LETTERS OF DAVID HUME
G. BIRKBECK HILL

London

HENRY FROWDE

lf1223_figure_001.jpg

New York

MACMILLAN AND CO.

LETTERS
of
DAVID HUME
to
WILLIAM STRAHAN
now first edited WITH NOTES, INDEX, ETC.
by
G. BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L. pembroke college
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1888

[ All rights reserved ]

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 Letters 1 . 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 Edinburgh 1 . 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 before 2 .

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 books 3 .’ 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 men 4 , but also to exhibit the opinions which were entertained by all who were in any way concerned 1 . The violence of Hume's feelings towards the English which is shown in many of his letters 2 is curious enough to justify a long note 3 . 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 Scots 4 .’ Violent as he was towards Englishmen in general, still more violent was he towards the most famous Englishman of his time 5 . Why Lord Chatham roused his anger I have attempted to explain 6 . The confidence of Hume's belief that the country was on the eve of bankruptcy 7 , is one more proof how fallible may be the judgment of even the first historian and the first economist of his age 8 . 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 impossible 9 . It will be seen that a few months after his death some of these letters were shown to George III 10 . 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 rebels 11 . 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 him 12 .’

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 Dialogues 1 , 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 it 2 .’ 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 sent 3 .

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 hereafter 4 .

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 new 5 , 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 franks 6 ; Dr. Andrews for information about the Ohio Scheme 7 ; 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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

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's 1. ; and my ancestors had been proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses for several generations 2. . 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 children 1. . 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 passion 2. 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 Voet 3. and Vinnius 4. , Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring 5. .

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 life 1. . In 1734, I went to Bristol, with recommendations to eminent merchants; but in a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me 2. . 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 treatise 1. , 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 press 2. 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 disappointment 3. . 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 youth 1. .

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 fortune 2. . 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 France 3. . 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 Grant 1. . 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 early 2. . I therefore cast the first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding , which was published while I was at Turin 3. . 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 Enquiry 4. , 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 reception 1.

Such is the force 2. 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. Millar 3. , 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 year 1. ; 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 body 2. ; 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 letters 1. . 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 home 2. . In the same year was published at London, my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals 3. ; 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 world 1. .

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 library 2. . 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 place 3. . 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 I 4. 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 it 1. . I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book 2. . I must only except the primate of England, Dr Herring 3. , and the primate of Ireland, Dr Stone 4. , 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 country 1. ; 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 pieces 2. : 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 school 3. . 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 brother 4. .

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 side 1. . 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 obnoxious 2. . 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, success 3. .

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 England 1. . 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 manner 2. , 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 office 3. . 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 Conway 1. .

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 stations 2. . The more I resiled 3. 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 Ireland 4. . 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 Paris 5. , and next summer went to Edinburgh 6. , 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 it 7. ; 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 declining 8. . I returned to Edinburgh in 1769 very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of one thousand pounds a year 1. ,) healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation 2. .

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels 3. , 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 person 4. , 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 period 5. . 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 lustre 6. , 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 humour 1. , 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 disappointments 2. . 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 probability 1. . 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.

Letter from Adam Smith , LL.D. to William Strahan , E sq. 2.

Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, ,
Nov. 9, 1776.
Dear Sir:

It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down to give you some account of the behaviour of our late excellent friend, Mr Hume, during his last illness.

Though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable, yet he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey 3. . A few days before he set out he wrote that account of his own life, which, together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account, therefore, shall begin where his ends.

He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with Mr John Home and myself, who had both come down from London on purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh 4. . Mr Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing my journey. His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air; and, when he arrived in London, he was apparently in much better health than when he left Edinburgh 1. . He was advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own health 2. . His symptoms however soon returned with their usual violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness and the most perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends; and sometimes in the evening with a party at his favourite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain, that notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying. ‘I shall tell your friend colonel Edmondstone 3. ,’ said doctor Dundas to him one day, ‘that I left you much better, and in a fair way of recovery.’ ‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘as I believe you would not choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.’ Colonel Edmondstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man, the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend the Marquis de la Fare. 4. Mr Hume's magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded nothing in talking and writing to him as to a dying man; and that so far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and flattered by it. I happened to come into his room while he was reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he immediately showed me. I told him, that though I was sensible how very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not help entertaining some faint hopes. He answered, ‘Your hopes are groundless. An habitual diarrhœa of more than a year's standing would be a very bad disease at any age; at my age it is a mortal one. When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I rose in the morning; and when I rise in the morning weaker than when I lay down in the evening. I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital parts are affected, so that I must soon die.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if it must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity.’ He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead , among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. ‘I could not well imagine,’ said he, ‘what excuse I could make to Charon, in order to obtain a little delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I therefore have all reason to die contented.’ He then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them. ‘Upon further consideration,’ said he, ‘I thought I might say to him, “Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little time that I may see how the public receives the alterations 1. .” But Charon would answer, “When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.” But I might still urge, “Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.” But Charon would then lose all temper and decency. “You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue.”’

