets in the quotation which follows, from the essay on "The Parties of Great Britain."

Some who will not venture to assert, that the real difference between Whig and Tory, was lost at the Revolution, seem inclined to think that the difference is now abolished, and that affairs are so far returned to their natural state, that there are at present no other parties amongst us but court and country; that is, men who, by interest or principle, are attached either to monarchy or to liberty. It must indeed be confessed, that the Tory party has of late decayed much in their numbers, still more in their zeal, and I may venture to say, still more in their credit and authority. [There is no man of knowledge or learning, who would not be ashamed to be thought of that party; and in almost all companies, the name of Old Whig is mentioned as an incontestible appellation of honour and dignity. Accordingly, the enemies of the ministry, as a reproach, call the courtiers the true Tories; and, as an honour, denominate the gentlemen in the Opposition the true Whigs.] The Tories have been so long obliged to talk in the republican style, that they seem to have made converts of themselves by their hypocrisy, and to have embraced the sentiments as well as language of their adversaries. There are, however, very considerable remains of that party in England, with all their old prejudices; and a proof that court and country are not our only parties, is, that almost all our dissenters side with the court, and the lower clergy, at least of the Church of England, with the opposition. This may convince us that some bias still hangs upon our constitution, some extrinsic weight which turns it from its natural course, and causes a confusion in our parties.[141:1]

Perhaps the most ambitious of the essays, and those on which the author bestowed most of his skill and attention, are "The Epicurean," "The Stoic," "The Sceptic," and "The Platonist." These are productions of the imagination, suggested apparently by the style and method of The Spectator. There is no attempt either to support or to attack the systems

represented by the names of the essays, nor is there a description or definition of them; but on each occasion a member of one of these celebrated schools speaks in his own person, and describes the nature of the satisfaction that he finds in his own code of philosophy, as a solution of the great difficulty of the right rule of thought and action. "The Epicurean" takes a flight of imagination beyond that of Hume's other works. It departs from the cold atmosphere of philosophy, and desires to fascinate as well as enlighten. But though it possesses all the marks of a fine intellect, the reader is apt to feel how far more sweetly and gracefully the subject would have been handled by Addison, to whose department of literature it seems rightly to belong. The follower of Epicurus is not represented, as indulging in that gross licentiousness, as wallowing in that disgusting "stye" which the representations of Diogenes Laertius, and others, have impressed on the vulgar associations with the name of that master. On the other hand, the picture is far from embodying what many maintain to be the fundamental precept of Epicurus, that happiness being the great end sought by man, the proper method of reaching it is by the just regulation of the passions and propensities; a precept embodied in the

"Sperne voluptates. Nocet empta dolere voluptas."

Hume, who was not correcting errors, or instructing his readers in the true meaning of terms, or appreciation of characters, draws in "The Epicurean" a picture of one who is not gross or grovelling in his pleasures, and who restrains himself lest he should outrun enjoyment; but whose ruling principle is still that of the voluptuary.

The reader expects to find an attempt to draw his own picture in "The Sceptic;" but it is not to be found there.

The sceptic of the essays is not a man analyzing the principles of knowledge, to find wherein they consist, but one who is dissatisfied with rules of morality, and who, examining the current codes one after another, tosses them aside as unsatisfactory. It is into "The Stoic" that the writer has thrown most of his heart and sympathy; and it is in that sketch that, though probably without intention, some of the features of his own character are portrayed. There are passages which have considerable unison of tone with those autobiographical documents already quoted, in which he describes himself as having laboured to subdue the rebellious passions, to reduce the mind to a regulated system, to drive from it the influence of petty impressions,—to hold one great object of life in view, and to sacrifice before that object whatever stood in the way of his firmly settled purpose.

Of the success of these essays, and the method in which he occupied himself after their publication, he thus speaks in his "own life:"—"The work was favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth." On 13th June, 1742, he says to Henry Home:—"The Essays are all sold in London, as I am informed by two letters from English gentlemen of my acquaintance. There is a demand for them; and, as one of them tells me, Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, wonders there is not a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers. I am also told that Dr. Butler has every where recommended them; so that I hope they will have some success. They may prove like dung with marl, and

bring forward the rest of my Philosophy, which is of a more durable, though of a harder and more stubborn nature. You see I can talk to you in your own style." In consequence of this favourable reception, a second edition appeared in 1742.

The communication of which the above is a part, contains the following short essay on the Orations of Cicero:—

I agree with you, that Cicero's reasonings in his "Orations" are very often loose, and what we should think to be wandering from the point; insomuch, that now-a-days a lawyer, who should give himself such liberties, would be in danger of meeting with a reprimand from the judge, or at least of being admonished of the point in question. His Orations against Verres, however, are an exception; though that plunderer was so impudent and open in his robberies, that there is the less merit in his conviction and condemnation. However, these orations have all a very great merit. The Oration for Milo is commonly esteemed Cicero's masterpiece, and indeed is, in many respects, very beautiful; but there are some points in the reasoning of it that surprise me. The true story of the death of Clodius, as we learn from the Roman historians, was this:—It was only a casual rencontre betwixt Milo and him; and the squabble was begun by their servants, as they passed each other on the road. Many of Clodius's servants were killed, the rest dispersed, and himself wounded, and obliged to hide himself in some neighbouring shops; from whence he was dragged out by Milo's orders, and killed in the street. These circumstances must have been largely insisted on by the prosecutors, and must have been proved too, since they have been received as truth by all antiquity. But not a word of them in Cicero, whose oration only labours to prove two points, that Milo did not waylay Clodius, and that Clodius was a bad citizen, and it was meritorious to kill him. If you read his oration, you'll agree with me. I believe that he has scarce spoke any thing to the question, as it would now be conceived, by a court of judicature.

The Orations for Marcellus and Ligarius, as also that for

Archias, are very fine, and chiefly because the subjects do not require or admit of close reasoning.

'Tis worth your while to read the conclusion of the Oration for Plancius, where I think the passions are very well touched. There are many noble passages in the Oration for Muræna, though 'tis certain that the prosecutors (who, however, were Servius Sulpicius, and Cato,) must either have said nothing to the purpose, or Cicero has said nothing. There is some of that oration lost.

'Twould be a pleasure to read and compare the two first philippics, that you may judge of the manners of those times, compared to modern manners. When Cicero spoke the first philippic, Antony and he had not broke all measures with each other, but there were still some remains of a very great intimacy and friendship betwixt them; and besides, Cicero lived in close correspondence with all the rest of Cæsar's captains; Dolabella had been his son-in-law; Hirtius and Pansa were his pupils; Trebasius was entirely his creature. For this reason, prudence laid him under great restraints at that time in his declamations against Antony; there is great elegance and delicacy in them; and many of the thoughts are very fine, particularly where he mentions his meeting Brutus, who had been obliged to leave Rome. "I was ashamed," says he, "that I durst return to Rome after Brutus had left it, and that I could be in safety where he could not." In short, the whole oration is of such a strain, that the Duke of Argyle might have spoke it in the House of Peers against my Lord Orford; and decency would not allow the greatest enemies to go farther. But this oration is not much admired by the ancients. The Divine Philippic, as Juvenal calls it, is the second, where he gives a full loose to his scurrility; and without having any point to gain by it, except vilifying his antagonist, and without supporting any fact by witnesses (for there was no trial or accusation) he rakes into all the filth of Antony's character; reproaches him with drunkenness and vomiting, and cowardice, and every sort of debauchery and villany. There is great genius and wit in many passages of this oration; but I think the whole turn of it would not now be generally admired.[145:1]

In 1742, Hutcheson published his celebrated outline of a system of ethics, "Philosophiæ Moralis Institutio Compendiaria." The following letter contains Hume's remarks on the work; and to render them more intelligible, the passages he had particularly in view are printed in notes. It is not, however, as pieces of detached criticism, so much as in the character of an elucidation of those features of his own system in which it differs from that of Hutcheson, that the letter is valuable. It is an argument for the utilitarian system of morality—an argument that there is no summum bonum which should be the object of moral conduct, apart from the good of the human species.

Hume to Francis Hutcheson.

"Dear Sir,—I received your very agreeable present, for which I esteem myself much obliged to you. I think it needless to express to you my esteem of the performance, because both the solidity of your judgment, and the general approbation your writings meet with, instruct you sufficiently what opinion you ought to form of them. Though your good nature might prompt you to encourage me by some praises, the same reason has not place with me, however justice might require them of me. Will not this prove that justice and good nature are not the same? I am surprised you should have been so diffident about your Latin. I have not wrote any in that language these many years, and cannot pretend to judge of particular words and phrases. But the turn of the whole seems to me very pure, and even easy and elegant.

"I have subjoined a few reflections, which occurred to me in reading over the book. By these I pretend

only to show you how much I thought myself obliged to you for the pains you took with me in a like case, and how willing I am to be grateful.

"P. 9, l. ult. et quæ seq.[147:1] These instincts you mention seem not always to be violent and impetuous, more than self-love or benevolence. There is a calm ambition, a calm anger or hatred, which, though calm, may likewise be very strong, and have the absolute command over the mind. The more absolute they are, we find them to be commonly the calmer. As these instincts may be calm without being weak, so self-love may likewise become impetuous and disturbed, especially where any great pain or pleasure approaches.

"P. 21. l. 11.[147:2] In opposition to this, I shall cite a fine writer,—not for the sake of his authority, but for

the fact, which you may have observed. 'Les hommes comptent presque pour rien toutes les vertus du cœur, et idolâtrent les talens du corps et de l'esprit: celui qui dit froidement de soi, et sans croire blesser la modestie, qu'il est bon, qu'il est constant, fidèle, sincère, équitable, reconnoissant, n'ose dire qu'il est vif, qu'il a les dents belles et la peau douce: cela est trop fort.'—La Bruyere.[148:1]

"I fancy, however, this author stretches the matter too far. It seems arrogant to pretend to genius or magnanimity, which are the most shining qualities a man can possess. It seems foppish and frivolous to pretend to bodily accomplishments. The qualities of the heart lie in a medium; and are neither so shining as the one, nor so little valued as the other. I suppose the reason why good nature is not more valued, is its commonness, which has a vast effect on all our sentiments. Cruelty and hardness of heart is the most detested of all vices. I always thought you limited too much your ideas of virtue; and I find I have this opinion in common with several that have a very high esteem for your philosophy.

"P. 30, l. antepen. et quæ seq.[148:2] You seem here to

embrace Dr. Butler's opinion in his "Sermons on Human Nature," that our moral sense has an authority distinct from its force and durableness; and that because we always think it ought to prevail. But this is nothing but an instinct or principle, which approves of itself upon reflection, and that is common to all of them. I am not sure that I have not mistaken your sense, since you do not prosecute this thought.

"P. 52. l. 1. I fancy you employ the epithet ærumnosam[149:1] more from custom than your settled opinion.

"P. 129, et quæ seq.[149:2] You sometimes, in my opinion, ascribe the original of property and justice to public benevolence, and sometimes to private benevolence towards the possessors of the goods; neither of which seem to me satisfactory. You know my opinion on this head. It mortifies me much to see a person who possesses more candour and penetration than any almost I know, condemn reasonings of which I imagine I see so strongly the evidence. I was going to blot out this after having wrote it, but hope you will consider it only as a piece of folly, as indeed it is.

"P. 244, l. 7.[149:3] You are so much afraid to derive any thing of virtue from artifice or human conventions, that you have neglected what seems to me the most

satisfactory reason, viz. lest near relations, having so many opportunities in their youth, might debauch each other, if the least encouragement or hope was given to these desires, or if they were not easily repressed by an artificial horror inspired against them.

"P. 263, l. 14. As the phrase is true Latin, and very common, it seemed not to need an apology, as when necessity obliges one to employ modern words.[150:1]

"P. 266, l. 18, et quæ seq.[150:2] You imply a condemnation of Locke's opinion, which, being the received one, I could have wished the condemnation had been more express.

"These are the most material things that occurred to me upon a perusal of your ethics. I must own I am pleased to see such just philosophy, and such instructive morals to have once set their foot in the schools. I hope they will next get into the world, and then into the churches.

Nil desperandum, Teucro duce et auspice Teucro.

"Edinb. Jan. 10, 1743."

Among the Scottish gentry of Hume's day, there were many men of high education and accomplishments; and the glimpses we occasionally obtain into the society which he frequented, show us a circle possessing a much less provincial tone than later times would probably

have exhibited in the same class. The notion that a university was a seat of learning, where the scholarship of all the world should meet, and not a provincial school, still lingered in our country, and prompted the gentry to educate their sons abroad. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the registers of the universities of Paris, Bourgès, Bologna, and Leyden, were crowded with familiar Scottish names, whom we find holding as great a proportion among the teachers as among the learners; and thus a Wilson, a Barclay, a Bellenden, a Jack, and many others, whose fame hardly reached their native country, are conspicuous among the literary ornaments of the foreign universities. It is perhaps in a great measure to the lingering continuance of this practice through part of the eighteenth century, that we may attribute the learning and accomplishments of the society in Scotland during that period.[151:1]

"Many are poets who have never penned their inspiration, and perchance the best." Many also are philosophers who have never either penned their philosophy, or put it into shape in their own minds. The two operations of induction and analysis proceed in every human mind with more or less success; but it is only when literary ambition, or pecuniary necessity, or the desire to head a system, prompts a man to collect and put into shape their results, that

they are given to the world. Instances have occurred in which they have appeared very nearly in their raw unwrought form. Thus, Tucker's "Light of Nature" is nothing more than the reflections of an English country gentleman, collected and strung together. Paley and Reid used them as if they had themselves gone through the operation, and put the results into shape; while the late William Hazlitt was at the pains of writing an abridgment of the book. It was fortunate for philosophy that these disconnected observations and thoughts were collected and preserved. And the reflection leads to the recollection of the quantity of valuable thoughts that any man, who notices the course of conversation around him, hears produced and dropped. In after-dinner social intercourse, in general verbal criticism of books or men, how much of the gold of true philosophy is scattered away with the dross; lost almost at the moment it is uttered, and forgotten both by hearer and speaker.

It is interesting to have so much of this valuable matter, as may have found its way into epistolary correspondence, preserved. The conversation of Hume's friends we have unfortunately lost, for there was no Boswell at his elbow. But their letters show how much of scholarship, and elegant literature, and philosophy slumbered in the minds of the Scottish gentry of that age; and assure us that in his intercourse with an Elliot, a Mure, an Edmonstone, an Elibank, a Macdonald, an Oswald, Hume was exchanging ideas with men not unworthy of literary fellowship with a mind even so highly cultivated as his own.

William Mure of Caldwell, who was in 1761 made a Baron of the Exchequer in Scotland, was among those who seem to have earliest secured and longest

retained Hume's esteem. The letters which passed between them are not often dated, but the circumstances under which many of them are written are attested by internal evidence. The following is one of the few which do not admit of being thus tested, but its merit is in a vein of quiet, easy, epistolary humour, rather than in its connexion with the events of the writer's life.

