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LETTER XXXIV.: Applications to Lord Hertford and General Conway. - 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 XXXIV.

Applications to Lord Hertford and General Conway.

Dear Strahan

I have been so happy as to prevail in my Applications both to Lord Hertford and to General Conway1. : I doubt not but Charles Townsend2. will be favourable to you. Pray, are you thinking of this new Dress in which you promis’d to put me? Shall I pretend to rival Cicero in Garb and Accoutrements3. .

Yours

D. H.

[1.]Note 1. Hume took advantage of his position to pay a compliment to an old friend. Writing to Dr. Blair on May 27, 1767 he says:—‘Tell Robertson that the Compliment at the End of General Conway's Letter to him was of my composing without any Orders from him. He smild when he read it; but said it was very proper and sign’d it. These are not bad Puffs from Ministers of State, as the silly World goes.’ M. S. R. S. E. Robertson earlier in the year had asked Hume to use his influence with General Conway about an appointment to some military chaplaincy. Stewart's Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 355.

[2.]Note 2. Charles Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer when this letter was written, and, to use Burke's words, still ‘lord of the ascendant.’ (Payne's Burke, i. 146.) He died in office on Sept. 4, 1767.

[3.]Note 3. Hume is referring to the proposed new editions of his works. See ante, p. 106.