But though Mr Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his great magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject but when the conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than the course of the conversation happened to require; it was a subject indeed which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the inquiries which his friends, who came to see him, naturally made concerning the state of his health. The conversation which I mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was the last, except one, that I ever had with him. He had now become so very weak that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him; for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than suited the weakness of his body. At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and returned to my mother's house here at Kirkaldy, upon condition that he would send for me whenever he wished to see me 2. ; the physician who saw him most frequently, doctor Black 3. , undertaking, in the mean time, to write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.

On the twenty-second of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter:—

'since my last Mr Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is much weaker. He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses himself with reading, but seldom sees any body. He finds that even the conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him, and it is happy that he does not need it; for he is quite free from anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing books.’

I received, the day after, a letter from Mr Hume himself, of which the following is an extract:—

’ Edinburgh ,
August 23, 1776.
’My dearest friend,

‘I am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you, as I do not rise to-day.

[There is no man in whom I have a greater confidence than Mr. Strahan, yet have I left the property of that Manuscript to my nephew David, in case by any accident it should not be published within three years after my decease. The only accident I could foresee was one to Mr. Strahan's life, and without this clause my nephew would have had no right to publish it. Be so good as to inform Mr. Strahan of this circumstance.

You are too good in thinking any trifles that concern me are so much worth your attention, but I give you entire liberty to make what additions you please to the account of my life.]

I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but unluckily, it has in a great measure gone off. I cannot submit to your coming over here on my account, as it is possible for me to see you so small a part of the day; but Dr Black can better inform you concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain with me. Adieu.’

[My Dearest Friend,
David Hume.

P.S. It was a strange blunder to send your letter by the carrier.] 1.

Three days after I received the following letter from Dr Black:—

’ Edinburgh , Monday, August 26, 1776.

’Dear Sir,

‘Yesterday, about four o’clock, afternoon, Mr Hume expired. The near approach of his death became evident in the night between Thursday and Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so much, that he could no longer rise out of his bed. He continued to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of distress. He never dropt the smallest expression of impatience; but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it with affection and tenderness. I thought it improper to write to bring you over, especially as I had heard that he had dictated a letter to you, desiring you not to come. When he became very weak it cost him an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it 1. .’

Thus died our most excellent, and never-to-be-forgotten friend; concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge variously, every one approving or condemning them according as they happen to coincide, or disagree with his own; but concerning whose character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion. His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight even those who were the objects of it. To his friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps any one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime, and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will admit 1. .

I am ever, dear Sir, Most affectionately yours,
Adam Smith.

CHIEF EVENTS OF THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME

1711. Birth, p. xvii.
1729. Attack of illness, p. xix, n . 1.
1734. Enters a merchant's office in Bristol, p. xix.
1734. Visits France, where he studies three years, p. xix.
1737. Visits London, p. xx.
1738. Treatise of Human Nature , p. xx.
1739. Returns to Ninewells, p. xx.
1741. Essays Moral and Political , vol. i. p. xx.
1742. Essays Moral and Political , vol. ii. p. xx.
1745. Lives with the Marquis of Annandale, p. xxi.
1746. Expedition to the Coast of France, p. xxi.
1747. Mission to Vienna and Turin, p. xxii.
1748. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , p. xxii.
1749. Returns from Italy to Ninewells, p. xxiii.
1751. Removes to Edinburgh, p. xxv.
1751. Candidate for the Chair of Logic at Glasgow, p. xxv, n . 1.
1751. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals , p. xxv.
1752. Political Discourses , p. xxv.
1752. Librarian to the Advocates’ Library, p. xxvi.
1753. Gets a house of his own, p. 231, n . 3.
1754. The History of Great Britain . Vol. i. Containing the Reigns of James I and Charles I, p. xxvi.
1755. Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul suppressed, p. 232, n . 8.
1756. The History of Great Britain . Vol. ii. From the Death of Charles I to the Revolution, p. xxviii.
1757. Resigns his office as Librarian, p. xxvi, n . 2.
1757. Natural History of Religion , pp. xxviii, 19, n . 1.
1758. Visits London, p. 29, n . 1.
1759. History of England under the House of Tudor, pp. xxix, 29.
1761. Visits London, p. 33, n . 3.
1761. History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cœsar to the Accession of Henry VII, pp. xxix, 33, n . 2.
1762. Removes to James's Court, p. 116, n . 2.
1763. Attends Lord Hertford to Paris, pp. xxx, 40.
1765. Appointed Secretary to the Embassy, pp. xxxi, 69, n . 1.
1765. Pensioned, p. 33, n . 6.
1766. Returns to England and resides in London, pp. xxxi, 73.
1766. Quarrel with Rousseau, pp. 74–103.
1766. Returns to Edinburgh, pp. xxxi, 86, n . 1.
1767. Returns to London as Under-Secretary of State, pp. xxxi, 103.
1768. Loses his office, p. 115, n . 1.
1768. Pension increased, p. 55.
1769. Returns to Edinburgh, p. 115, n . 1.
1771. Visits Inverary, p. 221.
1772. Removes to St. Andrew's Square, p. 250, n . 3.
1773. Revised edition of the History of England , pp. 183, 212.
1775. Struck with a mortal illness, pp. xxxii, 312, n . 1.
1776. Writes his Life , xxxiv.
1776. Visits London and Bath, pp. 319, 323.
1776. Death, pp. xxxiv, 345.

a brief account of william strahan.