Hume to William Mure of Caldwell.

"September 10.

"I made a pen, dipt it in ink, and set myself down in a posture of writing, before I had thought of any subject, or made provision of one single thought, by which I might entertain you. I trusted to my better genius that he would supply me in a case of such urgent necessity; but having thrice scratched my head, and thrice bit my nails, nothing presented itself, and I threw away my pen in great indignation. 'O! thou instrument of dulness,' says I, 'doest thou desert me in my greatest necessity? and, being thyself so false a friend, hast thou a secret repugnance at expressing my friendship to the faithful Mure, who knows thee too well ever to trust to thy caprices, and who never takes thee in his hand without reluctance. While I, miserable wretch that I am, have put my chief confidence in thee; and, relinquishing the sword, the gown, the cassock, and the toilette, have trusted to thee alone for my fortune and my fame. Begone! avaunt! Return to the goose from whence thou camest. With her thou wast of some use, while thou conveyedst her through the etherial regions. And why, alas! when plucked from her wing, and put into my hand, doest thou not recognise some similitude betwixt it and thy native soil, and render me the

same service, in aiding the flights of my heavy imagination?'

"Thus accused, the pen erected itself upon its point, placed itself betwixt my fingers and my thumb, and moved itself to and fro upon this paper, to inform you of the story, complain to you of my injustice, and desire your good offices to the reconciling such ancient friends. But not to speak nonsense any longer, (by which, however, I am glad I have already filled a page of paper,) I arrived here about three weeks ago, am in good health, and very deeply immersed in books and study. Tell your sister, Miss Betty, (after having made her my compliments,) that I am as grave as she imagines a philosopher should be,—laugh only once a fortnight, sigh tenderly once a week, but look sullen every moment. In short, none of Ovid's metamorphoses ever showed so absolute a change from a human creature into a beast; I mean, from a gallant into a philosopher.

"I doubt not but you see my Lord Glasgow very often, and therefore I shall suppose, when I write to one, I pay my respects to both. At least, I hope he will so far indulge my laziness. Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.

"Did you receive my letter from Glasgow? I hope it did not displease you. What are your resolutions with regard to that affair?

"Remember me to your sister, Miss Nancy, to Miss Dunlop, and to Mr. Leechman. Tell your mother, or sisters, or whoever is most concerned about the matter, that their cousin, John Steuart, is in England, and, as 'tis believed, will return with a great fortune.

"I say not a word of Mr. Hutcheson, for fear you should think I intend to run the whole circle of my West-country acquaintance, and to make you a bearer

of a great many formal compliments. But I remember you all very kindly, and desire to be remembered by you, and to be spoke of sometimes, and to be wrote to."[155:1]

The following letter is in reference to Mr. Mure having been chosen member of Parliament for Renfrewshire as successor to Alexander Cunningham, on whose death a new writ was moved on 22d November, 1742. The advice which this letter offers to a young statesman, seems to be both sagacious and honest.

Hume to William Mure of Caldwell.

"I have wrote to Mr. Oswald[155:2] by this post, in order to promote an intimacy and friendship betwixt you. I exhort you to persevere in your intention of cultivating a friendship with him. You cannot possibly find a man of more worth, of a gentler disposition, or better understanding. There are infinite advantages attending an intimacy with such persons; among which this is not the least, as far as I can judge by my own experience, that I always derive from it an additional motive to preserve my character for honour and integrity; because I know that nothing else can preserve their friendship. Should I give you an exhortation of this kind, you might think me very impertinent; though really you ought to ascribe it more to my friendship, than my diffidence. 'Tis impossible ever to think ourselves secure enough, where our concern is extremely great; and, though I dare be confident of your good conduct, as of my own, yet you must also allow me to be diffident of it, as I should be of my own. When I consider your disposition to virtue, cultivated by letters, together with

your moderation, I cannot doubt of your steadiness. The delicacy of the times does not diminish this assurance, but only dashes it with a few fears, which rise in me without my approbation, and against my judgment. Let a strict frugality be the guardian of your virtue; and preserve your frugality by a close application to business and study. Nothing would so effectually throw you into the lumber and refuse of the house as your departure from your engagements at this time; as a contrary behaviour will secure your own good opinion, and that of all mankind. These advantages are not too dearly purchased even by the loss of fortune, but it belongs to your prudence and frugality to procure them, without paying so dear a purchase for them. I say no more; and hope you will ascribe what I have said, not to the pedagogue, or even to the philosopher, but to the friend. I make profession of being such with regard to you; and desire you to consider me as such no longer than I shall appear to be a man of honour. Yours."

January 26.[156:1]

Among Hume's friends in early life, we find James Oswald of Dunnikier, who is mentioned in the foregoing letter—a name pretty well known in the political history of Scotland. He was elected member for the Kirkaldy district of burghs in 1741. He filled successively the situations of Commissioner of the Navy, Member of the Board of Trade, Lord of the Treasury, and Treasurer of Ireland. He was well read in the sources of literary information, and brought to his official duties a sagacious, practical understanding, which made him infinitely serviceable to the speculative labours of his two illustrious friends, Hume and

Smith. "I know," says Hume, "you are the most industrious and the most indolent man of my acquaintance; the former in business, the latter in ceremony."[157:1] We have occasional glimpses of philosophical rambles, not unmixed with a little conviviality, in which Oswald sometimes embarked with his speculative friends. "You will remember," he says, writing to Henry Home in 1742, "how your friend David Hume and you, used to laugh at a most sublime declamation I one night made, after a drunken expedition to Cupar, on the impotency of corruption in certain circumstances; how I maintained, that on certain occasions, men felt, or seemed to feel, a certain dignity in themselves, which made them disdain to act on sordid motives: and how I imagined it to be extremely possible, in such situations, that even the lowest of men might become superior to the highest temptations."[157:2] The political course which he afterwards adopted, however, was not precisely of this soaring cast, but savoured more of the school of practical expedients founded by Sir Robert Walpole. We shall afterwards have occasion to see his intercourse with Hume illustrated at greater length.

The following letter to Mure, contains a pretty sagacious division of the prominent political movements of the day, into those which a supporter of the court party would advocate, and those which he would oppose. Hume seems to have had some dread lest the spirit of what was then termed patriotism, might sway an inexperienced, young, and aspiring politician into devious paths, inconsistent with the straight road of duty and devotion to an adopted party. But Mure seems to have been a sagacious steady-minded man, not likely to be seduced out of the path he had chosen.

He was subsequently much relied on by Lord Bute, and rose to eminence and distinction as a Tory politician. The letter exhibits a playful practice of talking of his correspondents as his pupils, which Hume adopted sometimes with those who had least sympathy with his principles, unless they were clergymen, or otherwise likely to take the familiarity in bad part.

Hume to William Mure of Caldwell.

"I am surprised you should find fault with my letter. For my part, I esteem it the best I ever wrote. There is neither barbarism, solecism, equivoque, redundancy, nor transgression of one single rule of grammar or rhetoric, through the whole. The words were chosen with an exact propriety to the sense, and the sense was full of masculine strength and energy. In short, it comes up fully to the Duke of Buckingham's description of fine writing,—Exact propriety of words and thought. This is more than what can be said of most compositions. But I shall not be redundant in the praise of brevity, though much might be said on that subject. To conclude all, I shall venture to affirm, that my last letter will be equal in bulk to all the orations you shall deliver, during the two first sessions of parliament. For, let all the letters of my epistle be regularly divided, they will be found equivalent to a dozen of No's and as many Ay's. There will be found a No for the triennial bill, for the pension bill, for the bill about regulating elections, for the bill of pains and penalties against Lord Orford, &c. There will also be found an Ay for the standing army,[158:1] for votes of credit, for the approbation of treaties, &c. As to the last No I

mentioned, with regard to Lord Orford, I beg it of you as a particular favour. For, having published to all Britain my sentiments on that affair, it will be thought by all Britain that I have no influence on you, if your sentiments be not conformable to mine. Besides, as you are my disciple in religion and morals, why should you not be so in politics? I entreat you to get the bill about witches repealed, and to move for some new bill to secure the Christian religion, by burning Deists, Socinians, Moralists, and Hutchinsonians.

"I shall be in town about Christmas, where, if I find not Lord Glasgow, I shall come down early in the spring to the borders of the Atlantic Ocean, and rejoice the Tritons and sea-gods with the prospect of Kelburn[159:1] in a blaze. For I find, that is the only way to unnestle his lordship. But I intend to use the freedom to write to himself on this subject, if you will tell me how to direct to him. In the meantime do you make use of all your eloquence and argument to that purpose.

"Make my humble compliments to the ladies, and tell them, I should endeavour to satisfy them, if they would name the subject of the essay they desire. For my part, I know not a better subject than themselves; if it were not, that being accused of being unintelligible in some of my writings, I should be extremely in danger of falling into that fault, when I should treat of a subject so little to be understood as women. I would, therefore, rather have them assign me the deiform fund of the soul, the passive unions of nothing with nothing, or any other of those mystical points, which I would endeavour to clear up, and render perspicuous to the meanest readers.

"Allow not Miss Dunlop to forget, that she has a

humble servant, who has the misfortune to be divided from her, by the whole breadth of this island. I know she never forgets her friends; but, as I dare not pretend to that relation, upon so short an acquaintance, I must be beholden to your good offices for preserving me in her memory; because I suspect mightily that she is apt to forget and overlook those who can aspire no higher than the relation I first mentioned.

"This, I think, is enough in all conscience. I see you are tired with my long letter, and begin to yawn. What! can nothing satisfy you, and must you grumble at every thing? I hope this is a good prognostic of your being a patriot."[160:1]

"Nov. 14th."

In the course of these Memoirs there will be many occasions for exhibiting Hume's acquaintance with some of the most distinguished clergymen of his time, and the mutual esteem which he and they entertained towards each other. Among those members of the Presbyterian church, with whom he appears to have had the most early intercourse, we find the name of Dr. Leechman, who was his senior by about five years. They probably got acquainted with each other in the family of the Mures of Caldwell, where Leechman had been tutor to Hume's friend and correspondent. Whatever other jealousies or distastes may have occurred between them, it would be no drawback to their subsequent intimacy, that Leechman was by his marriage with Miss Balfour, the brother-in-law of one of Hume's most zealous controversial opponents, Mr. Balfour of Pilrig. Dr. Leechman was for many years professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow, of which he afterwards became principal.

His sermons, now little known, stood at one time in formidable rivalry with those of Blair. He appears to have been a man who united settled religious principles with a calm conscientious inquiring mind; and the account which his biographer, the Rev. James Wodrow, gives of his lectures, is characteristic of one who had too much respect for truth to hate or contemn any man engaged in purely metaphysical inquiries, whatever might be the opinions to which they led him. We are told, that "no dictatorial opinion, no infallible or decisive judgment on any great controverted point, was ever delivered from that theological chair. After the point had undergone a full discussion, none of the students yet knew the particular opinion of this venerable professor, in any other way than by the superior weight of the arguments which he had brought under their view; so delicately scrupulous was he to throw any bias at all upon ingenuous minds, in their inquiries after sacred truth."[161:1]

There is a letter by Hume to Baron Mure, containing a criticism on the composition and substance of a sermon by Dr. Leechman. From the general tenor of the letter, it would appear that the sermon was placed in Hume's hands that the author might have the advantage of his suggestions in preparing a second edition for the press. The criticisms on style and collocation are careful and minute, but they all indicate blemishes peculiar to the piece of composition before the critic, and suggest corresponding improvements; and none of them appear so far to illustrate any canon of criticism as to be intelligible to a

reader who has not the sermon in his hands, in the same state as that in which it was inspected by Hume. These corrective annotations precede the following general remarks on the sermon and its subject. There may be seen in these remarks a desire, which haunts the whole of Hume's writings on kindred subjects; a desire to call forth argument and evidence in support of that side from which he himself feels inclined to dissent; like the unsatisfied feeling of one who would rather find refuge in the argumentative fortress of some other person, than remain a sceptical wanderer at his own free will.

Hume to William Mure of Caldwell.

"These are all the minute faults I could observe in the sermon. Mr. Leechman has a very clear and manly expression; but, in my humble opinion, he does not consult his ear enough, nor aim at a style which may be smooth and harmonious, which, next to perspicuity, is the chief ornament of style; vide Cicero, Quinctilian, Longinus, &c. &c. &c. If this sermon were not a popular discourse, I should also think it might be made more concise.

"As to the argument, I could wish Mr. Leechman would, in the second edition, answer this objection both to devotion and prayer, and indeed to every thing we commonly call religion, except the practice of morality, and the assent of the understanding to the proposition that God exists.

"It must be acknowledged, that nature has given us a strong passion of admiration for whatever is excellent, and of love and gratitude for whatever is benevolent and beneficial; and that the Deity possesses these attributes in the highest perfection: and yet I assert, he is not the natural object of any passion or

affection. He is no object either of the senses or imagination, and very little of the understanding, without which it is impossible to excite any affection. A remote ancestor, who has left us estates and honours acquired with virtue, is a great benefactor; and yet 'tis impossible to bear him any affection, because unknown to us: though in general we know him to be a man or a human creature, which brings him vastly nearer our comprehension than an invisible, infinite spirit. A man, therefore, may have his heart perfectly well disposed towards every proper and natural object of affection—friends, benefactors, country, children, &c.—and yet, from this circumstance of the invisibility and incomprehensibility of the Deity, may feel no affection towards him. And, indeed, I am afraid that all enthusiasts mightily deceive themselves. Hope and fear perhaps agitate their breast when they think of the Deity; or they degrade him into a resemblance with themselves, and by that means render him more comprehensible. Or they exult with vanity in esteeming themselves his peculiar favourites; or at best they are actuated by a forced and strained affection, which moves by starts and bounds, and with a very irregular, disorderly pace. Such an affection cannot be required of any man as his duty. Please to observe, that I not only exclude the turbulent passions, but the calm affections. Neither of them can operate without the assistance of the senses and imagination; or at least a more complete knowledge of the object than we have of the Deity. In most men this is the case; and a natural infirmity can never be a crime. But, secondly, were devotion never so much admitted, prayer must still be excluded. First, the addressing of our virtuous wishes and desires to the Deity, since the address has no influence on him, is only a kind of

rhetorical figure, in order to render these wishes more ardent and passionate. This is Mr. Leechman's doctrine. Now, the use of any figure of speech can never be a duty. Secondly, this figure, like most figures of rhetoric, has an evident impropriety in it; for we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have an influence. Thirdly, this figure is very dangerous, and leads directly, and even unavoidably, to impiety and blasphemy. 'Tis a natural infirmity of men to imagine that their prayers have a direct influence; and this infirmity must be extremely fostered and encouraged by the constant use of prayer. Thus, all wise men have excluded the use of images and pictures in prayer, though they certainly enliven devotion; because 'tis found by experience, that with the vulgar these visible representations draw too much towards them, and become the only objects of devotion."[164:1]

The literary history of this sermon is curious and instructive. When its author received his appointment of professor of divinity in 1744, a party in the church opposed his being admitted in the usual manner as a member of the presbytery of Glasgow; and one of their methods of attack was to charge him with heretical opinions, promulgated in this sermon, of which the first edition had been then published. It is singular enough, in comparing their charge with Hume's criticism, to find the two attacks brought against the same point, though with different weapons. "The purport of the whole went to charge Mr. Leechman with having laid too little stress on the merit of the satisfaction and intercession of our blessed Saviour,

as the sole ground of our acceptance with God in prayer, and with teaching Christians to look for pardon and acceptance on other grounds than this."[165:1]

At this time, we find Hume making an effort to obtain a professorship in Edinburgh. Dr. Pringle, subsequently Sir John Pringle, and President of the Royal Society of London,—

"Who sat in Newton's chair,

And wonder'd how the devil he got there,"—

held the chair of "ethics and pneumatic philosophy"[165:2] in the university of Edinburgh. In 1742, he was appointed physician to the Earl of Stair, commander of the British troops in the Low Countries; and through this circumstance it will be seen, from the following letter, that Hume contemplated a vacancy, and that he was employing the usual means for securing his own appointment to the chair.

