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TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ARCHIBALD PHILIP
FIFTH EARL OF ROSEBERY
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF THE SERVICES WHICH HE HAS RENDERED
TO LITERATURE
BY SAVING THESE LETTERS
FROM DISPERSION
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

In the summer of last year I was allowed to examine this series of Letters1 . The interest with which I read them made me long to save them from dispersion. Were they once scattered by auction, their fate would be the fate of the leaves of the Sibyl—

Numquam deinde cavo volitantia prendere saxo,
Nec revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curat.

The price that was asked for them, though large in itself, was moderate when the importance of the collection was considered. Yet for some weeks I almost despaired of finding a purchaser. The funds at the disposal of the Bodleian Library were altogether inadequate. At the British Museum I should probably have met with success, had not its grant been lately curtailed. By the happy suggestion of the Master of Balliol College I applied to the Earl of Rosebery. His lordship at once consented to buy the whole collection. The obligation under which he has thereby laid men of letters will, I feel sure, be by them gratefully acknowledged. Unfortunately the series is not quite perfect, for a few of the letters had been sold separately by a previous owner. My efforts to get copies of these have been so far fruitless.

In preparing my notes I have made use of the collection of Hume Papers in the possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh1 . I had hoped to find among them the other side of the correspondence, but in this I was disappointed. Only a few of Strahan's letters have been preserved. Of one letter that was missing he happily had kept a copy. Hume, with a levity which is only found in a man who is indifferent to strict truthfulness, had charged him with deception. The answer which was sent must have startled that ease-loving philosopher from his complacency, and taught him a lesson which it was a disgrace to him not to have learnt long before2 .

In my notes my aim has been not only to make every letter clear, but also to bring before my readers the thoughts and the feelings of Hume's contemporaries in regard to the subjects which he discusses. ‘Every book,’ he says, 'should be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other books3 .’ If this rule is just, I could not but let my notes swell under my hand, so varied and so interesting are the matters touched on in his letters. On his quarrel with Rousseau I dwell at considerable length. The rank which the two men held in the republic of letters was so high, the interest which their strife excited was so great, and the spectators of the contest were so eminent, that even at this distance of time it deserves to be carefully studied. My endeavour has been not only to examine the conduct of the two men4 , but also to exhibit the opinions which were entertained by all who were in any way concerned1 . The violence of Hume's feelings towards the English which is shown in many of his letters2 is curious enough to justify a long note3 . It was due it is clear partly to a deep sense of slighted merit, and partly to anger at what he describes as ‘the mad and wicked rage against the Scots4 .’ Violent as he was towards Englishmen in general, still more violent was he towards the most famous Englishman of his time5 . Why Lord Chatham roused his anger I have attempted to explain6 . The confidence of Hume's belief that the country was on the eve of bankruptcy7 , is one more proof how fallible may be the judgment of even the first historian and the first economist of his age8 . His no less confident expectations about the war with our American colonies were however speedily justified by the event. From the outset he saw that conquest was impossible9 . It will be seen that a few months after his death some of these letters were shown to George III10 . We may wonder whether the king's obstinacy was for a moment shaken, when he read the lines in which his highly-pensioned Tory historian proved that only ‘the oppressive arm of arbitrary power’ could crush the rebels11 . How much it were to be wished that he had seen also that other letter where Hume tells how he had found the First Lord of the Admiralty, with some loose associates, fishing for trout ‘with incredible satisfaction, at a time when the fate of the British Empire was in dependence, and in dependence on him12 .’

If these Letters exhibit, as they too often do, Hume's ‘distempered, discontented thoughts,’ his moral cowardice, his vanity, and his unmanly complaints of the neglect of the world, they show at the same time the noble industry of the scholar. If from a love of ‘ignoble ease’ he suppressed Essays and Dialogues1 , yet it was not into ‘peaceful sloth’ that he sank. He more than once quotes ‘a saying of Rousseau's, that one half of a man's life is too little to write a book and the other half to correct it2 .’ In truth, he never wearied of the attempt to bring his works as near to perfection as possible, and it was from his death-bed that his last corrections were sent3 .

Hume's spelling I have retained, for it is interesting both in its peculiarities and its blunders. That he had his own views about orthography is shown hereafter4 .

His brief Autobiography, which I have reprinted, will be a convenient introduction to the study of his Letters.

In the letters from Adam Smith, one of which is new5 , and from Hume's brother and nephew, some account is given of the publication of the manuscripts which he left behind him.

I should treat the memory of an eminent man of letters with injustice did I not express my great obligations to Dr. Burton's Life of David Hume. I have also to thank Sir James Fitzjames Stephen for his permission to print an interesting letter on post-office franks6 ; Dr. Andrews for information about the Ohio Scheme7 ; Mr. James Gordon, M.A., the learned Librarian of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and Mr. G. K. Fortescue, of the British Museum, who has helped me in many difficulties which from time to time I encountered in editing these Letters.