William Strahan , Hume's correspondent, was born in Edinburgh in the year 1715. ‘His father, who had a small appointment in the Customs, gave his son the education which every lad of decent rank then received in a country where the avenues to learning were easy, and open to men of the most moderate circumstances 1. .’ After having served his apprenticeship in his native town, he was enchanted, like so many of his countrymen, by ‘the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees,’ and took ‘the high road that leads to England 2. .’ There he carried on his trade with great success and rose to a position of importance and affluence. ‘I remember,’ wrote to him his friend Dr. Franklin, ‘your observing once to me, as we sat together in the House of Commons, that no two journeymen printers within your knowledge had met with such success in the world as ourselves 3. .’ It was in his coach that Dr. Johnson, Boswell and blind Mrs. Williams, were one day carried to a dinner at his brother-in-law's house in Kensington. ‘A printer having acquired a fortune sufficient to keep his coach was a good topic for the credit of literature. Mrs. Williams said that another printer, Mr. Hamilton, had not waited so long as Mr. Strahan, but had kept his coach several years sooner. Johnson. “He was in the right. Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better 4. .”’ In 1770 Strahan purchased from Mr. George Eyre ‘a share of the patent for King's Printer 5. .’ In the general election of 1774 he was returned to Parliament for the borough of Malmesbury, and had the honour of having Charles Fox for his colleague. In the succeeding Parliament he sat for Wooton Basset; but having supported the Coalition Ministry he lost his seat at the general election of 1784 1. . He outlived his friend David Hume nearly nine years, and died on July 9, 1785.

That he was a man not only of great worth but of a strong and cultivated understanding is shown by the men whom he had made his friends and by the services which he rendered to some of them. Garrick, it is true, thought that he ‘was rather an obtuse man’—one not likely to be ‘a good judge of an epigram.’ To which Johnson replied, ‘Why, Sir, he may not be a judge of an epigram; but you see he is a judge of what is not an epigram 2. .’ That he was a good judge in general of the merits of a book cannot be doubted. First in partnership with Andrew Millar, ‘the Mæcenas of the age,’ the man whom ‘Johnson respected for raising the price of literature 3. ,’ and then in partnership with Thomas Cadell, he published some of the most important works of his time. When Elmsly, the bookseller, ‘declined the perilous adventure’ of bringing out the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , it was Strahan and Cadell who ‘undertook the risk of the publication.’ It was by Strahan's ‘prophetic taste,’ writes Gibbon, that the number of the impression was doubled 4. . ‘There will no books of reputation now be printed in London,’ wrote Hume to him, ‘but through your hands and Mr. Cadell's 5. .’ Though in this statement there is somewhat of Hume's flattery, yet it is true that they were the publishers of works not only of Gibbon and of Hume, but of Johnson, Robertson, Adam Smith, Blackstone, and Blair. Hume and Robertson availed themselves moreover of his knowledge of English in the correction of their proofs. ‘He was,’ writes Dr. Beattie, ‘eminently skilled in composition 6. .’ His services in this respect Hume more than once gratefully acknowledges 7. . He ranks him indeed among the learned printers, who, since the days of Aldus and Stephens, had not been seen on the earth 8. . He made him his literary executor 9. . The long correspondence which he maintained with him shows the value that he set on his letters. ‘I have always said without flattery,’ he wrote to him, ‘that you may give instructions to statesmen 1. .’ A denial of flattery, it is true, means as little in Hume's mouth as it would have done in the mouth of any of those French philosophers or men of letters in whose society he so much delighted. Nevertheless the length of many of his answers is a proof that he thought highly of his correspondent's understanding and knowledge of public affairs. ‘Mr. Strahan loved much,’ wrote Boswell, ‘to be employed in political negotiation 2. .’