Hume to William Mure of Caldwell.

"Dear Will,—I shall tell you how my affair stands. Dr. Pringle has been absent two years by allowance, and about six weeks ago wrote a letter to the provost, in which he seemed in a manner to have resigned his office; and desired the council, if they thought the university any way a sufferer by his absence, to send him over a resignation in form, which he would sign, and then they might proceed to the choice of a successor. Mr. Couts,[165:3] upon receiving this, mentioned me to several of the council, and desired me to mention myself as a

candidate to all my friends; not with a view of soliciting or making interest, but in order to get the public voice on my side, that he might with the more assurance employ his interest in my behalf. I accordingly did so; and being allowed to make use of the provost's name, I found presently that I should have the whole council on my side, and that, indeed, I should have no antagonist. But when the provost produced the doctor's letter to the council, he discovered that he had in secret wrote differently to some of his friends, who still insisted that the town should give him allowance to be absent another year. The whole council, however, except two or three, exclaimed against this proposal, and it appeared evidently, that if the matter had been put to a vote, there would have been a majority of ten to one against the doctor. But Mr. Couts, though his authority be quite absolute in the town, yet makes it a rule to govern them with the utmost gentleness and moderation: and this good maxim he sometimes pushes even to an extreme. For the sake of unanimity, therefore, he agrees to an expedient, started by one of the doctor's friends, which he thought would be a compliment to the doctor, and yet would serve the same purpose as the immediate declaration of a vacancy in the office. This expedient was to require either the doctor's resignation, or a declaration upon honour, that whether it were peace or war, or in any event, he would against November, 1745, return to his office, and resign his commission of physician to the army, or any other employment incompatible with his attendance in this place. This last condition, Mr. Couts thinks it impossible he will comply with, because he has a guinea a-day at present, as physician to the army, along with a good deal of business and half-pay during life. And there seems

at present to be small chance for a peace before the term here assigned. I find, however, that some are of a contrary opinion; and particularly several of the doctor's friends say that he will sign the obligation above-mentioned. We shall receive his answer in a fortnight, upon which my success seems entirely to depend.

"In the mean time, I have received another offer, which I shall tell you as a friend, but desire you may not mention to any body. My Lord Garlees[167:1] received a commission from Mr. Murray of Broughton[167:2] to look out for a travelling tutor to his son, who is at present at Glasgow. My lord inclines to give me the preference, but I could not positively accept, till I had seen the end of this affair, which is so near a crisis. Please to inform me of any particulars that you know with regard to the young man, his family, &c., that in case the former project fail, I may deliberate upon the other. The accusation of heresy, deism, scepticism, atheism, &c. &c. &c., was started against me; but never took, being bore down by the contrary authority of all the good company in town. But what surprised me extremely, was to find that this accusation was supported by the pretended authority of Mr. Hutcheson and even Mr. Leechman, who, 'tis said, agreed that I was a very unfit person for such an office. This appears to me absolutely incredible, especially with regard to the latter gentleman. For, as to Mr. Hutcheson, all my friends think that he has

been rendering me bad offices to the utmost of his power. And I know that Mr. Couts, to whom I said rashly that I thought I could depend upon Mr. Hutcheson's friendship and recommendation,—I say, Mr. Couts now speaks of that professor rather as my enemy than as my friend. What can be the meaning of this conduct in that celebrated and benevolent moralist, I cannot imagine. I shall be glad to find, for the honour of philosophy, that I am mistaken: and, indeed, I hope so too; and beg of you to inquire a little into the matter, but very cautiously, lest I make him my open and professed enemy, which I would willingly avoid. Here then it behoves you to be very discreet.

"'Tis probable Mr. Murray of Broughton may consult Mr. Hutcheson and the other professors of Glasgow, before he fix absolutely on a tutor for his son. We shall then see whether he really entertains a bad opinion of my orthodoxy, or is only unwilling that I should be Professor of Ethics in Edinburgh; lest that town, being in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, should spread its contagion all around it, and even infect the students of the latter university.

"I have passed a week with Mr. Oswald at Kirkcaldy. He makes his compliments to you. He has shown me the whole economy of the navy, the source of the navy debt, with many other branches of public business. He seems to have a great genius for these affairs, and I fancy will go far in that way if he perseveres."

"Edinburgh, August 4, 1744."[168:1]

It may easily be imagined that both Mr. Hutcheson and Dr. Leechman would be opposed to the appointment

of David Hume as a teacher of moral philosophy in one of the universities; and that they might entertain this opinion along with an honest admiration of his character, and an appreciation of the value of his talents when exercised in another sphere. It is at all events gratifying to find, that whatever opposition Hutcheson may have made, he was influenced by no sordid motive, as he was offered the chair, and refused it. On 27th March, 1745, a letter in which Dr. Pringle resigned the chair, was read to the Town Council. On 3d April, a nomination to the chair was transmitted to Hutcheson.[169:1] He declined the honour, in a rather verbose letter, in which he speaks in the tone of one whose tenure of life cannot be expected to be strong enough to fit him for new labours: yet he was then only fifty years old. His death occurred two years later, and he probably felt that his long series of intellectual labours had exhausted too much of the stamina of life to leave him the prospect of a successful career in a new sphere of duty. On Hutcheson's letter being read to the council, on 10th April, 1745, the minutes bear, that "several other persons having been named as proper candidates, it was thereupon moved in council, whether to proceed to take the ministers' avisamentum betwixt and next council day, in order to facilitate their choice, or to delay the same for a month or six weeks, so that the members of council might with the greater leisure deliberate thereanent; and the rolls having thereupon been called, and the vote marked, it carried delay for said space."

It is probable that the "ministers' avisamentum," whatever may be precisely designed by that phrase,

was not such a recommendation as would turn the minds of the members of council in favour of Hume. His name is not mentioned in the council records in connexion with the proceedings, and the vacancy was filled up on 5th June, 1745, by the appointment of William Cleghorn, who had acted for Dr. Pringle in his absence.

The date of these transactions, brings us into the middle of a very curious episode in Hume's history, which must now be examined.

FOOTNOTES:

[139:1] Essay on the Independency of Parliament.

[141:1] This concluding sentence was added in the third Edition, (1748,) in which also the passage within brackets was modified.

[145:1] Tytler's Life of Kames, i. 98, et seq.

[147:1] Ab his animi motibus purioribus, et tranquillo stabilique suae beatitudinis appetitione, quae ratione utitur duce, diversi plane sunt motus quidam vehementiores et perturbati, quibus, secundum naturae suae legem, saepe agitatur mens, ubi certa species ipsi obversatur, atque bruto quodam impetu, fertur ad quaedam agenda, prosequenda, aut fugienda, quamvis nondum, adhibita in consilium ratione, secum statuerat haec ad vitam facere vel beatam vel miseram. Hos motus quisque intelliget, qui, in se descendens, in memoriam revocaverit quali animi impetu fuerat abreptus, quae passus, quum libidine, ambitione, ira, odio, invidia, amore, laetitia, aut metu, agitabatur; etiam ubi nihil de earum rerum, quae mentem commoverant, cursu ad vitam beatam aut miseram serio cogitarat. Quid quod saepe in partes contrarias distineantur et distrahantur homines, cum aliud cupido, mens vero, ejusque appetitus tranquillus, aliud suadeat.

[147:2] Diximus ex virtutis comprobatione ardentiorem efflorescere amorem, in eos qui virtute videntur praediti. Quumque in omnes suas vires, affectiones, sensus, vota, appetitiones, reflectere possit mens, eaque contemplari; ille ipse decori et honesti sensus acrior, ardentior virtutis appetitio, et honestiorum omnium amor et caritas, omnino comprobabitur; neque ulla animi affectio magis, quam optimi cujusque dilectiones et caritates.

[148:1] See Caractéres Ch. 11. De L'homme.

[148:2] Qui multiplicem sensuum horum perspexerit varietatem, quibus res adeo dispares hominibus commendantur appetendae; animique propensiones pariter multiplices, et mutabiles; et inter se saepe pugnantes appetitus, et desideria, quibus suam quisque insequitur utilitatem, eamque variam, aut non minus variam voluptatem; eam etiam ingenii humanitatem, affectionesque benignas multiplices; humana huic natura prima specie videbitur, chaos quoddam, rudisque rerum non bene junctarum moles, nisi altius repetendo, nexum quendam, et ordinem a natura constitutum, et principatum deprehenderit, aut ἡγημονικὸν aliquod, ad modum caeteris ponendum idoneum. Philosophiae munus et hoc investigare, atque monstrare qua demum ratione haec sint ordinanda; miro enim artificio

Hanc Deus, et melior litem natura diremit.

[149:1] Hanc vitam caducam et aerumnosam.

[149:2] The chapter De Dominii acquirendi Rationibus.

[149:3] De nuptiis consanguineorum in linea transversa, quas adferunt rationes viri docti, vix quiquam affirmant. Quia vero apud plurimas gentes legis Judaicae ignaras, ejusmodi nuptiae habebantur impurae et nefariae, credibile est et eas in prima mundi aetate lege aliqua positiva, cujus diu manserunt vestigia, fuisse a Deo vetitas. Ea autem lex hoc praecipue spectasse videtur, ut plures familiae gentesque ea devinciantur caritate et benevolentia, quae ex affinitate et sanguinis conjunctione oriri solet. Alia forte commoda hominibus nascituris prospexit Deus, ex eo quod gentes variae, conjugiis inter se misceantur.

[150:1] This is in reference to the word despotica being put in italics as a modern barbarism.

[150:2] Civium quisque non sibi solum, verum et liberis, a civitate defensionem stipulatur, et omnia vitae civilis commoda. Liberis gestum est negotium utilissimum; unde citra suum consensum, ad ea omnia pro ipsorum viribus, facienda praestanda adstringuntur, quae ob istiusmodi commoda ab adultis jure flagitari poterant. Nihil autem aequius quam ut singuli, pro virili parte, eam tueantur civitatem, neque ab ea intempestive discedant, cujus beneficio diu protecti, innumeris potiti fuerant vitae excultae commodis; utque haec a majoribus accepta ad posteros transmittant.

[151:1] The practice of sending young men to the continental universities, seems to have continued for a longer time in the north than in the south. Within these few years it was not uncommon north of the Grampians, to meet with elderly country gentlemen, recalling to each other the memorable events of their student life at Leyden. The practice appears to be reviving in a favour for the German universities; but perhaps it is now more frequently followed by the commercial classes than by the country gentlemen.

[155:1] MS. R.S.E. This letter is printed in the Literary Gazette for 1822, p. 635.

[155:2] Mr. Oswald of Dunnikier.

[156:1] MS. R.S.E. Literary Gazette, 1822, p. 635.

[157:1] Memorials of James Oswald, p. 82.

[157:2] Ib. p. 19-20.

[158:1] This refers to the taking Hanoverian troops into British pay, warmly debated in the House of Commons on 10th December, 1742.

[159:1] The Earl of Glasgow's house, on the coast of Ayrshire.

[160:1] MS. R.S.E. Literary Gazette, 1822, p. 636.

[161:1] Sermons by William Leechman, D.D. to which is prefixed some account of the author's life, and his character, by James Wodrow, D.D. 1789, i. 34.

[164:1] MS. R.S.E.

[165:1] Memoir, ut supra, p. 23.

[165:2] Pneumatic Philosophy must here be taken in its old sense, as meaning Psychology.

[165:3] John Couts or Coutts, a native of Dundee, at that time Lord Provost of Edinburgh. He was the father of Thomas Coutts, the celebrated banker.

[167:1] The title of courtesy of the eldest son of the Earl of Galloway.

[167:2] There were two Murrays of Broughton. The one had a small piece of property in Tweeddale, between Noblehouse and Moffat; and soon after the date of this letter acquired an infamous celebrity by giving evidence against the rebels, after having acted as secretary to the Pretender. The other, who was probably the person Hume had in view, had a considerable estate in Galloway.

[168:1] MS. R.S.E.

[169:1] Town Council Records, where he is called George Hutcheson, instead of Francis.

CHAPTER V.

1745-1747. Æt. 34-36.

Hume's Residence with the Marquis of Annandale—His Predecessor Colonel Forrester—Correspondence with Sir James Johnstone and Mr. Sharp of Hoddam—Quarrel with Captain Vincent—Estimate of his Conduct, and Inquiry into the Circumstances in which he was placed—Appointed Secretary to General St. Clair—Accompanies the expedition against the Court of France as Judge-Advocate—Gives an Account of the Attack on Port L'Orient—A tragic Incident.

Hume's history of his residence with the Marquis of Annandale, is given in the following brief terms, in his "own life." "In 1745, I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me to come and live with him in England: I found, also, that the friends and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it. I lived with him a twelvemonth. My appointments during that time made a considerable accession to my small fortune."

It might have been favourable perhaps to the dignity of his position in the world of letters, that this episode in his history had never been more fully

narrated; for a philosopher conducting a litigation for £75 of arrears of salary, is apt to experience that diminution of respect in the eyes of the public, which the prince of Condé discovered that a hero suffered in those of his valet. Since, however, many statements have been given to the world, connected with that part of Hume's life, and many charges and countercharges among the persons connected with it are preserved, it is necessary to give such a brief view of the whole affair, as may enable the reader to estimate the respective merits of the parties in the dispute. A collection of documents on the subject was lately published by a gentleman to whom the literary history of Scotland is indebted for many other services;[171:1] and from his book the following statement is compiled.