G. B. H.

the life of david hume, Esq.

written by himself.

my own life.

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity, therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain little more than the history of my writings, as indeed almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of vanity.

I was born the twenty-sixth of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I was of a good family, both by father and mother. My father's family is a branch of the earl of Home's or Hume's1. ; and my ancestors had been proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses for several generations2. . My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession to her brother.

My family, however, 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 sister, under the care of our mother, a woman of singular merit: who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her children1. . I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion2. of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. 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 unsurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and, while they fancied I was poring upon Voet3. and Vinnius4. , Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring5. .

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 life1. . In 1734, I went to Bristol, with recommendations to eminent merchants; but in a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me2. . 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.

During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Fleche, 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. In the end of 1738, I published my treatise1. , and immediately went down to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and was employing himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement of his fortune.

Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press2. without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country. In 1742, I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays, the work was favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former disappointment3. . 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 youth1. .

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 fortune2. . I then received an invitation from general St Clair, to attend him as secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France3. . Next year, to wit 1747, I received an invitation from the general, to attend him in the same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at these courts as aid-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry Erskine, and Captain Grant, now General Grant1. . These two years were almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during the course of my life: I passed them agreeably, and in good company; and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds.

I had always entertained a notion that my want of success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to the press too early2. . I therefore cast the first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin3. . But this piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human Nature. On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account of Dr Middleton's Free Enquiry4. , while my performance was entirely overlooked and neglected. A new edition, which had been published at London of my Essays, moral and political, met not with a much better reception1.

Such is the force2. of natural temper, that these disappointments made little or no impression on me. I went down in 1749, and lived two years with my brother, at his country-house, for my mother was now dead. I there composed the second part of my essay, which I called Political Discourses, and also my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which is another part of my treatise that I cast anew. Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Millar3. , informed me that my former publications (all but the unfortunate treatise) were beginning to be the subject of conversation; that the sale of them was gradually increasing, and that new editions were demanded. Answers by Reverends and Right Reverends came out two or three in a year1. ; and I found, by Dr Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company. However, I had fixed a resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body2. ; and not being very irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all literary squabbles. These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.

In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters1. . In 1752, were published at Edinburgh, where I then lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was successful on the first publication. It was well received abroad and at home2. . In the same year was published at London, my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals3. ; which, in my own opinion, (who ought not to judge on that subject,) is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world1. .

In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library2. . I then formed the plan of writing the History of England, but being frightened with the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of 1700 years, I commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when I thought the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place3. . I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation: English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I4. and the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it1. . I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book2. . I must only except the primate of England, Dr Herring3. , and the primate of Ireland, Dr Stone4. , which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.

I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and, had not the war at that time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never more have returned to my native country1. ; but as this scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.

In this interval, I published at London my Natural History of Religion, along with some other small pieces2. : its public entry was rather obscure, except only that Dr Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which distinguish the Warburtonian school3. . This pamphlet gave me some consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.

In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death of Charles I till the Revolution. This performance happened to give less displeasure to the Whigs, and was better received. It not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother4. .

But though I had been taught by experience that the Whig party were in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which further study, reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the Tory side1. . It is ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that period as a regular plan of liberty.

In 1759, I published my History of the House of Tudor. The clamour against this performance was almost equal to that against the History of the two first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly obnoxious2. . But I was now callous against the impressions of public folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat at Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of The English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable, and but tolerable, success3. .

But, notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons to which my writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances, that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any thing formerly known in England1. . I was become not only independent, but opulent, I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never more to set my foot out of it; and retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them. As I was now turned of fifty, I thought of passing all the rest of my life in this philosophical manner2. , when I received, in 1763, an invitation from the Earl of Hertford, with whom I was not in the least acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris, with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in the mean while, of performing the functions of that office3. . This offer, however inviting, I at first declined, both because I was reluctant to begin connections with the great, and because I was afraid that the civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a person of my age and humour; but on his lordship's repeating the invitation, I accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure and interest, to think myself happy in my connections with that nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother, General Conway1. .

Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never imagine the strange reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and stations2. . The more I resiled3. from their excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with which the city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought once of settling there for life.

I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer 1765, Lord Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland4. . I was chargé d’affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards the end of the year. In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris5. , and next summer went to Edinburgh6. , with the same view as formerly, of burying myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place not richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it7. ; and I was desirous of trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an experiment of a competency. But in 1767 I received from Mr Conway an invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation both the character of the person, and my connections with Lord Hertford, prevented me from declining8. . I returned to Edinburgh in 1769 very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of one thousand pounds a year1. ,) healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation2. .

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels3. , which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and, what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person4. , never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch that were I to name a period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this later period5. . I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man at sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre6. , I knew that I could have but very few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.