He must have had an unusual breadth of character, for he was the friend of men so unlike as Johnson and Hume, as Franklin and Robertson. It was at his house that Johnson and Adam Smith met when ‘they did not take to each other 3. .’ He tried to get Johnson a seat in the House of Commons 4. , and was ‘his friendly agent in receiving his pension for him, and his banker in supplying him with money when he wanted it 5. .’ When Johnson wrote to Scotland, ‘I employ Strahan,’ he said, ‘to frank my letters, that he may have the consequence of appearing a Parliament-man among his countrymen 6. .’ There was a difference between the two men which kept them apart for a few months, when it was healed by a letter from Johnson and a friendly call from Strahan 7. . The warmth of the friendship that existed between him and other eminent men of letters is shown by their letters. Adam Smith writing to him signs himself, ‘Most affectionately yours 8. ,’ and so does Robertson 9. . Beattie and Blair are scarcely less warm 10. . Johnson indeed, when among the Aberdeen professors, mocked at his intimacy with Bishop Warburton. ‘Why, Sir, he has printed some of his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is such as one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is repairing the college 11. .’ But Beattie who had seen the correspondence that had passed between the two men said that ‘they were very particularly acquainted 12. .’ The manly indignation of his answer to Hume, who had accused him of deception 13. , is not the letter of a man who was intimate with any one on unworthy terms. The earnestness of the apology which Hume at once made to him is a sure proof of the high value which he set on his friendship.

His portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in those troubled days when London was still under the scare of the Gordon riots. During the week when the disorder was at its height Sir Joshua's note-book records that he had sittings fixed, among others, for Mr. Strahan. ‘No wonder the appointments between Monday and Thursday have a pen drawn through them 1. .’ Even if the great painter had had the calmness to go on with his work in the midst of such confusion, the eminent printer would not have kept the appointments. ‘He had been insulted,’ writes Johnson, ‘and spoke to Lord Mansfield of the licentiousness of the populace; and his Lordship treated it as a very slight irregularity…. He got a garrison into his house, and maintained them a fortnight; he was so frighted that he removed part of his goods 2. .’

erratum.

Page 94, note 8. I failed to notice that Hume's Letter of May 15, 1759, quoted in this note, was written in a humorous strain. Dr. Warburton was the last man in the world whose compliments he would have transmitted.

LETTERS OF HUME

LETTERS OF DAVID HUME.

LETTER I.: The History of England under the Stuarts.

D r S ir

I am entirely of your opinion, that Mr. Balfour's ill humor on this Occasion has no manner of Foundation. Mr. Millar seems to me to have all along us’d him very well; Only, I thought the Price offerd for the large Paper Copies a little too low; and I see you have rais’d it. He has disoblig’d me very much at present, by spreading about a Story, that, when we made our Bargain for the first Volume, I had promis’d he shoud have the second at the same Price. This was demanded, and positively refus’d by me: I only said, that I was not accustomd lightly to change the People whom I dealt with; but that I woud not bind myself. Accordingly, when all the Articles of our Bargain, even the most trivial, were written over, I woud not allow this to be inserted. Baillie 1 Hamilton, who is a very honest Man, remembers and acknowleges this Fact. Indeed, it was very lucky I had that Precaution: For if I had entangled myself in such a Bargain, I never shoud have wrote a second Volume which I coud not hope ever to see succeed in their Management 2 . I am very well pleas’d with the State of the Sale; and hope it is the Prognostic of good Success. I certainly deserve the Approbation of the Public, from my Care and Disinterestedness, however deficient in other Particulars. I shall regard myself as much oblig’d to you, if you inform me of all the Objections, which you hear made by Men of Sense, who are impartial, or even who are not: For it is good to hear what is said on all Sides. It was unlucky, that I did not publish the two Volumes together: Fools will be, apt to say, that I am become more whiggish in this Volume: As if the Cause of Charles the 1 and James the 2 were the same, because they were of the same Family 3. . But such Remarks as these, every one, who ventures on the Public, must be contented to endure 4. . Truth will prevail at last; and if I have been able to embellish her with any Degree of Eloquence, it will not be long before she prevail.

I am D r S ir Your most obedient Servant
D AVID H UME.

E DINBURGH , 30 of November , [1756].

P.S.—It is easy for me to see, that Mr. Millar has certainly offerd to take from Baillie Hamilton 900 copies at nine Shillings 5 . He never woud have offerd seven at the beginning. It was a strange Infatuation in the Baillie to refuse it.

LETTER II.: On the Reception of Vol. II of the History.

Dear Sir,

Your Letter gave me a great deal of Satisfaction; and I am much oblig’d to you for it. I must own, that, in my private Judgement, the first volume of my History is by far the best 1 ; The Subject was more noble, and admitted both of greater Ornaments of Eloquence, and nicer Distinctions of Reasoning. However, if the Public is so capricious as to prefer the second, I am very well pleas’d; and hope the Prepossession in my Favor will operate backwards, and remove even the Prejudices formerly contracted 2 .

I assure you, that, tho’ Mr. Millar has probably had an Intention of writing me to the Purpose he told you, yet he never did it, and his Memory has fail’d him in this Particular. On the contrary, he said to me, that he intended to put this Volume of my philosophical Writings 3 into the same hands with the Dissertations 4. , which are soon to be publish’d, who is, I think, one Bowyer 5. . I did not oppose him, because I thought, that was a Matter, which it did not belong me to meddle with. However you will see by the enclos’d, which I have left open, what woud be my Choice in such a Case; and I hope hence forth he will never think of any but you, wherever any of my Writings are concern’d.