The person with whom David Hume was thus connected was the last Marquis of Annandale, on whose death that title became dormant. On the 5th of March, 1748, he was found, on an inquest from the Court of Chancery in England, to be a lunatic, incapable of governing himself and managing his own affairs, and to have been so since 12th December, 1744, a few months anterior to Hume's engagement with him. The correspondence does not give the

reader the notion of one reduced to so abject a mental state, but rather that of a man nervously timid and reserved; distrustful of himself and his ability to transact business with other people, but not quite incapable of managing his affairs, though exciteable, and liable to be driven into fits of passion by causes not susceptible of being anticipated. A party to the correspondence, talking of him as in an improved condition, says: "My Lord walked out with me lately two or three miles, received and returned the compliments of the hat of those we met, and without any shyness or reserve: and bears to stand by, and hear me talk with any farmer or countryman. This is a vast change for the better, and the greatest appearance that it will continue."[172:1] He appears to have been haunted by a spirit of literary ambition. Hume says in a letter to Lord Elibank, "I have copied out half a dozen of epigrams, which I hope will give you entertainment. The thought in them is indeed little inferior to that in the celebrated Epigrams of Rousseau; though the versification be not so correct. What a pity! I say this on account both of the author and myself; for I am afraid I must leave him." And on another occasion he alludes at length

to a far more extensive literary achievement, a novel, which the excited Marquis had written, and which those about him had found it necessary to print, circulating a few copies, and advertising it in one newspaper to allay any suspicions in the author's mind that a thousand copies had not been printed. Hume says:

"You would certainly be a little surprised and vexed on receiving a printed copy of the novel, which was in hands when you left London. If I did not explain the mystery to you, I believe I told you, that I hoped that affair was entirely over, by my employing Lord Marchmont and Lord Bolingbroke's authority against publishing that novel; though you will readily suppose that neither of these two noble Lords ever perused it. This machine operated for six weeks; but the vanity of the author returned with redoubled force, fortified by suspicions, and increased by the delay. 'Pardie,' dit il, 'je crois que ces messieurs veulent être les seules Seigneurs d'Angleterre qui eussent de l'esprit. Mais je leur montrerai ce que le petit A—— peut faire aussi.' In short, we were obliged to print off thirty copies, to make him believe that we had printed a thousand, and that they were to be dispersed all over the kingdom.

"My Lady Marchioness will also receive a copy, and I am afraid it may give her a good deal of uneasiness, by reason of the story alluded to in the novel, and which she may imagine my Lord is resolved to bring to execution. Be so good, therefore, as to inform her, that I hope this affair is all over. I discovered, about a fortnight ago, that one of the papers sent to that damsel had been sent back by her under cover to his rival, Mr. M'——, and that she had plainly, by that step, sacrificed him to her other lover. This was real matter of fact, and I had the

good fortune to convince him of it; so that his pride seems to have got the better of his passion, and he never talks of her at present."

The "novel" appears to have referred to some little event in its author's private history. If there be a copy of it now any where existing, it is to be feared that it wastes its fragrance on the desert air, as the existence of so choice a flower of literature, were it in the possession of any collector, could not fail to have been rumoured through the bibliographical world.

The Marquis had previously been attended by a succession of hired companions, of whom one was a man of considerable distinction, Colonel James Forrester,[174:1] a person who, in the Scottish society of the age, seems to have united some of the qualities of a Chesterfield to a like proportion of those of a Beau

Fielding. He was the author of "The Polite Philosopher;" a lively little essay, sometimes published along with Chesterfield's "Advice," in which the author is so much at ease with his reader, that he discourses in prose or poetry as his own humour dictates. Johnson said, with reference to the man and the book, that "he was himself the great polite he drew;" and if it did not happen that his coxcombry excited the poor invalid's irritable nerves to distraction, he was probably an infinitely more suitable man for the office of companion to the Marquis of Annandale, than David Hume.

The overtures to Hume were made by the Marquis himself; who was, according to an expression used by Sir James Johnstone, when writing to Hume, "charmed with something contained in his Essays." The place of residence of the Marquis was Weldhall, near St. Alban's, in Hertfordshire. Hume had to go to London to make the anticipatory arrangements, and he commenced his companionship on 1st April, 1745. The insurrection, headed by Prince Charles Edward in Scotland, commenced four months

afterwards; and there is perhaps nothing more curious in the whole dispute than the indifference with which this matter, fraught with so much importance to his countrymen, is spoken of by Hume; while there could not probably be a better answer to those who afterwards insinuated that he was a Jacobite, than an account of the manner in which his thoughts were occupied during that struggle. He occasionally complains that he is prevented from personally discussing, with the individuals interested, the matters he is writing about, on account of "the present unhappy troubles;" and the following portion of a letter to Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, the brother of the Marquis's stepfather, written immediately after he had left his attendance on the Marquis, is the only occasion in which he appears to show the least sympathy in the conflict or its results.

"Portsmouth, June 6, 1746.

"Dear Sir,—I have always sympathized very cordially with you, whenever I met with any of the names, wherein you was interested, in any of the public papers; but I hope that one of the persons is now safe by his escape, and the other protected by her sex and innocence.[176:1] We live not now in a time, when public crimes are supposed to cancel all private ties, or when the duties of relation, even though executed beyond the usual bounds, will render the

persons criminal. I am willing, therefore, to flatter myself, that your anxiety must now be in a great measure over, and that a more happy conclusion of so calamitous an affair could not be expected, either for private individuals or for the public. Some little time ago, we had here a conversation with regard to L——, and other persons in her condition, when General St. Clair said, that he heard, from some of the ministers, that the intentions of the menaces, or even of the intended prosecutions (if they went so far,) were not to proceed to execution; but only to teach our countrywomen (many of whom had gone beyond all bounds) that their sex was no absolute protection to them, and that they were equally exposed to the law with the other sex. However, I doubt not but your friend has no occasion for their clemency, whatever may be the case with the other ladies in the same situation, who had particularly valued themselves upon their activity and courage."

It is now necessary to enter on a subject, which one feels a natural inclination to postpone, as long as the order of events will afford any excuse for looking at other things: the treatment Hume experienced in this his self-adopted slavery. He had to deal with a capricious unreasonable employer; to that he would, in the circumstances, philosophically reconcile himself. He states in one of his letters, that he lived with him "in a more equal way of complaisance and good humour than could well have been expected. Some little disgusts and humours could not be prevented, and never were proposed to be of any consequence." But he had another and a far more unpleasant person to deal with, in a certain Philip Vincent, a captain

in the navy,[178:1] a relation of the Dowager-marchioness of Annandale. For some months matters appear to have gone smoothly with all concerned. The following letter to one of his esteemed friends, shows that Hume was consoling himself for the probable dissipation of his hopes of a professorship, by reflecting on his good fortune in being connected with so amiable and excellent a man as Captain Vincent:—

Hume to Matthew Sharp of Hoddam.[178:2]

"My Dear Sir,—I am informed that such a popular clamour has been raised against me in Edinburgh, on account of scepticism, heterodoxy, and other hard names, which confound the ignorant, that my friends find some difficulty, in working out the point of my professorship, which once appeared so easy. Did I need a testimonial for my orthodoxy, I should certainly appeal to you; for you know that I always imitated Job's friends, and defended the cause of Providence when [you] attacked it, on account of the headachs you felt after a deba[uch.] But, as a more particular explication of that particular seems superfluous, I shall only apply to you for a renewal of

your good offices with your nephew, Lord Tinwal,[179:1] whose interest with Yetts and Allan may be of service to me. There is no time to lose; so that I must beg you to be speedy in writing to him, or speaking to him on that head. A word to the wise. Even that is not necessary to a friend, such as I have always esteemed and found you to be.

"I live here very comfortably with the Marquis of Annandale, who, I suppose you have heard, sent me a letter of invitation, along with a bill of one hundred pounds, about two months ago. Every thing is much better than I expected, from the accounts I heard after I came to London; for the secrecy with which I stole away from Edinburgh, and which I thought necessary for preserving my interest there, kept me entirely ignorant of his situation.

"My lord never was in so good a way [before.] He has a regular family, honest servants, and every thing is managed genteelly and with economy. He has intrusted all his English affairs to a mighty honest friendly man, Captain Vincent, who is cousin-german to the Marchioness. And as my lord has now taken so strong a turn to solitude and repose, as he formerly had to company and agitation, 'tis to be hoped that his good parts and excellent dispositions may at last, being accompanied with more health and tranquillity, render him a comfort to his friends, if not an ornament

to his country. As you live in the neighbourhood of the Marchioness, it may give her a pleasure to hear these particulars. I am,[180:1] &c.

"Weldehall, near St. Albans,
"April 25, 1745."

On the other hand, we find Captain Vincent, when he speaks of Hume, saying, "I think it very happy that he is with my lord, and still more so if he is constantly to remain with him, which I do not foresee but that he may; and I must do him the justice to say, that after having had time enough to weigh the temper, situation, and circumstances of the person he has to deal with, he very candidly owned that it was what he could cheerfully abide with." And again in August, "Mr. Hume is almost wholly taken up with our friend personally, so that he can scarce have the resource of amusement, or even of business, which is somewhat hard upon a man of erudition and letters, whom indeed I think very deserving and good natured; and whilst he can be his companion, there could not be a better made choice of." The captain, in other letters, speaks of Hume as "a very worthy and knowing man," and as "My friend Mr. Hume;" and seems at one time to have wished that an annuity of £100 a-year should be settled upon him, without reference to his continuance in his office, and in addition to the salary he might receive while he did so. But the dawn was soon afterwards overcast.

Hume, in the first place, disliked some of Captain Vincent's proposed arrangements, as to the disposal

of the person of the Marquis, and seems to have soon suspected him of wishing to carry through designs which would materially affect the interest of some of the Marquis's relations. It is probable that a feeling of friendliness, or of duty, may have prompted him to interfere. It may be so, and he may in reality have done good; but the impression produced by the correspondence is, regret that Hume did not at once retire in lofty scorn from the scene of these paltry cabals.

Captain Vincent held a commission from the Marquis to "hire and dismiss servants," and perform other like functions. It was in virtue of this authority that he dealt with Hume; and he seems at first to have thought, that in the person of the philosopher he had met with a sort of superior and valuable member of the fraternity of upper-servants. Though Hume had then written the works on which a large portion of his European reputation was afterwards built, this man seems to have regarded his literary abilities as merely an enhancement of the qualities which suited him for his servile office. Looking upon himself as a member of the family, he appears to have had much the same disposition to admit that Hume's literary distinction put them on a par with each other, as he might have had to admit that the display of an unexpected degree of musical talent in the servants' hall would qualify one of its frequenters to be hail-fellow well met with him in the dining-room. Whether Hume was right or wrong in the suspicions he entertained of Vincent, the conduct of Vincent to Hume was brutal, and that on his own showing.

One of Hume's views, as to the proper treatment of the Marquis, was, that the isolation of Weldhall was unsuitable to his condition: that he should be in a

a more cheerful residence, and one in other respects more suitable; and the dispute appears to have been for some time suspended on this peg. On the 31st October, Hume writes:—

"What is the mighty matter in dispute? Only about hiring a few carts to remove the family to another house, in order to quit this; which, for very good reasons, is infinitely disagreeable to your friend, very dangerous, will be uninhabitable for cold during the winter season, and costs £300 to £400 a-year, at least, to the family, more than is requisite." And afterwards he says of Vincent:—"He said, when he was here, that we shall live in this house till the lease was out, in spite of all opposition."

In the letter from which the preceding passage is taken, he says to Sir James Johnstone,—

"I must begin by complaining of you for having yoked me here with a man of the Captain's character, without giving me the least hint concerning it, if it was known to you, as, indeed, it is no secret to the world. You seemed satisfied with his conduct, and even praised him to me; which I am fully persuaded was the effect of your caution, not your conviction. However, I, who was altogether a stranger, entered into the family with so gross a prepossession. I found a man who took an infinite deal of pains for another, with the utmost professions both of disinterestedness and friendship to him and me; and I readily concluded that such a one must be either one of the best, or one of the worst of men. I can easily excuse myself for having judged at first on the favourable side; and must confess that, when light first began to break in upon me, I resisted it as I would a

temptation of the devil. I thought it, however, proper to keep my eyes open for farther observation; till the strangest and most palpable facts, which I shall inform you of at meeting, put the matter out of all doubt to me.

"There is nothing he would be fonder of than to sow dissension betwixt my Lady and you, whom he hates and fears. He flatters, and caresses, and praises, and hates me also; and would be glad to chase me away, as doing me the honour, and, I hope, the justice of thinking me a person very unfit for his purposes. As he wants all manner of pretext from my conduct and behaviour, he has broken his word."

That these statements are not those of a secret foe emitting calumnies in the dark, is made clear by the concluding terms of the letter, in which the writer, instead of asking his correspondent to keep its contents secret—a very common clause when people, thrown much in each other's way, write about each other's conduct to third parties—says, "I wish you would bring this letter south with you, that, if you will allow it, I may show it to him,"—that is, to Vincent.

The excitement communicated to Hume's nerves on this occasion, is shown by the following short letter to Sir James, so much at variance with the usual character of his writings:—

"God forgive you, dear Sir, God forgive you, for neither coming to us, nor writing to us. The unaccountable, and, I may say, the inhuman treatment we meet with here, throws your friend into rage and fury, and me into the greatest melancholy. My only comfort is when I think of your arrival; but still I know not when I can propose to myself that satisfaction. I flatter myself you have received two short

letters I wrote within this month; though the uncertainty of the post gives me apprehension. I must again entreat you to favour me with a short line, to let me know the time you can propose to be with us; for, if it be near, I shall wait with patience and with pleasure; if distant, I shall write you at length, that you and my Lady Marchioness may judge of our circumstances and situation.—I am, Dear Sir, yours, with great sincerity,

D. H."

Unfortunately, the precise objects which the parties respectively desired to accomplish cannot be distinctly ascertained, as the letters generally refer to explanations which it will be necessary for the parties to make when they meet, because the troubled character of the times made private letters liable to be opened and inspected. Hume at the same time, being in the midst of a considerable retinue of servants under the control and management of his enemy, was in dread that spies were set on his motions. Thus he says to Sir James Johnstone,—

"I did write you the very first occasion after I came out thither. But I find my letters have great difficulty to reach you; for which reason I shall put this into the post-house myself, to prevent such practices as I suspect are used in this family. I have some reason also to think that spies are placed upon my most indifferent actions. I told you that I had had more conversation with one of the servants than was natural, and for what reason. Perhaps this fellow had the same privilege granted him as other spies, to rail against his employer, in order to draw in an unguarded man to be still more unguarded. But such practices, if real, (for I am not altogether certain,) can only turn to the confusion of those who use them.

Where there is no arbitrary power, innocence must be safe; and if there be arbitrary power in this family, 'tis long since I knew I could not remain in it. What a scene is this for a man nourished in philosophy and polite letters to enter into, all of a sudden, and unprepared! But I can laugh, whatever happens; and the newness of such practices rather diverts me. At first they caused indignation and hatred; and even (though I am ashamed to confess it) melancholy and sorrow."