To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments) I was, I say, a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour1. , capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments2. . My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability1. . I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.

April 18, 1776.

[1]They belonged to Mr. F. Barker, of 43, Rowan Road, Brook Green, a dealer in autographs, to whom I have expressed my acknowledgments in my edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, for the permission which he gave me to print some of Johnson's letters that were in his possession. I may add that he has lent me also a large and curious collection of letters written to William and Andrew Strahan, by men of letters and publishers, chiefly Scottish. Of these I have made some use in my notes to the present work. It would be a great pity if the dispersion which threatens them were not averted.

[1]My extracts from these papers are marked M. S. R. S. E.

[2]Post, p. 266.

[3]History of England, ed. 1802, ii. 101.

[4]Post, pp. 76–84.

[1]Post, pp. 86–92.

[2]Post, pp. 114, 151, 247, 248, 255.

[3]Post, pp. 50–58.

[4]Post, pp. 49, 58–63.

[5]Post, pp. 113, 134, 185, 289.

[6]Post, p. 195, n. 29.

[7]Post, pp. 114, 161, 173, 185, 201, 217.

[8]The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Wealth of Nations were not published till the last year of Hume's life (post, p. 314).

[9]Post, pp. 174, 288, 308.

[10]Post, p. 367.

[11]Post, p. 289.

[12]Post, p. 324.

[1]Post, pp. 230, 233, 330–2, 346.

[2]Post, p. 200.

[3]Post, p. 342.

[4]Post, p. 27.

[5]Post, p. 351.

[6]Post, p. 189.

[7]Post, p. 163.

[1.]Hume showed his family pride by selecting the Earl of Home as one of the two witnesses to his will. For the spelling of the name see post, p. 9, n. 10.

[2.]The estate, which lay very near Berwick, bore the name of Ninewells. ‘It is so named from a cluster of springs of that number. 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.’ Burton's Life of Hume, i. 8.

[1.]Dr. Alexander Carlyle records the following anecdote, which he had from one of ‘Hume's most intimate friends, the Honourable Patrick Boyle.’ ‘When David and he were both in London, at the period when David's mother died, Mr. Boyle found him in the deepest affliction, and in a flood of tears. He said to him, “My friend, you owe this uncommon grief to your having thrown off the principles of religion; for if you had not, you would have been consoled by the firm belief that the good lady, who was not only the best of mothers, but the most pious of Christians, was now completely happy in the realms of the just.” To which David replied, “Though I threw out my speculations to entertain and employ the learned and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do not think so differently from the rest of mankind as you may imagine.”’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Autobiography, p. 273. With this anecdote we may contrast the following: Lord Charlemont ‘hinted’ to Hume, shortly after his return to England in 1766, ‘that he was convinced he must be perfectly happy in his new friend Rousseau, as their sentiments were, he believed, nearly similar. “Why no, man,” said he; “in that you are mistaken; Rousseau is not what you think him; he has a hankering after the Bible, and indeed is little better than a Christian in a way of his own.”’ Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont, ed. 1812, i. 230.

[2.]The ‘ruling passion’ comes from Pope's Moral Essays, i. 174:—

'search then the ruling passion: there alone
The wild are constant, and the cunning known.’

Johnson speaks of this as Pope's ‘favourite theory,’ and adds:—‘Of any passion, thus innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted.’ Johnson's Works, ed. 1825, viii. 293.

[3.]Paul Voet, born 1619, died 1677, a Dutch jurisconsult, published among other works Commentarius in Institutiones imperiales. His son John, born 1647, died 1714, published Commentarius ad Pandectas. Nouv. Biog. Gén. xlvi. 335.

[4.]Arnold Vinnen, born 1588, died 1657. Francis Horner, in the plan which he laid down for the study of the Scotch law in 1797, says:—‘I must study both Heineccius and Vinnius.’ Life of Horner, ed. 1843, i. 52.

[5.]Hume, in a statement of his health which he drew up for a physician in the year 1734, says:—‘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.’ Burton's Hume, i. 31.

[1.]In this same statement, after describing a weakness of spirits into which he had fallen, which hindered him from ‘following out any train of thought by one continued stretch of view,’ he continues:—‘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.’ Ib. p. 37. It is a curious coincidence that Hume and Johnson were first attacked by melancholy at the same time. ‘About the beginning of September, 1729,’ says Hume, ‘all my ardour seemed to be in a moment extinguished.’ Ib. p. 31. ‘While Johnson was at Lichfield,’ writes Boswell, ‘in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria.’ Boswell's Life of Johnson, Clarendon Press edition, i. 63. We may compare with both these cases the melancholy into which John Stuart Mill sank at about the same age, in the autumn of 1826. Mill's Autobiography, ed. 1873, p. 133.