I cannot think of troubling you so far in this new Edition as I did in my History; but I woud be extremely oblig’d to you, as you go along to mark any Doubts that occur to you, either with regard to Style 6 or Argument. Mr. Millar thinks of making very soon another Edition in Twelves 7 , and these Observations woud then serve me in good Stead. These Writings have already undergone several Editions, and have been very accurately examined every Impression 8 ; yet I can never esteem them sufficiently correct.

You will see by my Letter to Mr. Millar that I mention a Dedication, which may perhaps surprize you, as I never dealt in such servile Addresses 9 ; But I hope it will not surprize you, when you hear it is only to a Presbyterian Minister, my Friend, Mr. Hume, the Author of Douglas 10 . I was resolv’d to do what lay in my Power to enable a Youth 11 of Genius to surmount the unaccountable Obstacles, which were thrown in his Way 12 . You will probably see it publishd in a few Days. I hope the Goodness of the Intention will apologize for the Singularity of the undetaking [ sic ].

I am Dear Sir Your most obedient Servant
D AVID H UME.

Edinburgh , 1 Feby. , 1757.

LETTER III.: Bargaining with Millar the bookseller.

Dear Sir,

I have wrote apart a Letter, which you may send to Mr. Millar: I shall here add a Word to Yourself; and ask a little of your Advice. Some time ago, I wrote to Mr. Millar, that if he was inclin’d to purchase the full Property of these two Volumes of History, I wou’d part with it, if he wou’d make me a proper Offer. He desir’d me to name my Terms. I ask’d 800 Guineas 1 ; but have not yet receiv’d an answer from him. I own to you, that the Demand may appear large; but if Mr. Millar and I reason upon the same Principles it will not appear unreasonable. I think History the most popular kind of writing of any 2. , the Period I treat of the most interesting, and my Performance will I hope rise in Credit every day. We have so little, or rather nothing of this kind that has the least Appearance either of Impartiality 3 or Eloquence, that I cannot doubt but in the long run it will have a considerable Success. Now I was offerd 800 Pounds for the first Edition alone by Baillie Hamilton; and he propos’d to have reasonable Profits after paying me that Sum: I cannot think but all the subsequent Editions must be at least equal in Value to the first alone. This is the View in which the Affair appeard to me: If it appears to you in the same Light, I doubt not but you will express your Mind to him. If you think my Demand unreasonable, I shall be oblig’d to you for telling me so, and for giving me your Reasons. For tho’ it is not probable, that I shall fall much, if any thing, of that Demand: Yet if I see it impracticable for me to obtain it, I shall endeavor to contrive some other Method, by which I may adjust Matters with Mr. Millar in case of a second Edition. It is chiefly in order to avoid the Trouble and Perplexity of such Schemes that I desire at once to part with all the Property.

I am Dear S ir Your most obedient humble Servant

D AVID H UME.

15 Feby. , 1757.

P.S.—You will certainly like my Friend's Play 4 . It was acted here with vast Success. And reads as well as it acts. Mr. Millar woud tell you the Accident, which occasiond many copies of the Dissertations to be sold without the Dedication 5 . It has given me some Vexation. However there is no Remedy.

LETTER IV.: The Quarto Edition of the Essays.

Edinburgh ,
15 Feby. , 1757.
S IR

I suppose you have now begun, and are somewhat advanc’d in the Quarto Edition of my Essays. I intend to make an Index to it 1 , and for this Reason have desir’d that the corrected Sheets may be sent me by the Post. I must also desire you to send them from time to time, as they are printed off; that, if there be any Mistakes in the Press (and some are unavoidable) I may be able to make a more full Errata. Please send under a Cover as many as a Frank will admit 2 : And if you want Franks, either Mr. Millar or you may send Covers directed to me to Mr. Mure 3 , Mr. Oswald 4 , Mr. Elliot 5 or S ir Harry Erskine 6 . You may chuse either of them whose House lye most convenient. I fancy Mr. Mure may have most Leizure.

LETTER V.: The Bargain with Millar concluded.

Sir

I have receiv’d the two first Sheets of the Quarto Edition of my philosophical Writings; and am very well satisfy’d with it. Please only to tell the Compositor, that he always employ a Capital after the Colons. Here follow a few Alterations, which I desire you to make on the last published Volume or four Dissertations which are to be inserted in different Places of the Quarto Volume.

[These alterations, as they are minute and can only be understood by a reference to the printed volume, I think it needless to print.]

Please to get a Copy of the Dissertations from Mr. Millar and make these Alterations. Observe also that the two Dissertations, which are to be inserted among the Essays, are to be entitled Essays. The other two are to be inserted in the Places as directed 1

I am very well pleas’d to finish the Bargain with Mr. Millar. I hope we shall both find our Account in it. I believe his Offer may be reckond very reasonable and even frank and generous. We have only a small Difference about the time of Payment, which I hope will easily be adjusted. If it be not convenient for him to pay the Money in May next, I wou’d delay it till the 2nd of August, which is our Lambas term 2. , and woud endeavour to get his Bill discounted, tho’ that Practice be not very common in Scotland 3. .