What a scene indeed!

The chief incidental light that can be thrown on the nature of the suspicions which Hume entertained of Vincent, is derived from the position of the person to whom the greater part of these letters were addressed—Sir James Johnstone, who has already been alluded to as a connexion of the Annandale family. His brother, Colonel John Johnstone, had married the Marchioness-dowager, the mother of the Marquis, and by her had three children. She was an heiress; and though the Scottish estates, following an entail, were destined to pass to another family, her own property would be inherited by the children of her second marriage, on the death of the Marquis. The accumulated rents of his estates, being movable property, would also be the subject of succession, different from that of the entail; and therefore the management of this property, during his imbecility, was a matter of much moment to some of his connexions. The public had ample opportunity of knowing the extent of these accumulated funds. They rose to the sum of £415,000, and were the subject of long litigation both in England and Scotland. The "Annandale cases" had a material effect in settling in Britain the important principle which had been previously adopted over the greater part of Europe, that the movable or

personal estate of a deceased person must be distributed according to the law of the country where he had his domicile or permanent residence at the time of his death.

It is pretty evident that Vincent had certain family projects in view in connexion with the management of the estate, and that Hume wished to defeat them. Before the outbreak of the quarrel, the latter had written to Sir James:

"I shall endeavour to give you my opinion, which I am certain would be yours, were you to pass a day amongst us. I am sorry, therefore, to inform you, that nothing now remains but to take care of your friend's person, in the most decent and convenient manner; and, with regard to his fortune, to be attentive that the great superplus, which will remain after providing for these purposes, should be employed by my Lady and your nephews, as the true proprietors, for their honour and advantage."

Having written a civil letter to Vincent, stating that he desired the intervention of Sir James Johnstone, and that he believed, in the mean time, that the Marquis was satisfied with the engagement, and did not wish him to be dismissed, he thus hints to Sir James his suspicions of Vincent's views.

"I must own it was with excessive reluctance I wrote so softening and obliging a letter to this man; but as I knew that such a method of proceeding was conformable to your intentions, I thought it my duty to comply. However, I easily saw it would all be vain, and would only fortify him in his arrogance. Do you think that the absolute possession of so ample a fortune, to which this is the first requisite step, is a prize to be resigned for a few fair words or flattering

professions? He deals too much in that bait himself ever to be caught with it by others.

"I think this is the last opportunity that will ever offer of retrieving the family and yourself (as far as you are concerned with the family,) from falling into absolute slavery to so odious a master. If, in the beginning, and while he is watched by jealous eyes, he can attempt such things, what will he not do when he has fixed his authority, and has no longer any inspector over him?

"'Tis lucky, therefore, that this, as it seems the last, is so good an opportunity. Nothing was ever so barefaced as his conduct. To quarrel with me, merely because I civilly supported a most reasonable project; to threaten me with his vengeance, if I opened my lips to you concerning your friend's affairs; to execute that threat, without a pretext, or without consulting you; these steps give us such advantages over him as must not be neglected.

"I hope you will not take it amiss, if I say, that your conduct, with regard to your friend, and to those who have at different times been about him, has all along been too gentle and cautious. I had considerably shaken the authority of this man (though I had no authority myself,) merely by my firmness and resolution. He now assumes more, when he observes your precautions.

"But, as I do not believe that, though your firmness may daunt him, it will ever engage him to loose hold of so fine a prize, it will be requisite to think of more effectual remedies. Happily there is time enough both to contrive and to execute. For, though he makes me the offer of present payment, (which I hope you observed,) in order to engage me to leave you presently, he shall not get rid of me so easily."

Hume appears, with a marvellous degree of

self-restraint—marvellous in a man of independent spirit—to have felt that it was his duty not to be driven from his post by the insults of Vincent. He says to Sir James Johnstone, when apparently wearied out, "I fancy he must prevail at last; and I shall take care not to be a bone of contention betwixt you, unless you think I am the most advantageous piece of ground on which you can resist him." His opinion, that the interests of the other relations were concerned in his resisting Vincent's designs, is confirmed by the following letter, also addressed to Sir James Johnstone:—

"He [Vincent] desired you should intermeddle as little as possible in these affairs; adding, that he intended, by keeping my Lord's person and his English affairs in his own hands, to free my Lady from all slavery to you.

"Ever since, no entreaties, no threatenings have been spared to make me keep silence to you; to which my constant answer was, that I thought not that consistent with my duty. I told him freely, that I would lay all the foregoing reasons before you, when you came to London, and hoped you would prevail with him to alter his opinion. If not, we should all write, if you thought proper, to my Lady Marchioness, in order to have her determination. The endeavouring, then, to make me keep silence to you, was also to keep my Lady in the dark about such material points, since I could not have access to let her know the situation of our affairs, by any other means.

"He offered to let me leave your friend in the beginning of winter, if I pleased, provided I would make no opposition to his plan,—that is, would not inform you; for I was not capable of making any other opposition. He added, he would allow me my

salary for the whole year, and that he would himself supply my place, leave his house in London, and live with your friend. Can all this pains be taken, merely for the difference betwixt one house and another?

"An evening or two before his departure from Weldehall, he offered me the continuance of the same friendship, which had always subsisted betwixt us, if I would promise not to open my lips to you about this matter.

"The morning of his departure, he burst out all of a sudden, when the subject was not talked of, into threatenings, and told me, that, if I ever entered upon this subject with you, I should repent it. He went out of the house presently, and these were almost his last words."

The circumstance of these "threatenings" is amply confirmed by a letter of Vincent himself, addressed to the Marchioness; an admirable specimen of the outpouring of a vulgar and insolent mind:—

"I will venture to say I have the knack of parrying and managing him, but that Mr. Hume, who is so extraordinarily well paid, only for his company, and lodged and lives, that, if it was at his own expense, he could not do it for £200 a-year, should be gloomy and inconsolable for want of society, and show, for this good while past, little or no sign of content or gratitude to me for all I have done, and the best intentions to serve him, and principally promoted his being in this station, and repeatedly offered to come out frequently during the winter and stay two or three days at a time, whilst he should be in town. I shall do so, but nowise in consideration to him, but out of tenderness and regard to our friend. Mr. Hume is a scholar, and I believe an honest man; but one of his

best friends at Edinburgh at first wrote me, he had conversed more with books than the world, or any of the elegant part of it, chiefly owing to the narrowness of his fortune. He does not in this case seem to know his own interest, though I have long perceived it is what he mostly has a peculiar eye to. Hereafter I shall consider him no more than if I had never known him. Our friend in reality does not desire he should stay with him. I don't see his policy in offering to oppose my pleasure, and think it very wrong in him to mention his appealing to Sir James Johnstone. I dare say your ladyship thinks as I do, that it is unbecoming for me to be in a subservient state, in such a case, to any body. I am very zealously disposed to be accountable to you; both regard, civility, justice, long friendship and acquaintance, as well as near relationship, are all the motives in the world for it; and I hoped my being concerned would produce all possible good effects in your having constant, true, and satisfactory accounts, as well as that, in due time, those advantages in your own affairs might be accruing, which you are so justly entitled to, and which I have before declared to be one of the main ends to be accomplished, and which I believe you think I could effect better than another. It is not one of the most pleasing circumstances that, in the situation of our friend, it is an inlet to strangers, taken in by accident, to be too much acquainted with private family affairs. I certainly desire that Sir James and I should be in good correspondence, and I believe he is satisfied of that; but this man, taking it into his head to thwart my methods, and all to gratify his own desire of being near town in the winter forsooth, after the offer I have made of giving him relief sometimes,

and as nothing will satisfy some dispositions, I shall, at the end of the year, close all accounts, in which there will be done what was never done before, a complete state of the receipt and the expense, and then very willingly desire to be excused from having any farther concern. Most certainly I would do every thing in my power to serve and oblige you; but if you desire the continuance of my care, please to write to Sir James to signify occasionally to Mr. Hume that the management is left to me, and not to a stranger, who, if he is not satisfied, is at his liberty to remove from such attendance."

This illustration of character would be incomplete without a passage in a subsequent letter, in which, after Hume had ceased to attend on the Marquis, Vincent characterizes the sort of person who would be a desirable successor.

"If any proper person is about him again whilst I am concerned, terms for their behaviour must be specified, and as they wax fat and are encouraged, they must be discreet enough and reasonable in their nature, so as not to kick. Such deportment would engage any good offices of mine, in favour of a worthy man, fit for the purpose, which, I confess, is very hard to find, and possibly my Lord will not care to have any body put upon him by way of terms of continuance."

That the iron of this bondage entered into his soul, is apparent in many passages of Hume's letters. He regretted that he had left independence in a humble home, for dependence in a lordly mansion: he regretted that he had been led to meddle with intrigues, in which a vulgar selfish man, who knew

the world, was far more than a match for a profound philosopher. How wise it had been for him had he never deserted the humble prospects of an independent life, the following complaints, addressed to Lord Elibank, testify:—

"Meanwhile, I own to you, that my heart rebels against this unworthy treatment; and nothing but the prospect of depending entirely on you, and being independent of him, could make me submit to it. I have fifty resolutions about it. My loss, in ever hearkening to his treacherous professions, has been very great; but, as it is now irreparable, I must make the best of a bad bargain. I am proud to say that, as I am no plotter myself, I never suspect others to be such, till it be too late; and, having always lived independent, and in such a manner as that it never was any one's interest to profess false friendship to me, I am not sufficiently on my guard in this particular. . . . . My way of living is more melancholy than ever was submitted to by any human creature, who ever had any hopes or pretensions to any thing better; and if to confinement, solitude, and bad company, be also added these marks of disregard, . . . . I shall say nothing, but only that books, study, leisure, frugality, and independence, are a great deal better."

The filling up of the cup of his slights and injuries, and the termination of his servitude, is thus described by Hume; and one reads it with a feeling of relief, as an event long protracted, and for the occurrence of which the reader of the narrative is impatient. He says, writing to Sir James Johnstone, on 17th April, 1746,—

"You'll be surprised, perhaps, that I date my letters

no longer from Weldehall; this happened from an accident, if our inconstancies and uncertainties can be called such.

"You may remember in what humour you saw your friend a day or two before you left us. He became gay and good-humoured afterwards, but more moderately than usual. After that, he returned to his former disposition. These revolutions, we have observed, are like the hot and cold fits of an ague: and, like them too, in proportion as the one is gentle, the other is violent. But the misfortune is, that this prejudice continued even after he seemed, in other respects, entirely recovered. So that, having tried all ways to bring him to good humour, by talking with him, absenting myself for some days, &c., I have at last been obliged yesterday to leave him. He is determined, he says, to live altogether alone; and I fancy, indeed, it must come to that. As far as I can judge, this caprice came from nobody, and no cause, except physical ones. The wonder only is, that it was so long a-coming."

There is a stroke of generosity in his thus attributing the impulse to physical causes, and not only abstaining from an accusation of his enemy, but expressly exempting him from all blame. The readers of the correspondence have not probably all seconded the charitable exemption; and the exulting tones in which Vincent speaks of the dismissal, foster the suspicion that he had paved the way for it. He says, on the 19th April,—

"This day was a fortnight, my Lord told Mr. Hume to be gone, and that in terms which I shall not repeat; the Monday following, the same directions were renewed in a very peremptory manner, attended with such expressions of resentment, that I advised Hume to go

away the next day, which he did, the 8th; and on the 15th I went out thither, and had told my Lord before, that, if he could be reconciled to have him return, I was very willing to contribute towards it, which proposal was not in the least agreed to. . . . . Hume has not for many months stomached depending in any respect upon my decision, who was originally the cause of his being received at all, and had very great difficulty, long since and at different times, to get my Lord to bear him. He has mistaken the point; for there is nothing irritates his Lordship so much, as the thought of any one showing some tokens of authority, and looking on what he says as caprice, and of no consequence; and I really believe it is some such notion as this, which has produced so thorough an aversion."

There are two different views that may be taken of Hume's motives for not having at once resigned his appointment, at the very commencement of the train of indignities to which he was subjected. Whoever anticipates that a man who had tutored his mind by the rules of philosophy, and who lived an upright and independent life, may be actuated by some better views than those of mere pecuniary aggrandizement, will give him credit for having believed it to be his duty to watch over certain interests of the Annandale family at the sacrifice of his own feelings. Those who, strongly disapproving of his opinions as a philosopher, believe them to be therefore the dictate of a corrupted mind, will probably search for base and selfish motives; and will have little difficulty in identifying them with a pure love of gain, sufficiently strong to absorb all gentlemanly feeling and all spirit of independence. The favourable and charitable view admits of no direct demonstration on which an opponent could

not be able to throw doubt; and, the circumstances being stated, each reader is left to form his own opinion.

There is one thing that Hume never attempts to conceal—his feeling that the situation was in a pecuniary point of view advantageous to him, and his consequent desire to preserve it for his own sake, so long as he could do so with honour. That it should be so is one of those inconsistencies often exhibited in fine geniuses, which ordinary men of the world find it difficult to appreciate. It frequently proceeds from this circumstance, that, not being acquainted with the ordinary beaten tracks towards wealth and independence, which other men so easily find; yet desiring the latter, although perhaps they care not for the former endowment, they lay hold with avidity on any guide that is likely to lead them, by however devious and unpleasant a path, to the desired object. Men whose minds are much occupied with abstract subjects, if they be poor and desire to be free of unpleasant obligations, are thus apt to grasp at trifling rights with a pertinacity which has the air of selfishness. They feel a timidness of their own ability to make way in a bustling active world; and, conscious that it would be vain to compete with hard-headed acute men of business in the enlargement of their fortune, treat with an undue importance any comparatively trifling claims and advantages; while the sagacious world, which sees before it so many more advantageous paths to the objects of men's secondary ambition, ridicules their much ado about nothing. It was Hume's first and chief desire to be independent. That if he had enjoyed a choice of means, to be the hired companion of the Marquis of Annandale would have been among the last on which he would have fixed,

will easily be believed. But this occupation was the only method of gaining a livelihood that offered itself at the time; it was an honest one, and the disagreeable circumstances attending the means were overlooked in the desirableness of the end.

