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• The Life of David Hume , Esq.
• Letter From Adam Smith , Ll.d. to William Strahan , E Sq. 2.
• A Brief Account of William Strahan.
• Letters of Hume
• Letter I.: The History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter II.: On the Reception of Vol. Ii of the History.
• Letter III.: Bargaining With Millar the Bookseller.
• Letter IV.: The Quarto Edition of the Essays.
• Letter V.: The Bargain With Millar Concluded.
• Letter VI.: Dr. Hurd's Artifices.
• Letter VII.: Errata In the Essays.
• Letter VIII.: Millar Suspected of Extortion.
• Letter IX.: Second Edition of the History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter X.: The New Method of Spelling.
• Letter XI.: The History of England Under the Tudors Completed.
• Letter XII.: Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.
• Letter XIII.: The Early History, and the Accession of George III.
• Letter XIV.: James Macpherson Introduced to Mr. Strahan.
• Letter XV.: On‘accommodating’ the Different Parts of the History.
• Letter XVI.: Hume's Departure For France.
• Letter XVII: French Works For Translation Into English.
• Letter XVIII.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XIX.: The Printing-presses In London: Medicine For the Dutch Ambassador.
• Letter XX.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XXI.: Session of 1765: Rage Against the Scots.
• Letter XXII.: The King's Birth-day Kept In Paris.
• Letter XXIII.: Faction In England.
• Letter XXIV.: The Arrival of Hume and Rousseau In London.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVI.: Hume's Account of His Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVII.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXVIII.: Millar's Complaint of Neglect.
• Letter XXIX.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXX.: Complaints of Strahan's Negligence.
• Letter XXXI.: Hume's Occupations As Under Secretary.
• Letter XXXII.: An Appointment Sought For Strahan.
• Letter XXXIII.: An Application to Lord Hertford.
• Letter XXXIV.: Applications to Lord Hertford and General Conway.
• Letter XXXV.: An Apology For Not Keeping an Engagement.
• Letter XXXVI.: Hume In Edinburgh: Tempests Brewing In Public Affairs.
• Letter XXXVII.: The Opening of the Session of 1770.
• Letter XXXVIII.: The City Address: the ‘detestable’ Edition of the History.
• Letter XXXIX.: Lord Home: End of the Session: Lady Grant.
• Letter Xl.: Cadell Disbelieved: Sir Archibald Grant's Plantations.
• Letter Xli.: Complaints of the 1763 Edition of the History.
• Letter Xlii.: the Historical Age: Dr. Henry's History.
• Letter Xliii.: Dr. Henry's Introduction to Strahan.
• Letter Xliv.: a New Edition of the Philosophical Pieces.
• Letter Xlv.: the Ohio Scheme: Threat of War With Spain.
• Letter Xlvi.: the ‘detested Edition’: Lord North: the National Debt: Dalrymple's History.
• Letter Xlvii.: the Art of Printing: Revised Editions: Dr. Johnson's Pamphlet: the Earl of Chatham: Sir John Dalrymple.
• Letter Xlviii.: Correcting Books: Warburton and His Gang: Lord North's Timidity: Powers of Government Lost.
• Letter Xlix.: New Edition of the History.
• Letter L.: the Principles of Penal Law: Landholders Versus Stockholders.
• Letter Li.: Miscarriage of Presentation Copies of the History.
• Letter Lii.: the New Edition of the History.
• Letter Liii.: the Revision of the History a Great Amusement.
• Letter Liv.: Dr. Franklin Hume's Guest.
• Letter Lv.: Variety In Folly: Pitt's Gout: Posterity.
• Letter Lvi.: Hume's Suppressed Essays.
• Letter Lvii.: the Suppressed Essays: a Note to Be Added to the History.
• Letter Lviii.: a Missing Sheet of the History.
• Letter Lix.: Learned Printers: Princess Dowager: George Iii and the East India Company.
• Letter Lx.: Life Tolerable Only By Labour: the Princess Dowager: Bengal.
• Letter Lxi.: the Licentiousness of Patriots.
• Letter Lxii.: the Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxiii.: Captain Brydone: Hume's House In St. Andrew's Square.
• Letter Lxiv.: the New Editions of the Essays and History.
• Letter Lxv.: Dr. Percy Offended By a Passage In the History.
• Letter Lxvi.: Brydone's Travels: Hume's Continuators: Tristram Shandy: Andrew Stuart.
• Letter Lxvii.: Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxviii.: All Faith Lost In Cadell and Strahan.
• Letter Lxix.: Dalrymple's Memoirs: Memoirs of King James II.
• Letter Lxx.: Strahan's Indignation At Hume's Attack On His Truthfulness.
• Letter Lxxi.: an Apology to Strahan.
• Letter Lxxii.: Colonel Stuart and the India House.
• Letter Lxxiii.: the Law of Copyright.
• Letter Lxxiv.: Dr. Wallace's Manuscript: Lord Kames's Sketches.
• Letter Lxxv.: Bargains Between Authors and Booksellers.
• Letter Lxxvi.: Dr. Wight and Dr. Trail: Folly of the War With the Colonies: Dr. Reid and Dr. Beattie.
• Letter Lxxvii.: the War With the Colonies: the Rousing of the British Lion.
• Letter Lxxviii.: Hume's Anxiety For the Correctness of His Works: the Effects of the Loss of America.
• Letter Lxxix.: Last Corrections of the History: Smith's Wealth of Nations: Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
• Letter Lxxx.: Publication of the Wealth of Nations and of the Decline and Fall: the Armament For America.
• Letter Lxxxi.: Hume's Departure For London.
• Letter Lxxxii.: Hume's Arrival In London.
• Letter Lxxxiii.: the Bath Waters: Journey to Bath: First Lord of the Admiralty At Speen Hill.
• Letter Lxxxiv.: the Bath Waters Injurious: Complaints of Injustice: Hume's Autobiography: Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter Lxxxv.: the Cause of Hume's Illness Discovered.
• Letter Lxxxvi.: Return to Edinburgh: a Dying Man's Corrections.
• Letter Lxxxvii.: a Further Correction: Hume's Physicians Report a Cure.
• Letter Lxxxviii.: the Last Correction: Life a Burthen.
• Letter Lxxxix.: Hume's Will: Disposition About His Unpublished Works.
• Letter XC.: Hume's Life and Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter XCI.: Proposed Publication of a Selection of Hume's Letters.
• Letter XCII.: Hume's Injunction About His Papers.
• Letter XCIII.: Hume's Life to Be Published Separately From the Dialogues.
• Letter XCIV.: Information Asked For About the Proposed Publication of Hume's Manuscripts.
• Letter XCV.: Copies of the History Asked For: the Dialogues: Hume's Sentiments With Regard to Futurity.
• Letter XCVI.: The Separate Publication of Hume's Life.
• Letter XCVII.: David Hume the Nephew: the Publication of the Dialogues.
• Letter XCVIII.: Request to Show Some of Hume's Letters to the King.
• Letter XCIX.: Hume's Letters Shown to the King and Queen.