I hope the Douglas has had a good Success in London 4 . The Public will certainly at first be divided. That Simplicity both of Fable and Style are Novelties on the English Stage, and will no doubt meet with Opposition; but they must prevail, I think, at last 5 .

I am Sir Your most obedient Servant

D AVID H UME.

N INEWELLS 6 NEAR B ERWICK , 18 April , 1757.

P.S.—I return to Edinburgh in a few days.

LETTER VI.: Dr. Hurd's Artifices.

[E DINBURGH , 1757.]
D R S ir

I am positive not to reply a single Word to Dr. Hurd; and I also beg of you not to think of it. His Artifices or Forgeries, call them which you please, are such common things in all Controversy that a man woud be ridiculous who woud pretend to complain of them; and the Parsons in particular have got a Licence to practice them. I therefore beg of you again to let the Matter pass over in Silence 1 . I have deliverd to Mr. Becket a Volume of Essays 2 .

I am yours D. H.

LETTER VII.: Errata in the Essays.

S IR

I hereby send you the Index, Title-Page, and all the Preface, which I intend; being only a short Advertisement, to be inserted in any Corner: For I do not think it deserves a Page to itself 1 . The Errata are many of them small Alterations, which I coud not forbear making myself in the Style.

There are only two Errata which are material, those in page 455 and 459, where your Compositor has made me say the direct contrary to my meaning. I know, that such Mistakes are altogether unavoidable; but yet, if it were not too much Trouble, I coud wish, that they were corrected with the Pen, before publication 2 .

I am so sensible of your great Care in this Edition, that I have desird Mr. Millar to give you one of the Copies, which he delivers to me on every Edition, and I beg of you to accept it as a small Testimony of my Regard.

I am Sir Your most obedient Servant

David Hume.

Edinburgh , 3 Sept. , 1757.

LETTER VIII.

Millar suspected of Extortion.

Sdinburgh ,
15 Octr. , 1757.
Dear S ir

I have sent you a Letter of mine to Mr. Millar open, because I desire you to peruse it, and to give me your Opinion, as a Friend, of the Contents of it. Mr. Millar departs somewhat from an Offer he made me last Spring for a new Volume of History 1 . If the Reason be just which he assigns, the slow Sale of the former Volumes, I own I shoud be extremely discouragd to proceed. But tho’ I have never had any Reason to complain of him, some People in my Situation woud be apt to suspect, that, after I had gone some Length in composing the Work, he intends to extort it from me at somewhat a lower Price; which is so ungenteel a Method of Proceeding that I cannot allow myself to believe it, and it woud much discourage me from dealing with him. Your general Character and the Instances, which I have receivd of your Friendship, assure me of your Candor, and make me have recourse to you on this Occasion. Can I believe, that he has any real Reason for coming down of the Offer which he formerly made me?

I have sent you along with this, an ostensible Letter, of the Nature of those you desird me to write. I hope Mr. Millar did not forget to deliver you the Copy of my last Volume, as I desird him. I need not put you in mind to put a Wafer in my Letter to Mr. Millar.

I am Dr Sir Your most obedient Servant
David Hume.

LETTER IX.

Second Edition of the History of England under the Stuarts.

Dear S ir

I am oblig’d to you for the Letter with which you favord me. I fancy, you woud have found part of it answerd, before I receivd it. This day three Weeks, I sent up the second Volume of my History 1 by the Stage Coach to Mr. Millar, which is probably put into your hands by this time. The Alterations I make on this Volume are not very considerable; those I make on the first Volume are more so, particularly in the Reign of James, which requires to be changd in many Places, in order to adjust it to this previous Volume 2. , which I am now composing, and which is nearly finishd. It is for this Reason, I coud wish Mr. Millar woud make a new Edition of both at once, and I have told him my Sentiments on that head. His Resolution will probably depend on the Number of Copies, which remain of the first Volume 3. ; but as there were only 250 thrown off more than of the Second, I fancy there cannot be many on hand, after all the second are sold off. For there is always a considerable Defalcation in the Sale of second Volumes 4. .

I am really concernd for what you tell me of Mr. Millar's being Ill, tho I hope his Ailment will only be slight. I know few who woud make a greater Loss to this Country, especially to the young Men of Letters in it 5. . I propose to see you about the Autumn, when I hope to commence a personal Acquaintance with you.

I am D r S ir Your most obedient humble Servant
David Hume.

Edin R . , 12 June , 1758.

LETTER X.

The new Method of Spelling.