It is necessary, also, along with the account of Hume's efforts to gain a humble livelihood, to keep in mind the state of society in Scotland at that time. The union with England had introduced new habits of living, which made the means of the smaller aristocracy insufficient for the support of their younger children. On the other hand, England was jealous of Scottish rivalry in foreign trade: neither agriculture nor manufactures had made any considerable progress in Scotland; while Indian enterprise was in its infancy, and Scottish adventurers in the East had not yet found a Pactolus in the Ganges. At that period the gentleman-merchant, manufacturer, or money dealer; the civil engineer, architect, editor, or artist, were nearly unknown in Scotland. The only form in which a man poor and well born could retain the rank of a gentleman, if he did not follow one of the learned professions, was by obtaining a commission in the army, or a government civil appointment.[196:1]

Here ended the channels to subsistence along with

gentility, and he who had none of these paths open to him, and had resolved to make an independent livelihood by his own talents or labour, had at once, as the German nobles frequently do in the present day, to abandon his rank, and become a shopkeeper or small farmer, probably with the intention of returning to the bosom of his former social circle when he had realized an independence, but more commonly ending his days with the consciousness that he was, in the words of Henry Hunt, "the first of a race of gentlemen who had become a tradesman." Any lawyer who pays attention to the statistics of the Scottish decisions in mercantile cases, during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, will have noticed how frequently it occurs that the younger sons of some good family are mentioned as fulfilling the humblest duties of village tradesmen.[197:1] The practice is now comparatively unknown. The well

educated gentleman's son, if he be brought up to commerce, connects himself with those more liberal departments of it, in which he may reap the advantage of his education and training. To the practice which distinguished the period of depression above alluded to, aided perhaps by the spirit of clanship, we may owe the existence of so many aristocratic names among the humbler tradesmen in Scotland. In England the nomenclature of a city directory will as surely indicate the court and the tradesmen end of the town, as the Norman name used to indicate nobility and the Saxon vassalage. We do not find Edward Plantagenet keeping an oyster shop, or Henry Seymour cobbling shoes; but it would not be difficult to exemplify these humble occupations, in the regal names of a Robert Bruce or a James Stuart. In his essay on "The Parties of Great Britain," published in 1741, Hume alludes to the absence of a middle class in Scotland, where he says there are only "two ranks of men," "gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor: without any considerable number of the middling rank of men, which abounds more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other quarter of the world."[198:1]

The history of the miserable quarrels and intrigues

connected with Hume's residence in the Annandale family, is a sad picture, not only of the position of the individual, but of his class,—the poor scholars, the servile drudges for bread. The modern literary labourer—or hack, as he is called by those who deem the word labourer too respectable to be employed on such an occasion—may look from the narrow bounds of his own independent home, with a feeling of sincere though not boastful superiority on David Hume, living in the splendid bondage of a peer's mansion. But in drawing the comparison on which the reflection rests, let him keep in view the state of literature and of society at that period, and ask where lay the hopes of the literary labourer? If he remained in the less conspicuous walks of learned industry, and became a divine or a teacher, there was before him the career of Parson Adams, taking his pot and pipe with the upper servants; or that of the threadbare tutor, subjected to the caprice and insolence of young men, who, if they do not happen to be endowed with a high tone of sentiment, must imbibe from all around them this feeling, that they are as far beyond the parallel of rank of their instructor, as the Brahmin is beyond that of the Pariah; or, thirdly, he might be the hired victim of a semi-maniac, whose few rays of remaining reason are but sufficient to indicate his own immeasurable superiority to the bought attendant of his humours. These were the resources of the man who distrusted the power of his own genius to soar into the higher flights of original literature; the man, who might perhaps be too conscientious, not to say also too timid, to throw the chance of his being able to meet his obligations to society and to perform his social duties, on the chance of his succeeding in the race for literary distinction.

But suppose the race run and gained, and the laurels on the victor's brow,—for what, then, has all been risked, all encountered? True, Hume himself became one of the distinguished few who gained both fame and fortune; but in the ordinary case, if the former were achieved, the latter did not follow; and in seeking the types of literary distinction in his age, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Johnson are the names that rise before us. Was the garden in which these flowers bloomed so genial that we would have others transplanted thither?

Let not, then, the considerate and charitable reader overlook all these palliations of the motives which may have induced a great man to humble himself and bear so much contumely. Let us suppose that he who reads this narrative is an editor of a newspaper, with a salary of say two or three hundred a-year; or that he writes articles for the periodicals, and neither in name nor in reality bound to any one, gets the fair price of his independent labour; or that he is a teacher in an active commercial academy, who, after the harassing labours of the day, can retire to the bosom of his own family, without fearing the frown or desiring the smile of any great man,—let him, if such should be his lot, indulge, in all its luxury, the consciousness of his superior independence and happier fate; but in looking from its elevation to David Hume, a bondman in the house of an insane lord, let compassion rather than contempt tinge his estimate of the illustrious victim's motives, and let him thank the better times, that with all the drudgery of his lot, its disappointed aspirations, and the bitterness of unavailing efforts to raise it to a higher and more justly-respected position in the eye of the world, have yet enabled him to quaff the sweet cup of independence.

Before entirely leaving the subject of Hume's connexion with the Marquis of Annandale, it is necessary to take a view of his conduct regarding a pecuniary dispute which arose out of the transaction. The terms of the agreement were very distinctly set forth by Captain Vincent in the following letter:—

"Sir,—You desire to have a letter from me, expressing all the conditions of the agreement concluded betwixt us, with regard to your living with the Marquis of Annandale. In compliance with so reasonable a request, I hereby acknowledge that, by virtue of powers committed to me by the said Marquis, and with the approbation and consent of his Lordship and Sir James Johnstone, I engaged that my Lord should pay you three hundred pounds sterling a-year, so long as you continued to live with him, beginning from the first of April, one thousand seven hundred and forty-five: also that the said Marquis, or his heirs, should be engaged to pay you, or your heirs, the sum of three hundred pounds, as one year's salary, even though the Marquis should happen to die any time in the first year of your attendance, or should embrace any new scheme or plan of life, which should make him choose that you should not continue to live out the first year with him. Another condition was, that, if you should, on your part, choose to leave the Marquis any time in the first or subsequent years, you should be free to do it; and that the Marquis should be bound to pay you your salary for the time you had attended him, and also the salary for that quarter in which you should leave him, in the same manner as if that quarter should be fully expired.

"These were the conditions of our agreement about the end of February last, on your first coming up to London for the purposes here mentioned, and which I

have committed to writing for your satisfaction and security, this first day of September, at Weldehall, four miles south of St. Alban's, in the county of Hertford, and in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-five."

Vincent, in continuation, and for Hume's information, gives him a copy of the agreement, under which one of his predecessors in office, by name Peter Young, had been engaged; an agreement, containing terms rather more favourable to the stipendiary than those of which Hume had consented to accept. And he concludes,—

"You see the latter part of Mr. Young's agreement are more advantageous terms than the latter part of yours; but I have done as much as I thought reasonable and proper for me, and as much as you desired. I make no doubt but, in any contingency, all the Marquis's friends and relations, would be far from reducing your conditions less than that of others in the same case, as, in my opinion, and I dare believe in theirs, your character and conduct would rather entitle you to a preference."

Hume had in the mean time received a present of £100 from the Marquis of Annandale, no reference to which is made in the agreement, and which he considered as a gratuity to induce him to leave Scotland, and enter on those negotiations with Lord Annandale and his friends, which ended in his being engaged, but might have ended otherwise; as an indemnity, in short, for the time wasted and the trouble taken in the preliminary arrangements. Indeed, it will have been noticed in his letter to Mr. Sharp, quoted above,[202:1] that this gratuity was sent by the Marquis along with the

invitation to Hume to repair to London and hold a conference on the subject. Hume, then, was engaged at £300 a-year, with the condition that for any broken quarter a full quarter's salary should be paid. His engagement commenced on 1st April, 1745. It terminated on the 15th April, 1746. He thus considered himself entitled to £300 as a year's salary, and to £75 as the salary of the quarter, of which fifteen days had run. In the mean time, however, just after the expiry of the first year, it had occurred to the magnanimous Vincent, that though better terms than those given to Hume, had been obtained by the Peter Youngs and others, Hume's salary was twice as much as it should be, and ought to be reduced by a half. Hume, as if he had been subdued in spirit, by the life he had been leading—feeling as if his lot were cast, and his fate fixed—oblivious of the glorious dreams of ambition that had dawned on him ten years earlier in life and were yet to be realized, seems to have calmly contemplated this pecuniary reduction, and to have been inclined to agree to it if it should form the prelude to a permanent engagement. He thus wrote to the mother of the Marquis.

"I had the honour of a letter from my Lord Marquis last spring, inviting me to London, which I accordingly obeyed. He made me proposals of living with him; and Mr. Vincent, in concert with Sir James Johnstone, mentioned at first the yearly salary of £300 as an allowance which they thought reasonable; because my Lord had always paid so much to all the other gentlemen that attended him, even when his way of living, in other particulars, was much more expensive than at present. Since that, Mr. Vincent thinks this allowance too much, and proposes to reduce it from £300 to £150. My answer was, that whatever

your Ladyship and my Lord should think my attendance merited, that I would very willingly accept of. As he still insisted on the reasonableness of his opinion, I have used the freedom to apply to your Ladyship, to whose sentiments every one, that has the honour of being connected with the family of Annandale, owe so entire a deference. I shall not insist on any circumstances in my own favour. Your Ladyship's penetration will easily be able to discover those, as well as what may be urged in favour of Mr. Vincent's opinion. And your determination shall be entirely submitted to by me."

At the same time he appears to have submitted his grievances to the consideration of his kind friend Henry Home, who, in a letter to Sir James Johnstone, expresses views which will probably meet with more sympathy than those announced by Hume himself.

"Kames, 14th April, 1746.

"Sir,—I have a letter from Mr. David Hume lately, which surprised me not a little, as if there were a plot formed against him to diminish his salary. For my part, I was never hearty in his present situation; as I did not consider the terms offered as any sufficient temptation for him to relinquish his studies, which, in all probability, would redound more to his advantage some time or other. For this reason, though I had a good deal of indignation at the dishonourable behaviour of the author of this motion, yet underhand I was not displeased with any occasion, not blameable on my friend's part, to disengage him. I thought instantly of writing him a letter not to stay upon any terms after such an affront; but, reflecting upon your interest in this matter, I found such an advice would

be inconsistent with the duty I owe you, and therefore stopped short till I should hear from you. I'm well apprized of the great tenderness you have for your poor chief; and it is certainly of some consequence that he should have about him at least one person of integrity; and it should have given me pain to be the author of an advice that might affect you, though but indirectly. At the same time, I cannot think of sacrificing my friend, even upon your account, to make him submit to dishonourable terms; and, therefore, if you esteem his attendance of any use to the Marquis, I beg you'll interpose that no more attempts of this kind be made. For I must be so free to declare that, should he himself yield to accept of lower terms, which I trust he will not be so mean-spirited to do, he shall never have my consent, and I know he will not act without it."

The Marchioness declined to interfere, and thus the award by which Hume agreed to abide was not made. He had thus began the first quarter of a new year under the old agreement, and he had not consented either to abandon the terms of that agreement for the time that was running, or even to make new terms applicable to any subsequent period, though he had shown a disposition to accept, under certain circumstances, of these new terms. His abrupt dismissal, however, put an end to the negotiation; and, as the terms of his agreement entitled him to the £75 if he had chosen to throw up his appointment, he thought he was not the less entitled to the money that he had been dismissed, and that the ignominious and insulting treatment connected with his dismissal should not be any inducement to him to abandon his claim. He could not lose sight, moreover, of the circumstance, that to place the parties more at their ease in dealing

with him, he had abandoned his claims on the professorship in Edinburgh. It is true that he had small chance of obtaining it, but that chance, such as it was, he was desired by the friends of the Marquis to abandon, and he did so. The question with him then was, how much injury he should allow to be added to the insults he had received. The £300, for his year's services, were paid. The payment of the £75, for the subsequent quarter, was resisted.

On the 9th June, 1746, Henry Home wrote a sensible and kind letter on the subject to Sir James Johnstone, in which he laid down the law of the case, that Hume's claim of salary for the broken quarter must be on the old agreement, and could not be "upon the footing of a proposal or offer, which never came the length of a covenant, and which, therefore, never had any effect;" and he says,—"The question then is, whether he is entitled to £75, for the broken quarter, or only to £37, 10s. The thing is a mere trifle to the Marquis of Annandale, but of some importance to a young gentleman who has not a large stock; and supposing the claim to be doubtful, I have great confidence in your generosity, that for a trifle you would not choose to leave a grudge in the young gentleman's mind, of a hardship done to him.

"But to deal with you after that plain manner which I know you love, I will speak out my mind to you, that in strict justice, and in the direct words of the agreement, Mr. Hume is entitled to £75."

Hume never entirely abandoned this claim. He was not in a position to urge it forward immediately after his dismissal, as another and more agreeable official appointment called him abroad. So late as 1760 and during the next ensuing year, we find him urging his

demand, and allusion is made to an action having been raised in the Court of Session. "The case," says Dr. Murray, "must have been settled extrajudicially or by reference; for, after a careful search in the minute book of the Court of Session, we do not find that it was ever enrolled."

There has been a general tendency to consider this pertinacious adherence to a pecuniary claim, as a proceeding unworthy of a philosopher. In any ordinary man, whether wise or foolish after the wisdom of the world, such conduct would have appeared but just and natural; but a philosopher is presumed to have no more respect for money and its value, than the generous and sympathizing gentleman on the stage, who on the impulse of the moment, always tosses a heavy purse to somebody, without having any more distinct notion of its contents than the admiring audience can have. Hume's notions of these matters were different. "Am I," he said, "in a condition to make the Marquis of Annandale a present of £75, that of right belongs to me." It is true that in the interval between the debt being incurred, and his insisting on its payment, he had by frugality and industry made himself independent. In 1747, he tells us that he was possessed of £1000, and in 1760, his fortune had probably considerably increased, though the sources of emolument which made him subsequently worth £1000 a-year, had not been then opened up. The surplus of the Marquis of Annandale's estate had in the mean time accumulated in the manner that has been already mentioned, and Hume probably thought it was an action more truly worthy of a philosopher, to make over his salary of librarian to the poor blind poet Blacklock, than to

abandon a claim of £75, justly due by an estate which had developed a surplus of £400,000.

Early in the year 1746, Hume received an invitation from General St. Clair, "to attend him as a secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France."[208:1] Before his departure, and while he expected to have to cross the Atlantic, he wrote the following letter, addressed to "Mr. Alexander Home, Advocate, His Majesty's Solicitor for Scotland, at Edinburgh." The concluding remarks evidently relate to the state prosecutions following on the insurrection in Scotland.

"Portsmouth, May 23, 1746.

"Dear Solicitor,—A letter you have good reason to expect from me, before my departure for America; but a long one you cannot look for, if you consider that I knew not a word of this matter till Sunday last at night, that we shall begin to embark from hence in two or three days, and that I had very ingeniously stripped myself of every thing, by sending down my whole baggage for Scotland on Sunday morning. Such a romantic adventure, and such a hurry I have not heard of before. The office is very genteel—10s. a day, perquisites, and no expenses. Remember me kindly to your brothers. Tell Frank I ask him ten thousand pardons. Let Mr. Dysart, and Mrs. Dysart know of my good wishes. Be assured yourself of my friendship. I cannot leave Europe without giving you one instance of it, and so much the greater that with regard to any other person

but you, it would be a dangerous one. In short, I have been told, that the zeal of party has been apt sometimes to carry you too far in your expressions, and that fools are afraid of your violence in your new office. Seek the praise, my dear Sandy, of humanity and moderation. 'Tis the most durable, the most agreeable, and in the end the most profitable.