LETTER LXXI.

An Apology to Strahan.

• Edinburgh,

24th of March, 1773.

Dear S^IR

If my Letter surprizd you, I assure you yours no less surprizd me; and gave me no little Concern. You know, that I have frequently accus’d you no less than Mr. Millar and Mr. Cadell, of always representing the fair side of things to me1 ; and you have frequently remarkd that I was totally incredulous concerning the Representations you made me. If your End had been to circumvent me, or take any Advantage of me to my Loss, you would have been very blamable. But as your Purpose plainly was and coud be no other, than to put me in good humour with the Public, and engage me into what must prove both profitable and amusing to me, I thought the Crime very venial; as I told you in my Letter: And though I wishd that the Truth had always been told me, I neither was disobligd at you nor entertaind in the least a bad opinion of you2 . On the contrary, there is no man of whom I entertain a better, nor whose Friendship I desire more to preserve, nor indeed any one to whom I have owd more essential Obligations. You may judge then of my Uneasyness when I found that I had unwittingly and unwillingly given you so much Disgust. But how coud you take it amiss, that I had told you in a Letter what I had so often told you without offence by words? Your protracting of this Edition, which you told me two Years ago was demanded3 , was a sure means of renewing my former Jealousy.—But I shall not enter into any farther Detail on this Subject which is needless: But what I think extremely needful for my own Peace of Mind is to renew my Professions of that Friendship and Esteem, which I do and always will bear to you; and to beg of you very earnestly a Renewal of those Sentiments which you always professd towards me, and whose Sincerity I have seen in a hundred Instances. I do not remember any Incident of my Life, that has given me more real Concern, than your Misapprehension of me, which, I hope, a little Reflection without any Explication on my part woud have sufficd to remove. Sick People and Children are often to be deceivd for their Good4 ; and I only suspected you of thinking that peevish Authors, such as I confess I am, are in the same Predicament. Was the reproaching you with this Idea, so great an Offence, or so heavy an Imputation upon your Faith and moral Character? I again beg of you to be assurd of my sincere Sentiments on this head, and entreat the Continuance or rather the Renewal of your Friendship; a Word which I once hop’d woud never have enter’d into our Correspondence5 .

I am with great Truth & Regard Dear S^ir

Your most obedient humble Servant

David Hume.

[1]Note 1. See ante, pp. 138, 144, 150, 154.

[2]Note 2. See ante, p. 217, n. 3, for the base advice which he gave to a young clergyman. The indifference that Hume shows to truth illustrates, though it does not justify, Lord Shelburne's harsh saying that ‘the generality of Scotchmen had no regard to truth whatever.’ Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, i. 89. Johnson limited this untruth-fulness to their ‘disposition to tell lies in favour of each other.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 296. Dr. A. Carlyle, who was a man of great virtue, records without any sign of shame, a lie which he told in the General Assembly of the year 1766, by which the House, which had been disturbed by the sudden death of one of its members, was composed, and went on with its voting. Though he knew that the man was dead, he ‘gave out that there were hopes of his recovery.’ Carlyle's Autobiography, p. 467.

[3]Note 3. Strahan had written to Hume on March 1, 1771:—‘The octavo edition of your History must undoubtedly soon be cleared.’ On May 25 of the same year he wrote, speaking of the new edition which he was going to print:—‘If I am not mistaken, this book will be wanted before this edition is finished.’ M. S. R. S. E.

[4]Note 4. ‘I deny,’ said Johnson, ‘the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. You have no business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself.’ Boswell's Johnson, iv. 306. Miss Burney heard George III in one of his attacks of madness say:—‘I am nervous, I am not ill, but I am nervous; if you would know what is the matter with me, I am nervous. But I love you both very well, if you would tell me truth. I love Dr. Heberden best, for he has not told me a lie; Sir George [Baker] has told me a lie—a white lie, he says, but I hate a white lie! If you will tell me a lie, let it be a black lie.’ Mme. D’Arblay's Diary, ed. 1842, iv. 289. See ante, p. 217, n. 3, for a passage in which Johnson insists on the importance of accustoming children to a strict attention to truth; and ante, p. 156, where Hume declares himself ‘a good Casuist.’