[ June or July ,
1758.]
Dear S ir

I am glad to find that Mr. Millar and I have agreed about reprinting the first Volume of my History 1. . I shall soon send you up a corrected Copy of it; and in the mean time you may proceed in printing the second Volume. The Title of it will be History of Great Britain under the House of Stuart, in two Volumes 2. . As the Title of the other Volume will be History of England under the House of Tudor. By this Means they will be different Works; and some few Repetitions which will be unavoidable in this Method of composing them, will be the more excusable.

I had once an Intention of changing the Orthography in some particulars: But on Reflection I find, that this new Method of Spelling (which is certainly the best and most conformable to Analogy) has been followd in the Quarto Volume of my philosophical Writings lately publishd; and therefore I think it will be better for you to continue the Spelling as it is 3. .

I woud not give you the Trouble of sending me the Sheets. I shall see you in London before the Publication; and shall then be able to correct any Errata that may have escapd you.

I am D r S r Your most humble Servant
David Hume.

LETTER XI.

The History of England under the Tudors completed.

Dear Sir

I sent off last Tuesday by the Stage Coach a corrected Copy of the first Volume of my History directed to you, and it will probably be with you as soon as this. There is only a small Correction more, which you will please to make. At Page 100. Line 16; Add this Note. Rushworth Vol. 1. p. 82.

On Tuesday come Sennight the 15 of this Month, the Manuscript Copy of my new Volume 1. will be put into the Stage Coach, in two white Iron Boxes, directed to you. As there are in the same Boxes a few Papers on private Business, you will please to leave the Boxes unopened till I come to London, which will probably be about the End of this Month or beginning of the next. I go up on Horse-back 2. , which is the Reason why I send the Manuscript before me.

I shall be sure to see you as soon as I arrive, and hope then to commence a personal Acquaintance with you, and to return you thanks for the many Instances, which I have receivd of your Attention and Friendship.

I am D r S ir Your most obedient humble Servant
David Hume.

E DINBURGH , 5 of August , 1758.

LETTER XII.

Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.

[ Jan. or Feb.
1759.] 1.
D EAR S IR

On the Conclusion of this Work, I thank you for your Care, Exactness, Diligence and Dispatch; and have put my angry Letter into the Fire, where, partly by its own heat, partly by that of the burning Coals, it was immediately consumd to Ashes.

I had a Letter from Dr. Robertson, who is very earnest with me to have a Copy of my Volume as soon as possible, promising not to show it to a mortal, till publication. I have obtain’d Mr. Millar's Consent 2. ; and therefore desire you to bind in boards a Volume of large Paper as soon as possible, and send it to the Stage Coach, directed to Mr. Robertson Minister of the Gospel at Edinburgh, near the head of the Cowgate 3. . The Stage Coach sets up near you 4. ; so I must beg you to take this Trouble.

Mr. Andrew Reid 5. was so good as to look over some Sheets for me, but has so blotted them with Corrections that he has renderd it useless for me. I must therefore beg of you to bind in boards another compleat Copy of small Paper, and to send it to my House as soon as it is ready.

I am yours
David Hume.

Friday.

LETTER XIII.

The early History, and the Accession of George III.

[ November or December , 1760.] 1.
Dear Sir

You gave me a sensible Satisfaction by writing to me; and tho I am a little lazy myself in writing (I mean, Letters: For as to other kinds of writing, your Press can witness for me, that I am not lazy) there is nothing gives me greater Pleasure than hearing from my Friends, among whom I shall be always fond of ranking Mr. Strahan. You have probably heard from Mr. Millar, that I am wholly engrossd in finishing my History 2. ; and have been so above a twelvemonth. If I keep my Health, which is very good and equal to any Fatigue, I shall be able to visit you in eight or nine Months; and then you may expect to have a very troublesome Dun upon you, in making Demands of a regular Visit of your Devil 3. ; and I shall be able to cure you of some Indolence, which as our Friend opposite Catherine Street in the Strand 4. complains to me, is growing upon you. If this Indolence comes from Riches, I hope also to cure it another way, by gaining your Money at Whist; tho’ really the Person abovementiond is a Proof that Indolence is no immediate or necessary Effect of Riches: So that I fancy it is born with you; and that there is no hopes of curing you. However, it will give me some Satisfaction to come to you in case of any Negligence, and first scold you and then gain your Money, in order to punish you.

I am sorry, both on your Account and Mr. Rose's 5. , for whom I have a great Regard, that it shoud be absolutely impossible for me, till my present Undertaking is finishd, to have any hand in what he proposes to me. If I had leizure, I shoud certainly comply with his Request: He only disobliges me in mentioning any other Acknowlegement, than his being sensible of my Inclination to oblige him.

Is this new Reign to be the Augustan Age 6. ? or have the Parsons got entire Possession of the young Prince 7. ? I hear that they brag much of their Acquisition; but he seems by his Speech to be a great Admirer of his Cousin of Prussia 8. , who surely is no Favourer or Favourite of theirs 9. . I wonder how Kings dare be so free: They ought to leave that to their Betters; to Men who have no Dependance on the Mob, or the Leaders of the Mob. As to poor Kings they are obligd sometimes to retract and to deny their Writings.