"I am, dear Sandy, yours most sincerely.

"For God's sake, think of Willy Hamilton."[209:1]

At the same time we find him writing to Henry Home, and speculating on the possibility of himself joining the military service.

"As to myself, my way of life is agreeable; and though it may not be so profitable as I am told, yet so large an army as will be under the general's command in America, must certainly render my perquisites very considerable. I have been asked, whether I would incline to enter into the service? My answer was, that at my years I could not decently accept of a lower commission than a company. The only prospect of working this point would be, to procure at first a company in an American regiment, by the choice of the colonies. But this I build not on, nor indeed am I very fond of it.[209:2] D. H."

The person to whom we thus find Hume acting in the capacity of secretary, was the Honourable James St. Clair, one of those commanders whose fortune it is to have passed through a long life of active military service, without having one opportunity of performing a distinguished action; for though, on the present occasion, the path to honour appeared to be at last opened to him, it was closed by the mismanagement of others. He was the second son of Henry Lord

St. Clair. His elder brother being engaged in the rebellion of 1715, was attainted by act of Parliament. The father left the family estates to General St. Clair, who, with a generous devotion to the hereditary principle, conveyed them to his elder brother, on that gentleman obtaining a pardon and a statutory removal of the disabilities of the attainder. He obtained the rank of colonel on 26th July, 1722, of major-general on 15th August, 1741, and of lieutenant-general on 4th June, 1745. During the last named year he was quarter-master general of the British forces in Flanders. He was for many years a member of Parliament, having been elected for the Dysart burghs in 1722, and subsequently for the counties of Sutherland and Fife. He died at Dysart on 30th November, 1762.[210:1]

The marine force connected with the proposed expedition was commanded by Admiral Richard Lestock, a man whose professional fate was in some respects of a like character with that of his military colleague. The intended object of the armament was an attack on the French possessions in Canada, and steps had been taken to second its efforts on the other side of the Atlantic, by bringing together a British American force. But the indolence or negligence of the authorities at home, delayed the departure of the fleet until it was too late to attempt such an enterprise; and then, as if to furnish a vivid illustration of weak and blundering counsels, that all these preparations might not be thrown away, the force prepared for operations in America was sent to attempt a descent on the coast of France.

The naval force, consisting of sixteen ships of the

line, eight frigates, and two bomb-ketches, accompanied by five thousand eight hundred land troops, including matrosses and bombardiers, set sail from Plymouth on 14th September.[211:1] Its destination was the town of Port L'Orient, then a flourishing port, as the depot of the French East India Company, which has since fallen to decay in common with the great establishment with which it was connected. The history and fate of the expedition will be best described in Hume's own words. It afforded no harvest of military glory to either country; and while it is but slightly described by our own historians, it is scarcely ever mentioned by those of France. National partiality will hardly make any lover of the true glory of his country regret that such an attempt was a failure. The method of conducting war by descents upon an enemy's coast, is a relic of barbarism which it is to be hoped the progress of humanity and civilisation will not permit either false enthusiasm or the auspices of a great name to revive among the nations of Europe. It is precisely the warlike tactic of the scalping knife—the wreaking against the weak that vengeance which cannot reach the strong. The rules of civilized war are to strike such blows as will annihilate the power of an enemy's government, with the least injury to the peaceful inhabitants of the country. Descents on a coast do much injury to individuals—they do little harm to the enemy's government. It is a system by which the vital parts are not attacked until they suffer by exhaustion from the injuries done to the extremities. Such expeditions do a grievous injury to our enemies, to accomplish a

very small good to ourselves. But if they cannot be avoided, the next step of mercy is to make them effectual by energetic and well-organized measures which render resistance hopeless, and subject the places attacked only to the modified license of a well-disciplined army. The blunders that made the present attempt as contemptible as it was cruel, are amply recorded by Hume, and may be a lesson of the responsibility incurred by those who fit out warlike expeditions.

In this expedition Hume not only acted as secretary to the general, but was appointed by him judge advocate of all the forces under his command, by a commission "given on board his majesty's ship Superb, the third day of August, 1746,"[212:1] in virtue of the power which the commander of an army possesses to fill up a vacancy in that office. The mixed ministerial and judicial duties of a judge advocate require a general knowledge of the great principles of law and justice, with a freedom from that technical thraldom of the practical lawyer which would be unsuitable to the rapidity of military operations; and there can be little doubt that these delicate and important functions were in this instance committed to one in every way capable of performing them in a satisfactory manner.

Some of Hume's permanent friendships appear to have been formed during this expedition. General Abercromby, with whom we will afterwards find him corresponding, was quarter-master general, Harry Erskine was deputy quarter-master, and Edmonstoune of Newton was a captain in the Royal Scottish regiment. Of the operations of the expedition, and some other

incidents of deep interest connected with it, he sent the following narrative to his brother, John Hume, or Home, of Ninewells.

Hume to his Brother.

"Our first warlike attempt has been unsuccessful, though without any loss or dishonour. The public rumour must certainly have informed you that, being detained in the Channel, till it was too late to go to America, the ministry, who were willing to make some advantage of so considerable a sea and land armament, sent us to seek adventures on the coast of France. Though both the general and admiral were totally unacquainted with every part of the coast, without pilots, guides, or intelligence of any kind, and even without the common maps of the country; yet, being assured there were no regular troops near this whole coast, they hoped it was not possible but something might be successfully undertaken. They bent their course to Port L'Orient, a fine town on the coast of Britanny, the seat of the French East India trade, and which about twenty years ago was but a mean, contemptible village. The force of this town, the strength of its garrison, the nature of the coast and country, they professed themselves entirely ignorant of, except from such hearsay information as they had casually picked up at Plymouth. However, we made a happy voyage of three days, landed in the face of about 3000 armed militia on the 20th of September, marched up next day to the gates of L'Orient, and surveyed it.

"It lies at the bottom of a fine bay two leagues long, the mouth of which is commanded by the town and citadel of Port Louis, or Blavet, a place of great strength, and situated on a peninsula. The town of

L'Orient itself has no great strength, though surrounded by a new wall of about 30 foot high, fortified with half moons, and guarded with some cannon. They were in prodigious alarm at so unexpected an attack by numbers which their fears magnified, and immediately offered to capitulate, though upon terms which would have made their conquest of no significancy to us. They made some advances a few hours after, to abate of their demands; but the general positively refused to accept of the town on any other condition than that of surrendering at discretion. He had very good reason for this seeming rigour and haughtiness. It has long been the misfortune of English armies to be very ill-served in engineers; and surely there never was on any occasion such an assemblage of ignorant blockheads as those which at this time attended us. They positively affirmed it was easily in their power, by the assistance of a mortar and two twelve pounders, in ten hours' time, either to lay the town and East India magazine in ashes, or make a breach by which the forces might easily enter. This being laid before the general and admiral, they concluded themselves already masters of the town,and[214:1] needed grant no terms. They were besides afraid that had they taken the town upon terms, and redeemed it for a considerable sum of money, the good people of England, who love mischief, would not be satisfied, but would still entertain a suspicion that the success of his majesty's arms had been secretly sold by his commanders. Besides, nothing could be a greater blow to the French trade than the destruction of this town; nor what[214:2] could imprint a stronger terror of the English naval power, and more

effectually reduce the French to a necessity of guarding their coast with regular forces, which must produce a great diversion from their ambitious projects on the frontiers. But when the engineers came to execution, it was found they could do nothing of what they had promised. Not one of their carkasses or red hot balls took effect. As the town could not be invested either by sea or land, they got a garrison of irregulars and regulars, which was above double our number, and played 35 pieces of cannon upon us while we could bring only four against them. Excessive rains fell, which brought sickness amongst our men that had been stowed in transports during the whole summer. We were ten miles from the fleet, the roads entirely spoilt, every thing was drawn by men, the whole horses in the country being driven away. So much fatigue and duty quite overcame our little army. The fleet anchored in a very unsafe place in Quimperlay Bay. For these and other reasons it was unanimously determined to raise the siege on the 27th of September; and to this measure there was not one contradictory opinion either in the fleet or army. We have not lost above ten men by the enemy in the whole expedition, and were not in the least molested either in our retreat or re-embarkation. We met with a violent storm on the 1st of October, while we were yet very near the coast, and have now got into Quiberon Bay south of Belle-Isle, where we wait for a reinforcement of three battalions from England. There are five or six of our transports amissing. After our French projects are over, which must be very soon because of the late season, we sail to Cork and Kingsale.

"While we lay at Plœmeur, a village about a league from L'Orient, there happened in our family one of

the most tragical stories ever I heard of, and than which nothing ever gave me more concern. I know not if ever you heard of Major Forbes, a brother of Sir Arthur's. He was, and was esteemed, a man of the greatest sense, honour, modesty, mildness, and equality of temper, in the world. His learning was very great for a man of any profession; but a prodigy for a soldier. His bravery had been tried, and was unquestioned. He had exhausted himself with fatigue and hunger for two days, so that he was obliged to leave the camp and come to our quarters, where I took the utmost care of him, as there was a great friendship betwixt us. He expressed vast anxiety that he should be obliged to leave his duty, and fear lest his honour should suffer by it. I endeavoured to quiet his mind as much as possible, and thought I had left him tolerably composed at night; but, returning to his room early next morning, I found him, with small remains of life, wallowing in his own blood, with the arteries of his arm cut asunder. I immediately sent for a surgeon, got a bandage tied to his arm, and recovered him entirely to his senses and understanding. He lived above four-and-twenty hours after, and I had several conversations with him. Never a man expressed a more steady contempt of life, nor more determined philosophical principles, suitable to his exit. He begged of me to unloosen his bandage, and hasten his death, as the last act of friendship I could show him: but, alas! we live not in Greek or Roman times. He told me that he knew he could not live a few days: but if he did, as soon as he became his own master, he would take a more expeditious method, which none of his friends could prevent. 'I die,' says he, 'from a jealousy of honour, perhaps too delicate; and do you think, if it were possible for me to live, I

would now consent to it, to be a gazing-stock to the foolish world. I am too far advanced to return. And if life was odious to me before, it must be doubly so at present.' He became delirious a few hours before he died. He had wrote a short letter to his brother, above ten hours before he cut his arteries. This we found on the table."

"Quiberon Bay in Britanny, Oct. 4, 1746."

"P.S.—The general has not sent off his despatches till to-day, so that I have an opportunity of saying a few words more. Our army disembarked on the 4th of October, and took possession of the peninsula of Quiberon, without opposition. We lay there, without molestation, for eight days, though the enemy had formed a powerful, at least a numerous, army of militia on the continent. The separation of so many of our transports, and the reinforcements not coming, determined us to reimbark, and return home, with some small hopes that our expedition has answered the chief part of its intended purpose, by making a diversion from the French army in Flanders. The French pretend to have gained a great victory; but with what truth we know not. The admiral landed some sailors, and took possession of the two islands of Houat and Hedie, which were secured by small forts. The governor of one of them, when he surrendered his fort, delivered up his purse to the sea officer, and begged him to take care of it, and secure it from the pillage of the sailors. The officer took charge of it, and, finding afterwards a proper opportunity to examine it, found it contained the important sum of ten sous, which is less than sixpence of our money."[217:1]

"October 17."

As Niebuhr was an eye-witness of the battle of Copenhagen, so Hume also had thus an opportunity of observing some practical warlike operations, though they were on a much smaller scale, and were witnessed in much less exciting circumstances than those which attended the position of the citizen of Copenhagen. Thus, although not themselves soldiers, these two great historians swell the list, previously containing the names of Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Guicciardini, Davila, and Rapin, of those historians of warfare who have witnessed its practical operation. Voltaire, when the accuracy of his description of a battle was questioned by one who had been engaged in it, bid the soldier keep to his profession of fighting, and not interfere with another man's, which was that of writing; but there is little doubt, that the person who would accurately describe military manœuvres, will have his task facilitated by having actually witnessed some warlike operations, on however small a scale, and however unlike in character to those which he has to describe. Scott considered that he had derived much of his facility as a narrative historian from his services in the Mid-Lothian yeomanry; and Gibbon found that to be an active officer in the Hampshire militia was not without its use to the historian of the latter days of Rome.

It is pretty clear that Hume looked upon these operations, not only as events likely to furnish him with some critical knowledge of warlike affairs, but with the inquiring eye of one who might have an opportunity of afterwards narrating them in some historical work. In the appendix there will be found a pretty minute account by Hume, of the causes which led to the failure of the expedition, in a paper apparently drawn up as a vindication of the conduct

of General St. Clair. It does not appear to have been printed, although it seems to have been designed for the press. It contains the following passage: "A certain foreign writer, more anxious to tell his stories in an entertaining manner than to assure himself of their reality, has endeavoured to put this expedition in a ridiculous light; but as there is not one circumstance in his narration that has truth in it, or even the least appearance of truth, it would be needless to lose time in refuting it."

The following passage in a letter to Sir Harry Erskine, dated 20th January, 1756,[219:1] shows that he here alludes to Voltaire: "I have been set upon by several to write something, though it were only to be inserted in the Magazines, in opposition to this account which Voltaire has given of our expedition. But my answer still is, that it is not worth while, and that he is so totally mistaken in every circumstance of that affair, and indeed of every affair, that I presume nobody will pay attention to him. I hope you are of the same opinion." But if Voltaire ever wrote on this subject, it must have been in one of those works of which he took the liberty of determinedly denying the authorship, for there appears to be nothing bearing on the subject in the usual editions of his published and acknowledged works, and in his "Précis du Siecle de Louis XV.," he passes over the expedition with the briefest possible allusion.

We find Hume, on the return of the expedition, writing the following letter to Henry Home. It contains some curious notices of its writer's views and intentions, and betrays a sort of irresolution as to his subsequent projects, which seems to have haunted him through life. It is here that we find the first allusion

to his historical studies. The extracts from his notes, or adversaria, printed above, show that he had read much in history, but chiefly in that of the ancient nations. It does not appear that he had yet paid any marked attention to British history.

Hume to Henry Home.

"Dear Sir,—I am ashamed of being so long in writing to you. If I should plead laziness, you would say I am much altered; if multiplicity of business, you would scarce believe me; if forgetfulness of you and our friendship, I should tell a gross untruth. I can therefore plead nothing but idleness, and a gay, pleasurable life, which steals away hour after hour, and day after day, and leaves no time for such occupations as one's sober reason may approve most of. This is our case while on shore, and even while on board, as far as one can have much enjoyment in that situation.