[2.]In the Memoirs of Hannah More, i. 16, it is stated that ‘she was much indebted for her critical knowledge to a linen-draper of Bristol, of the name of Peach. He had been the friend of Hume, who had shown his confidence in his judgment by entrusting to him the correction of his History, in which he used to say he had discovered more than two hundred Scotticisms.’ He told her that ‘Hume was dismissed from the merchant's counting-house on account of the promptitude of his pen in correction of the letters entrusted to him to copy.’ The narrative is not free from error, as it is stated in it that Hume resided two years in Bristol.

[1.]The publisher, John Noone, gave Hume £50, and twelve bound copies of the book for right to publish an edition of the first two volumes, of one thousand copies. Dr. Burton, after praising Noone's ‘discernment and liberality,’ continues:—‘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.’ Burton's Hume, i. 66. The book had become so scarce by the time of Hume's death, that the reviewer of his Life in the Annual Register for 1776, ii. 28, thinks it needful, he says, to give some account of it.

[2.]

‘All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last Gazette, or the last Address.’

Pope, Epil. Sat. ii. 226.

[3.]Hume not only published these Essays anonymously, but feigned that they were the work of a new author. Burton's Hume, i. 136. On June 13, 1742, he wrote to Henry Home (afterwards Lord Kames):—‘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 [the author of the Analogy] has everywhere recommended them.’ Ib. p. 143. The first volume was published in 1741. They are mentioned in the list of books for March, 1742, in the Gent. Mag., but are not reviewed. The Treatise of Human Nature was not even mentioned.

[1.]Hume, in a letter dated Feb. 19, 1751, speaks of ‘having read over almost all the classics both Greek and Latin.’ Burton's Hume, i. 326. See post, p. 322, n. 2, for an instance of his inaccuracy as a Greek scholar.

[2.]‘On March 5, 1748, the Marquis 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 Dec 12, 1744.’ Burton's Hume, i. 171. ‘He appears to have been haunted by a spirit of literary ambition.’ He wrote a novel ‘of which,’ says Hume, ‘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.’ Ib. p. 173. Hume was treated with great insolence by a Captain Vincent, a cousin of the Marchioness-Dowager, whom he suspected of evil designs about the property. He was suddenly dismissed, and he was robbed of a quarter's salary of £75, which was clearly due to him. So late as the year 1761 he was still urging his claim, by which time the accumulated savings of the Annandale property amounted to £400,000. Whether he was paid or not is not known. Ib. p. 205. Dr. Thomas Murray, who in 1841 edited Letters of David Hume, says (p. 80) ‘that his claim was only resisted because the agents for the estates did not regard themselves safe in making any payments, unless the debt was established by legal evidence.’

So early as July 7, 1742, Horace Walpole had written:—‘Lord Annandale is at last mad in all the forms; he has long been an out-pensioner of Bedlam College.’ Letters, i. 185.

[3.]The incursion on the coast of France in 1746 was devised in the vain hope of saving the Ministry from disgrace, who had delayed the departure of the expedition against Canada till it was too late in the year. An attempt was first made against Port L’Orient; that disgracefully failing, a second was made against the peninsula of Quiberon. A ship of war was destroyed, a small fort was dismantled, and two little islands were held by our sailors for at least a fortnight. Lord Charlemont was told by General St. Clair (Sinclair), that he had earnestly requested from the War Office a set of accurate maps, as he was wholly unacquainted with the country which he was to invade. When he unpacked them, ‘they proved to be sea-charts!’ Memoirs of Charlemont, i. 16. Hume wrote to his brother:—‘The general and admiral were totally unacquainted with every part of the coast, without pilots, guides, or intelligence of any kind.’ Burton's Hume, i. 213.

[1.]Lord Charlemont, who met Hume at Turin, thus describes him:—‘Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume…. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher. His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable…. His wearing an uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. Sinclair was sent to the Courts of Vienna and Turin as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Austrians and Piedmontese. It was therefore thought necessary that his Secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet.’ Memoirs of Charlemont, i. 15. Horace Walpole, writing of Sinclair's appointment, says:—‘He is Scotchissime, in all the latitude of the word, and not very able.’ Letters, ii. 100.

[2.]See post, p. 302, n. 21.

[3.]This work, which was published anonymously, and at first under the title of Philosophical Essays on Human Understanding, is included in the list of books for April in the Gent. Mag. for 1748. It is not reviewed. Hume's publishers put a very moderate price on his philosophical works. This book was sold for three shillings, and his Essays Moral and Political for half-a-crown. Ib. 1742, p. 168.

[4.]A Free Enquiry into the miraculous powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries. Gent. Mag., December, 1748. Gibbon, describing how, in the year 1753, in his undergraduate days at Oxford, ‘he bewildered himself in the errors of the Church of Rome,’ says:—‘It was not long since Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry had sounded an alarm in the theological world: much ink and much gall had been spilt in the defence of the primitive miracles; and the two dullest of their champions were crowned with academic honours by the University of Oxford. The name of Middleton was unpopular; and his proscription very naturally led me to peruse his writings, and those of his antagonists. His bold criticism, which approaches the precipice of infidelity, produced on my mind a singular effect; and had I persevered in the communion of Rome, I should now apply to my own fortune the prediction of the Sybil,

Via prima salutis,
Quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe1 .

