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LETTER XXXIII.: An Application to Lord Hertford. - 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 XXXIII.

An Application to Lord Hertford.

Dear Strahan

It was not possible for me to get an Opportunity last Night of speaking to Lord Hertford1. ; I shall try if I can be more fortunate this Evening; and I shall as soon as possible, give you Information: A Moment will be sufficient, as I have only to put him in Mind of his Engagements—Yours

D. H.

[1.]Note 1. Dr. Alexander Carlyle gives us a glimpse of Hume as an Under-Secretary of State. He met him at a dinner where there were some people connected with the Court. He says:—‘The conversation was lively and agreeable, but we were much amused with observing how much the thoughts and conversation of all those in the least connected were taken up with every trifling circumstance that related to the Court…. It was truly amusing to observe how much David Hume's strong and capacious mind was filled with infantine anecdotes of nurses and children.’ Carlyle's Auto. p. 518.

Fox wrote of Hume:—‘He was an excellent man, and of great powers of mind; but his partiality to kings and princes is intolerable: Nay, it is in my opinion quite ridiculous; and is more like the foolish admiration which women and children sometimes have for Kings than the opinion, right or wrong, of a philosopher.’ Edinburgh Review, No. xxiv, p. 277.