"I wrote my brother from the coast of Britanny; giving him some account of our expedition, and of the causes of our disappointment. I suppose he received it after you had left the country, but I doubt not he has informed you of it. We were very near a great success, the taking of L'Orient, perhaps Port Louis, which would have been a prodigious blow to France; and, having an open communication with the sea, might have made a great diversion of their forces, and done great service to the common cause. I suppose you are become a great general, by the misfortune of the seat of war being so long in your neighbourhood. I shall be able when we meet to give you the just cause of our failure. Our expedition to North America is now at an end; we are recalled to England, the convoy is arrived, and we re-embark in a few

days. I have an invitation to go over to Flanders with the general, and an offer of table, tent, horses, &c. I must own I have a great curiosity to see a real campaign, but I am deterred by the view of the expense, and am afraid, that living in a camp, without any character, and without any thing to do, would appear ridiculous. Had I any fortune which would give me a prospect of leisure and opportunity to prosecute my historical projects, nothing could be more useful to me, and I should pick up more literary knowledge in one campaign, by living in the general's family, and being introduced frequently to the duke's, than most officers could do after many years' service. But to what can all this serve? I am a philosopher, and so, I suppose, must continue.

"I am very uncertain of getting half pay, from several strange and unexpected accidents, which it would be too tedious to mention; and if I get it not, shall neither be gainer nor loser by the expedition. I believe, if I would have begun the world again, I might have returned an officer, gratis; and am certain, might have been made chaplain to a regiment gratis; but[221:1] . . . . . . . I need say no more. I shall stay a little time in London, to see if any thing new will present itself. If not, I shall return very cheerfully to books, leisure, and solitude, in the country. An elegant table has not spoiled my relish for sobriety; nor gaiety for study; and frequent disappointments have taught me that nothing need be despaired of, as well as that nothing can be depended on. You give yourself violent airs of wisdom; you will say, Odi hominem ignavâ operâ, philosophicâ

sententiâ. But you will not say so when you see me again with my Xenophon or Polybius in my hand; which, however, I shall willingly throw aside to be cheerful with you, as usual. My kind compliments to Mrs. Home, who, I am sorry to hear, has not yet got entirely the better of her illness. I am," &c.[222:1]

We find Hume corresponding also with Oswald and Colonel Abercromby, as to his claim of half-pay for his services as Judge Advocate in the expedition; and this subject we find him occasionally resuming down to so late a period as 1763, when he speaks of "insurmountable difficulties," and fears he must "despair of success."[222:2] It must be admitted that when he thought fit to make a pecuniary claim he did not easily resign it. His correspondent, Colonel Abercromby of Glassauch, has already been mentioned as having held a command in the expedition. He was afterwards one of Hume's intimate friends. Besides his rank in the army, he held the two discordant offices of king's painter in Scotland, and deputy-governor of Stirling castle. He was elected member of parliament for the shire of Banff in 1735,[222:3] and Hume's letters contain congratulations on his re-election in 1747, along with some incidents in his own journey towards Scotland.

"Ninewells. 7th August, 1747.

"Dear Col^l.—I have many subjects to congratulate you upon. The honour you acquired at Sandberg, your safety, and your success in your elections. You are equally eminent in the arts of peace and war. The cabinet is no less a scene of glory to you than the field. You are a hero even in your sports and

amusements; and discover a superior genius in whist, as well as in a state intrigue or in a battle.

"I hope you recover well of your wound, and I beg of you to inform me. I should be glad to know what became of Forster, and whether Bob Horne got the majority. I write to you upon the supposition of your being at London; because Dr. Clephane wrote me some time ago, that you was just setting out for it. If that be the case please make my most humble compliments to Mrs. Abercromby.

"If the Colonel be still detained abroad by any accident, I must beg it of you, Mrs. Abercromby, to take these compliments to yourself, and to keep this letter till the Colonel comes over, for it is not worth while to pay postage for it. I suppose, madam, that Lady Abercromby informed you of our happy voyage together, and safe arrival in Newcastle: your young cousin was a little noisy and obstreperous; our ship was dirty; our accommodation bad; our company sick. There were four spies, two informers, and three evidences, who sailed in the same ship with us. Yet notwithstanding all these circumstances, we were very well pleased with our voyage, chiefly on account of its shortness, which indeed is almost the only agreeable circumstance that can be in a voyage. I am, &c."

"To the royal in Bergen-op-zoom?[223:1] Have they lost any officers? I hope Guidelianus[223:2] is safe? I hope Fraser is converted?"

In his correspondence with Oswald on the same matter of his half-pay, his remarks on public affairs are very desponding. He says,—

"I know not whether I ought to congratulate you upon the success of your election,[224:1] where you prevailed so unexpectedly. I think the present times are so calamitous, and our future prospect so dismal, that it is a misfortune to have any concern in public affairs, which one cannot redress, and where it is difficult to arrive at a proper degree of insensibility or philosophy, as long as one is in the scene. You know my sentiments were always a little gloomy on that head; and I am sorry to observe, that all accidents (besides the natural course of events) turn out against us. What a surprising misfortune is this Bergen-op-zoom, which is almost unparalleled in modern history! I hear the Dutch troops, besides their common cowardice, and ill-discipline, are seized with an universal panic. This winter may perhaps decide the fate of Holland, and then where are we? I shall not be much disappointed if this prove the last parliament, worthy the name, we shall ever have in Britain. I cannot therefore congratulate you upon your having a seat in it: I can only congratulate you upon the universal joy and satisfaction it gave to every body."[224:2]

FOOTNOTES:

[171:1] Letters of David Hume, and extracts from letters referring to him, edited by Thomas Murray, LL.D., author of "The Literary History of Galloway." Edinburgh, 1841, 8vo, pp. 80. Dr. Murray says of these letters: "The originals are supposed to have been deposited, about eighty years ago, in the hands of a legal gentleman in Edinburgh, as documents for a law-suit, to which the latter portion of them refers. Since his death, they have, we believe, passed through several hands without having attracted any particular attention, or, perhaps, without having ever been read. They ultimately came into the possession of a gentleman who appreciated their value, and who, several years ago, did me the honour of presenting them unconditionally to me."

[172:1] The Marquis is said to have afforded the first example of his state of mind, in the manner in which he gave a ball at Dumfries. He had the floor covered with confections, as a garden walk is laid with gravel. A lady who was alive a few years ago, remembered having seen him walking about at Highgate, near London; when he was probably in a more confirmed state of insanity than even his intercourse with Hume exhibits: a keeper walked before him, and a footman behind. The latter would occasionally tap his Lordship on the shoulder, and hand him a snuff-box, whence he would take a pinch. He was a very handsome man. He had a sister, who exercised so much influence over him, that in her presence a keeper could be dispensed with.

[174:1] The following, discovered by a friend in an old newspaper, is so amusing, and so descriptive of the man who was Hume's predecessor in office, that I cannot resist inserting it:—

On Captain (Beau) FORRESTER'S travelling to the Highlands of Scotland in winter, anno 1727, incog.

O'er Caledonia's ruder Alps

While Forrester pursu'd his way,

The mountains veil'd their rugged scalps,

And wrapt in snow and wonder lay!

Each sylvan god, each rural power,

Peep'd out to see the raree-show;

And all confess'd, that, till that hour,

They ne'er had seen so bright a beau.

Nay yet, and more I dare advance,

The story true as aught in print,

All nature round, in complaisance,

And imitation, took the hint.

The fields that whilome only bore

Wild heath, or clad at best with oats,

Despis'd these humble weeds, and wore

Rich spangled doublets, and lac'd coats.

The hills were periwigg'd with snow;

Pig-tails of ice hung on each tree;

The winds turn'd powder-puffs; and, lo,

On every shrub a sharp toupee!

With silver clocks the river gods

Appear'd; and some will take their oath,

Or lay at least a thousand odds,

The clouds saliving spit white froth.

The youth abash'd thus to survey

So rude a scene himself outdo,

His sprightly genius to display,

Resolv'd on something odd and new:

All things he found were grown genteel,

Which made him deem it a-propos,

To be alone in dishabile,

A Forrester, and not a beau.

Edinburgh Courant, Oct. 3, 1781.

[176:1] The baronet's daughter, Margaret, had married the Earl of Airley's eldest son, Lord Ogilvy, who, having engaged in the rebellion, had fled to the continent after the battle of Culloden. His wife, however, was among the prisoners; and in June 1746, she was committed to Edinburgh Castle. In the ensuing November she escaped; and having joined her husband in France, she died there, in 1757, at the age of thirty-three. Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, vol. i. p. 35.

[178:1] He had obtained this rank in 1729. Beatson's Political Index.

[178:2] Matthew Sharp, born 18th Feb. 1693, was the second son of John Sharp of Hoddam, by his wife Susan, daughter of John Muir of Cassencarrie, ancestor of Sir John Muir Mackenzie of Delvin, Bart. Mr. Sharp joined the Jacobite insurgents in the year 1715, and made his escape to Scotland, after the rout at Preston, in the disguise of a pig-driver. He then repaired to France, where he finally took up his residence at Boulogne. In the year 1740 his elder brother George died, and Mr. Sharp succeeded to the estate of Hoddam. He returned to his native country, and died, unmarried, at Hoddam castle, in the year 1769.

[179:1] Charles Erskine of Tinwald, third son of Sir Charles Erskine of Alva, Bart., a Lord of Session, with the style of Lord Tinwald. His first wife was Grizel, daughter of John Grierson of Barjarg, by Catherine, eldest sister of Matthew Sharp of Hoddam. Lord Tinwald's third daughter Jane, married to William Kirkpatrick, second son of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburne, Bart. was mother of Charles Kirkpatrick, to whom Matthew Sharp bequeathed his estate of Hoddam.

[180:1] Original in the possession of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. This letter is printed in The Edinburgh Annual Register for 1809, p. 552.

[196:1] So much had it been considered a legitimate object of the education of a young gentleman to bring him up to the expectation of a government office, that in the "Institute of the Law of Scotland," the posthumous work of John Erskine, who had been appointed professor of Scots law in the university of Edinburgh in 1737, it is mentioned as one of the duties of the guardian of a young man of good family with a small patrimony, to "advance a yearly sum, far beyond the interest of his patrimony, that he may appear suitably to his quality, while he is unprovided of any office under the government by which he can live decently." B. i. Tit. 7. § 25.

[197:1] Walpole gives a curious illustration of the poverty of the Scottish nobility, before "the forty-five," saying of Lord Kilmarnock, "I don't know whether I told you that the man at the tennis court protests that he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's gate, and says he would have often been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner. He was certainly so poor that in one of his wife's intercepted letters, she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can only get three shillings. Can any one help pitying such distress?" Walpole's Letters, ii. 144.

Goldsmith found the holder of a Scottish Peerage keeping a glove shop, and in the case of Lord Mordington, who had been arrested for debt, and claimed his privilege in the Common Pleas, "the bailiff made affidavit, that when he arrested the said lord, he was so mean in his apparel, as having a worn out suit of clothes and a dirty shirt on, and but sixpence in his pocket, he could not suppose him to be a peer of Great Britain, and of inadvertency arrested him." Fortescue's Reports, 165. This family was peculiarly celebrated, Lady Mordington having raised the question, whether a Scottish peeress who kept a tavern was protected by privilege of peerage from being amenable to the laws against keeping disorderly houses.

[198:1] He had an example connected with his own neighbourhood, if not with his own family, of the practice of the gentry following handicraft trades. George Hume, son of the minister of his native parish, Chirnside, who was connected with his own family, followed the humble occupation of a baker in the Canongate, and rose to the dignity of deacon of his trade. Ill-natured tradition says, that the philosopher disliked the vicinity to himself of this living illustration of the depression of the Scottish aristocracy, and occasionally put himself to some trouble to avoid meeting him on the street; but this tradition is not consistent with Hume's manly character.

[202:1] P. [179].

[208:1] My own Life.

[209:1] MS. R.S.E.

[209:2] Tytler's Life of Kames, i. 123.

[210:1] Douglas's Peerage, ii. 501-502.

[211:1] Campbell's Naval History, iv. 324. Appendix, A. It appears that Rodney commanded one of the ships, the Eagle.

[212:1] MS. R.S.E.

[214:1] Sic in MS.

[214:2] Ibid.

[217:1] MS. R.S.E.

[219:1] In the possession of Cosmo Innes, Esq.

[221:1] Mr. Tytler says, "The blank is in the manuscript, the reader will be at no loss to supply it."

[222:1] Tytler's Life of Kames, 125.

[222:2] Memorials, &c. 76.

[222:3] Beatson, Parliamentary Register.

[223:1] In allusion to the Royal Scottish Regiment—Bergen-op-zoom had been taken by storm on 16th Sept.

[223:2] This name—probably latinised from some joke known only to the parties, applies to Col. Edmonstoune of Newton.

[224:1] For Fifeshire.

[224:2] Memorials, &c. p. 54.

CHAPTER VI.

1746-1748. Æt. 35-37.

Hume returns to Ninewells—His domestic Position—His attempts in Poetry—Inquiry as to his Sentimentalism—Takes an interest in Politics—Appointed Secretary to General St. Clair on his mission to Turin—His journal of his Tour—Arrival in Holland—Rotterdam—The Hague—Breda—The War—French Soldiers—Nimeguen—Cologne—Bonn—The Rhine and its scenery—Coblentz—Wiesbaden—Frankfurt—Battle of Dettingen—Wurzburg—Ratisbon—Descent of the Danube—Observations on Germany—Vienna—The Emperor and Empress Queen—Styria—Carinthia—The Tyrol—Mantua—Cremona—Turin.

We now find Hume restored, though but for a brief period, to the tranquil retirement of Ninewells; and undisturbed by public events, civil or warlike, sitting down quietly among his books in the midst of his family circle, consisting of his mother, his elder brother, and his sister. It would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of this circle and its habits; but the lapse of nearly a century has thrown it too far into the shade of time, to permit of these minute objects being distinguished. Perhaps the following scrap from the papers preserved by Hume himself,[225:1] may represent the evening diversions of Ninewells. It is written by another hand, but is touched and corrected here and there by Hume. Whether or not it is intended to have any reference to himself, is a matter on which I shall not attempt to forestall the reader's judgment.

Character of ——, written by himself.

1. A very good man, the constant purpose of whose life is to do mischief.

2. Fancies he is disinterested, because he substitutes vanity in place of all other passions.

3. Very industrious, without serving either himself or others.

4. Licentious in his pen, cautious in his words, still more so in his actions.

5. Would have had no enemies, had he not courted them; seems desirous of being hated by the public, but has only attained the being railed at.

6. Has never been hurt by his enemies, because he never hated any one of them.

7. Exempt from vulgar prejudices—full of his own.

8. Very bashful, somewhat modest, no way humble.

9. A fool, capable of performances which few wise men can execute.

10. A wise man, guilty of indiscretions which the greatest simpletons can perceive.