The elegance of style and freedom of argument were repelled by a shield of prejudice. I still revered the character, or rather the names of the saints and fathers whom Dr. Middleton exposes; nor could he destroy my implicit belief, that the gift of miraculous powers was continued in the Church during the first four or five centuries of Christianity. But I was unable to resist the weight of historical evidence, that within the same period most of the leading doctrines of Popery were already introduced in theory and practice: nor was my conclusion absurd, that miracles are the test of truth, and that the Church must be orthodox and pure, which was so often approved by the visible interposition of the Deity.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works, ed. 1814, i. 60. In his Vindication Gibbon says:—‘A theological barometer might be formed, of which Cardinal Baronius and our countryman, Dr. Middleton, should constitute the opposite and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest degree of credulity which was compatible with learning, and the latter rose to the highest pitch of scepticism in anywise consistent with religion.’ Ib. iv. 588.

[1.]It was the third edition. With three editions in seven years Hume might have been contented.

[2.]In the first edition, source.

[3.]‘Mr. Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge of conducting the publication of Johnson's Dictionary…. When the messenger who carried the last sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him, “Well, what did he say?” “Sir (answered the messenger) he said, thank God, I have done with him.” “I am glad (replied Johnson with a smile) that he thanks God for any thing.” … Johnson said of him, “I respect Millar, Sir; he has raised the price of literature.”’ Boswell's Johnson, i. 287. ‘Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, “Andrew Millar,” says Johnson, “is the Mæcenas of the age.”’ Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 200. Mr. Croker says that Millar was the bookseller described by Johnson on April 24, 1779, as ‘so habitually and equably drunk that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another.’ Croker's Boswell, 8vo. ed. p. 630. Drunkenness such as this seems inconsistent with ‘the consummate industry’ which Nichols praised in him. Nichols adds:—‘He was not extravagant; but contented himself with an occasional regale of humble port at an opposite tavern; so that his wealth accumulated rapidly.’ Nichols, Lit. Anec. iii. 387. By his italicising ‘not extravagant,’ he implies no doubt that he was somewhat near. In a note on Millar in my edition of Boswell, i. 287, I have made an absurd blunder in quoting, as if serious, a letter written by Hume in a spirit of wild extravagance.

See post, p. 149, n. 10, for the marriage of Millar's widow.

[1.]One of the answers was by Johnson's friend, Dr. William Adams. When Johnson and Boswell called on him in March 1776, at Pembroke College, of which he was then Master, ‘he told me,’ says Boswell, ‘he had once dined in company with Hume in London; that Hume shook hands with him, and said, “You have treated me much better than I deserve”; and that they exchanged visits. I took the liberty to object to treating an infidel writer with smooth civility…. Johnson coincided with me, and said, “When a man voluntarily engages in an important controversy, he is to do all he can to lessen his antagonist, because authority from personal respect has much weight with most people, and often more than reasoning. If my antagonist writes bad language, though that may not be essential to the question, I will attack him for his bad language.” Adams. “You would not jostle a chimney-sweeper.” Johnson. “Yes, Sir, if it were necessary to jostle him down.”’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 441.

[2.]Hume forgets his reply to Rousseau (post, p. 84), and his note in his History on ‘a person that has written an Enquiry historical and critical into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots; and has attempted to refute the foregoing narrative. It is in this note that he makes his famous assertion:—‘There are, indeed, three events in our history which may be regarded as touchstones of party-men. An English Whig, who asserts the reality of the Popish Plot, an Irish Catholic, who denies the massacre in 1641, and a Scotch Jacobite, who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be left to their prejudices.’ History of England, ed. 1802, v. 504. The ‘person’ was the Scotch Jacobite, Patrick Lord Elibank, to whom Hume wrote a very bitter letter. Burton's Hume, ii. 252.

