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LETTER XVIII.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

Edition used:

Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

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LETTER XVIII.

Madame Riccoboni's Novel.

Mr. Hume's Compliments to Mr. Strahan. He sent him the two first Sheets of this Work, which he hopes Mr. Strahan receivd. In case he has not, Mr. Hume recommends it to Mr. Strahan to be translated into English. It is a work of Made de Riccoboni, so well known by the Letters of Lady Juliette Catesby. Mr. Hume will send over the other Sheets as they come from the Press. He desires Mr. Strahan to write to him. His Direction is under Cover to Lord Hertford at Northumberland House in the Strand.

Paris, 1 of April, 1764.

This Sheet may come to Mr. Strahan's hand before the two others: As this goes by a Messenger1. ; the other by General Clerk2. .

[1.]Note 1. Messenger. See ante, p. 44, n. 5.

[2.]Note 2. Hume, writing on April 26 of this year, says:—’It is almost out of the memory of man that any British has been here on a footing of familiarity with the good company except my Lord Holderness…. I may add General Clarke, who was liked and esteemed by several people of merit, which he owed to his great cleverness and ingenuity, and to his surprising courage in introducing himself.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 194. Dr. A. Carlyle, who met Clarke at Harrogate in 1764, gives a very different account of him (Auto. p. 451):—’He was a very singular man, of a very ingenious and active intellect, though he had broke short in his education by entering at an early age into the army; and having by nature a copious elocution, he threw out his notions, which were often new, with a force and rapidity which stunned you more than they convinced. He applied his warlike ideas to colloquial intercourse, and attacked your opinions as he would do a redoubt or a castle, not by sap and mine, but by open storm. I must confess that of all the men who had so much understanding he was the most disagreeable person to converse with whom I ever knew…. You must contradict him and wrangle with him, or you had no peace.’