[1.]‘I have the strangest reluctance to change places,’ wrote Hume from London on Jan. 25, 1759. Burton's Hume, ii. 50. This reluctance he expresses on other occasions. He might have remained at Ninewells had not his brother ‘plucked up a resolution’ and got married. Writing on March 19, 1751, he says:—'since my brother's departure, Katty [his sister] and I have been computing in our turn, and the result of our deliberation is, that we are to take up house in Berwick; where, if arithmetic and frugality don’t deceive us (and they are pretty certain arts), we shall be able, after providing for hunger, warmth, and cleanliness, to keep a stock in reserve, which we may afterwards turn to the purposes of hoarding, luxury, or charity.’ Burton's Hume, i. 338. On June 22 he wrote from Ninewells:—‘While interest remains as at present, I have £50 a year, a hundred pounds worth of books, great store of linens and fine clothes, and near £100 in my pocket; along with order, frugality, a strong spirit of independency, good health, a contented humour, and an unabating love of study. In these circumstances, I must esteem myself one of the happy and fortunate; and so far from being willing to draw my ticket over again in the lottery of life, there are very few prizes with which I would make an exchange. After some deliberation, I am resolved to settle in Edinburgh…. Besides other reasons which determine me to this resolution, I would not go too far away from my sister, who thinks she will soon follow me…. And as she can join £30 to my stock, and brings an equal love of order and frugality, we doubt not to make our revenues answer.’ Ib. p. 342. At the end of the year he was a candidate for the Chair of Logic in the University of Glasgow, which was vacated by Adam Smith's transference to the Chair of Moral Philosophy. He had, it is said, Edmund Burke for his competitor, but to both of them was preferred one Mr. Clow. Ib. p. 350. Adam Smith wrote to Dr. William Cullen:—‘Edin. Tuesday. November 1751…. I should prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague; but I am afraid the public would not be of my opinion; and the interest of the society will oblige us to have some regard to the opinion of the public.’ Thomson's Life of Cullen, i. 606.

[2.]It is in the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1752, but is not reviewed.

[3.]It was published in Dec. 1751. Gent. Mag. 1751, p. 574.

[1.]It is not even mentioned in the Gent. Mag.

[2.]In this post Hume succeeded Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland; ‘whose farewell letter to the Faculty of Advocates, when he resigned the office of their Librarian, should,’ said Johnson, ‘have been in Latin.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 216. Hume describes the post as ‘a petty office of forty or fifty guineas a year.’ He calls it also ‘a genteel office.’ Burton's Hume, i. 370. In 1754 he was censured by three of the curators—James Burnet (Lord Monboddo), Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), and another—for buying three French books, which they described as ‘indecent, and unworthy of a place in a learned library.’ Writing about this to Adam Smith, he says:—‘Being equally unwilling to lose the use of the books, and to bear an indignity, I retain the office, but have given Blacklock, our blind poet, a bond of annuity for the salary. I have now put it out of these malicious fellows’ power to offer me any indignity, while my motive for remaining in this office is so apparent.’ Ib. p. 393. See post, p. 352, n. 4. In January, 1757, he resigned his office in the curtest of letters. Ib. ii. 18.

[3.]‘David Hume used to say that he did not find it an irksome task to him to go through a great many dull books when writing his History. “I then read,” said he, “not for pleasure, but in order to find out facts.” He compared it to a sportsman seeking hares, who does not mind what sort of ground it is that he goes over further than as he may find hares in it. From himself.’ Boswelliana, p. 263.

[4.]Hume writing to his friend William Mure about the first volume of his History says:—‘The first quality of an historian is to be true and impartial. The next to be interesting. If you do not say that I have done both parties justice, and if Mrs. Mure be not sorry for poor King Charles, I shall burn all my papers and return to philosophy.’ Burton's Hume, i. 409.

[1.]It is in the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for November, 1754, but is not reviewed; Hume wrote to the Earl of Balcarres from Edinburgh, on Dec. 17:—‘My History has been very much canvassed and read here in town, as I am told; and it has full as many inveterate enemies as partial defenders. The misfortune of a book, says Boileau, is not the being ill spoke of, but the not being spoken of at all. The sale has been very considerable here, about 450 copies in five weeks. How it has succeeded in London, I cannot precisely tell; only I observe that some of the weekly papers have been busy with me.—I am as great an Atheist as Bolingbroke; as great a Jacobite as Carte; I cannot write English, &c.’ Burton's Hume, i. 412. Hume seems at one time to have attributed the smallness of the London sale to the fault of his Edinburgh bookseller, Baillie Hamilton. He wrote to Millar on April 12, 1755:—‘I think the London booksellers have had a sufficient triumph over him, when a book, which was much expected and was calculated to be popular, has had so small a sale in his hands. To make the triumph more complete I wish you would take what remains into your hands, and dispose of it in a few months.’ MS., R. S. E.

[2.]Horace Walpole, writing of it on March 27, 1755, speaks of it as ‘a book, which though more decried than ever book was, and certainly with faults, I cannot help liking much. It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-Abite; where others abuse the Stuarts, he laughs at them: I am sure he does not spare their ministers. Harding [the Clerk of the House of Commons], who has the History of England at the ends of his parliament fingers, says that the Journals will contradict most of his facts. If it is so, I am sorry; for his style, which is the best we have in history, and his manner, imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing.’ Letters, ii. 428. Johnson called Hume ‘an echo of Voltaire.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 53.

[3.]Horace Walpole, writing on Oct. 4, 1745, in the midst of the alarm caused by the Young Pretender's victory at Preston-Pans, says:—‘The nobility are raising regiments, and everybody else is—being raised. Dr. Herring, the Archbishop of York, has set an example that would rouse the most indifferent: in two days after the news arrived at York of Cope's defeat, and when they every moment expected the victorious rebels at their gates, the Bishop made a speech to the assembled county, that had as much true spirit, honesty, and bravery in it as ever was penned by an historian for an ancient hero.’ Letters, i. 394. Herring was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1747.

[4.]Horace Walpole says that Stone, ‘with no pretensions in the world but by being attached to the House of Dorset, and by being brother of Mr. Stone [sub-governor to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III], had been hurried through two or three Irish bishoprics up to the very primacy of the kingdom, not only unwarrantably young, but without even the graver excuses of learning or sanctimony.’ Memoirs of George II, ed. 1822, i. 244.

[1.]Hume wrote to a friend on April 20, 1756:—‘Were I to change my habitation, I would retire to some provincial town in France, to trifle out my old age, near a warm sun in a good climate, a pleasant country, and amidst a sociable people. My stock would then maintain me in some opulence; for I have the satisfaction to tell you, dear Doctor, that on reviewing my affairs I find that I am worth £1600 sterling, which, at five per cent., makes near 1800 livres a year—that is, the pay of two French captains.’ Burton's Hume, i. 437. Horace Walpole, writing on March 28, 1777, says:—‘Have you read Hume's Life, and did you observe that he thought of retiring to France, and changing his name, because his works had not got him a name? Lord Bute called himself Sir John Stuart in Italy to shroud the beams of a title too gorgeous; but it is new to conceal a name that nobody had heard of.’ Letters, vi. 423.

[2.]For some Essays which he suppressed at this time see past, pp. 230–3, and p. 346, n. 2.

[3.]See post, pp. 20, 200. Gibbon in his Decline and Fall, ed. 1807, iv. 86, thus mentions ‘the Warburtonian school’:—‘The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the late Bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton; who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled Julian is strongly marked with all the peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.’

[4.]See post, pp. 2, 4.

[1.]See post, p. 75, n. 4, for his complaint in his last illness of the design of the Whigs to ruin him as an author. He forgets to point out that only four years after the publication of his second volume, by the accession of George III, the Tory writers were in a far more favourable position than the Whigs. See his Philosophical Works, ed. 1854, iii. 74, for a long passage on Whigs and Tories, which he suppressed in the later editions of his Essays. In it, speaking of the Tories, he had said:—‘There are few men of knowledge or learning, at least few philosophers since Mr. Locke has wrote, who would not be ashamed to be thought of that party.’

[2.]Hume wrote to Dr. Robertson on Jan. 25, 1759:—‘You will see what light and force this History of the Tudors bestows on that of the Stuarts. Had I been prudent, I should have begun with it. I care not to boast, but I will venture to say that I have now effectually stopped the mouths of all those villainous Whigs who railed at me.’ Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 342. Horace Walpole wrote of it on March 15:—‘I have not advanced far in it, but it appears an inaccurate and careless, as it certainly has been a very hasty performance.’ Letters, iii. 216. It was brought out almost at the same time as Robertson's History of Scotland, Voltaire's Candide, and Johnson's Rasselas.

[3.]Dugald Stewart says:—‘Adam Smith observed to me, not long before his death, that after all his practice in writing he composed as slowly and with as great difficulty as at first. He added that Mr. Hume had acquired so great a facility, that the last volumes of his History were printed from his original copy, with a few marginal corrections. When Mr. Smith was composing, he generally walked up and down his apartment, dictating to a secretary. All Mr. Hume's works (I have been assured) were written with his own hand. A critical reader may, I think, perceive in the different styles of these two classical writers the effects of their different modes of study.’ Life of Adam Smith, ed. 1811, p. 107.

‘Horne Tooke said that Hume wrote his History as witches say their prayers—backwards.’ Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, p. 123.

[1.]See post, p. 33, n. 2. In 1767 writing to a friend he says:—'some push me to continue my History. Millar offers me any price.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 392.

[2.]‘When Mr. David Hume began first to be known in the world as a philosopher, Mr. Thomas White, a decent rich merchant of London, said to him, “I am surprised, Mr. Hume, that a man of your good sense should think of being a philosopher. Why, I now took it into my head to be a philosopher for some time, but tired of it most confoundedly, and very soon gave it up.” “Pray, Sir,” said Mr. Hume, “in what branch of philosophy did you employ your researches? What books did you read?” “Books?” said Mr. White; “nay, Sir, I read no books, but I used to sit you whole forenoons a-yawning and poking the fire.”’ Boswelliana, p. 221. See Burton's Hume, ii. 392, where Hume speaks of his pleasure in ‘idleness, and sauntering and society.’ In reporting to a friend Lord Hertford's invitation he said, ‘he rouses me from a state of indolence and sloth, which I falsely dignified with the name of philosophy.’ Hume's Private Corres. p. 70.

[3.]Hume wrote to a friend on Jan. 9, 1764:—‘When I came up to London, I found that Mr. [afterwards Sir Charles] Bunbury, a gentleman of considerable fortune, and married to the Duke of Richmond's sister, had already been appointed Secretary; but was so disagreeable to the ambassador that he was resolved never to see, or do business with his secretary, and therefore desired I should attend him, in order to perform the functions.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 183. In another letter he adds:—‘The King gave me a pension of £200 a year for life, to engage me to attend his Lordship. My Lord is very impatient to have me Secretary to the Embassy; and writes very earnest letters to that purpose to the Ministers…. Mr. Bunbury has great interest…. The appointments of this office are above £1000 a year, and the expense attending it nothing.’ Ib. p. 188. See post, pp. 40, 69, n, 1.

[1.]See post, p. 69, n. 1; 103, n. 1.

[2.]See post, p. 50, n. 3.

[3.]Johnson in his Dictionary gives resilience, and resiliency, but not resile.

[4.]See post, p. 69, n. 1.

[5.]He passes over in silence his quarrel with Rousseau which took place in this year (post, p. 74).

[6.]See post, p. 86, n. 1.

[7.]Hume, I conjecture, means to say that his invested property was not larger, but that by the addition to his pension, which he owed to Lord Hertford's friendship (post, p. 55), he had a much larger income. He had also a much larger stock of uninvested money.

[8.]See post, p. 103, n. 1.

[1.]On Oct. 6, 1767, he wrote to his brother:—‘My income will be above £1100 a year, of which I shall not spend much above the half.’ MS., R. S. E.

[2.]Gibbon, only ‘twenty hours before his death, happened to fall into a conversation, not uncommon with him, on the probable duration of his life. He said that he thought himself a good life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works, ed. 1814, i. 422.

[3.]See post, p. 322, n. 2.

[4.]Six months before his death he had lost five stones’ weight. Post, p. 312, n. 1.

[5.]Gibbon in his fifty-second year wrote:—‘I shall soon enter into the period which, as the most agreeable of his long life, was selected by the judgment and experience of the sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the eloquent historian of nature [Buffon], who fixes our moral happiness to the mature season in which our passions are supposed to be calmed, our duties fulfilled, our ambition satisfied, our fame and fortune established on a solid basis. In private conversation that great and amiable man added the weight of his own experience; and this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far more inclined to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose any premature decay of the mind or body; but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 275.

[6.]See post, p. 55, n. 7, and p. 329. In an interesting review of his Life and Writings in the Annual Register for 1776, ii. 31, it is said that by the time his History was finished, ‘his reputation was complete. He was considered as the greatest writer of the age: his most insignificant performances were sought after with avidity.’

[1.]‘Dr. Robertson used frequently to say that in Mr. Hume's gaiety there was something which approached to infantine.’ Stewart's Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 211. Dr. Blair, in a letter to Hume's nephew dated Nov. 20, 1797, speaks of ‘that amiable naiveté and sprightly gaiety for which his uncle was so distinguished.’ M.S., R. S. E. Gray, writing to Dr. Beattie on July 2, 1770, asks:—‘Is not that naiveté and good-humour, which Hume's admirers celebrate in him, owing to this, that he has continued all his days an infant, but one that unhappily has been taught to read and write?’ Mason's Gray, ed. 1807, ii. 298. Dr. Burton tells how at the beginning of Hume's last illness a woman called on him ‘with the information that she had been intrusted with a message to him from on High. “This is a very important matter, Madam,” said the philosopher; “we must take it with deliberation;—perhaps you had better get a little temporal refreshment before you begin. Lassie, bring this good lady a glass of wine.” While she was preparing for the attack he entered good-humouredly into conversation with her; and discovering that her husband was a chandler, announced that he stood very much in want at that time of some temporal lights, and intrusted his guest with a very large order. This unexpected stroke of business at once absorbed all the good woman's thoughts; and forgetting her important mission she immediately trotted home to acquaint her husband with the good news.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 457. See post, p. 320.

[2.]Goldsmith admitted to Walpole that he envied Shakespeare. Walpole's Letters, vi. 379. Hume, in like manner, was jealous of Thomas à Becket. After mentioning the thousands of pilgrims to his tomb, he continues:—‘It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity of noble minds1 , that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world can never expect such tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to mankind.’ Hist. of Eng., ed. 1802, i. 422.

[1.]Lord Cockburn, in his Memoirs, ed. 1856, p. 201, gives a curious instance how thirty years after Hume's death the zealots of Edinburgh made use of the prejudices entertained against him to persecute Professor John Leslie.

Via prima salutis,
Quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe1 .

[1]Æneid, vi. 96.

[1]‘That last infirmity of noble mind.’Milton's Lycidas, l. 71.

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