I was glad to observe what our King says, that Faction is at an End and Party Distinctions abolish’d 10. . You may infer from this, that I think I have kept clear of Party in my History; that I think I have been much injurd when any thing of that Nature has been imputed to me, and that I now hope the public Ear will be more open to Truth: But it will be a long time first; and I despair of ever seeing it 11. .

I beg my compliments to Mrs. Strahan, and all your Family, and am Dear Sir with great Sincerity,

Your most obedient Servant
David Hume.

LETTER XIV.

James Macpherson introduced to Mr. Strahan.

Dear Sir,

I cannot give you a better Return for your obliging Letter than by introducing to your Acquaintance, the Bearer, Mr. M c pherson, who translated some Fragments of Highland Poetry, which have been extremely well receivd by the Public, and have probably come to your Hands. He has also translated a larger Work, a narrative Poem of great Antiquity, which lay in Obscurity, & woud probably have been bury’d in oblivion, if he had not retrievd it. He proposes to print it by Subscription, and his Friends here are already very busy in procuring him Encouragement. He goes up to London with the same Intention; and you may readily believe, that I advis’d him to think of nobody but our Friend, Mr. Millar, in disposing of the Copy. He will probably need your Advice in several Particulars, and as he is an entire Stranger in London, you will naturally of yourself be inclind to assist him. He is also very worthy of your Friendship; being a sensible, modest young Fellow, a very good Scholar, and of unexceptionable Morals. I have advis’d him to be at first on a Footing of Confidence with you; and hope you will receive him as one who merits your Friendship 1. .

I am Dear S ir Your most obedient Servant
David Hume.

E DINBURGH 2. , 9 Feby. 1761.

LETTER XV.

On‘accommodating’ the different Parts of the History.

[ March , 1762.]
Dr Sir,

I return you thanks for the favourable Sentiments you express, in which I am sensible there is great Partiality; a Circumstance, however, which renders them the more obliging. I do not expect ever to live and see the Completion of your Prophecy. 1.

I send you the second Volume of the Stuarts 2. Mr. Millar tells me, that he intends to throw off a small Number of 250 to compleat the Sets; and at the same time a larger number of 750, on Medium paper, which he intends likewise for a new Edition of the Tudors and this antient History. Now I am going to propose to you an Improvement, if it be practicable. I always intended, that the whole six Volumes shoud be printed and shoud read as one continued Work, and that the Chapters shoud go on without Interruption from beginning to end. In that Case, the first Chapter of James I, is the forty fifth of the whole. Could you not therefore without any difficulty alter the Types for the last 750 Copies, so as to accommodate the Work to this Alteration. There needs only to change the beginning of the Chapter & the marginal Title, which may be done without Trouble. Unless this be done at present, I do not know when we shall be able to bring them to an Uniformity 3. .

I am Dear S ir Yours sincerely
David Hume.

LETTER XVI.

Hume's Departure for France.

Mr. Hume's Compliments to Mr. Strahan: He sets out Morrow for France 1. ; but wishes to put Mr. Strahan in Mind, of what he promisd, to correspond with him at Paris. His Direction is under Cover to Lord Hertford, Northumberland House in the Strand.

Wednesday.

Mr. Worral 2. had a Laws of Jamaca 3.

Oct. 14, 1763.

LETTER XVII

French Works for Translation into English.

Dear Sir,

I have long expected to hear from you and to learn your Sentiments of English Politics 1. , according to the Promise you made me on parting: Perhaps, you have as long expected to hear from me; and thus while we stand upon Ceremony, our Correspondence is never likely to begin. But I have now broke the Ice, and it will be your Fault, if our Commerce of Letters does not continue.

I have been on the Watch this Winter for any publication, which might answer in an English Translation, and have even fix’d a Correspondence with one of the Licencers of the Press to give me early Intelligence; but there has nothing appeard, which I thought woud answer, except Voltaire's Treatise of Toleration, of which only a very few stolen copies came here, and it was impossible for me to procure one 2.

Are you acquainted with the Merit of Madame Riccoboni's Novels? She is the Author of Lady Juliette Catesby, and others which have been very well receivd both in France and England; and are indeed wrote with great Elegance and Decency 3. . She has just now in the Press a Novel 4. , wrote upon English Manners, from which great Success is expected. Woud you think it worthy of being translated? I coud get from her some Sheets of it, which I woud send you by a Courier 5. , and which woud secure you the Property: The rest I woud send by any Traveller, of whom Numbers set out every day 6. .

As she is a Woman of Merit, but poor, any small Present, proportiond to the Success of the Work, I shall only mention in general, and shall leave the Amount of it to your own Discretion afterwards.

Please to direct to me, under Cover to the Earl of Hertford, and send your Letters to Northumberland House in the Strand.

I am Dear Sir Your affectionate Friend and humble Servant
David Hume.
Paris , 20 March , 1764.

P.S.—Pray inform me, if you can, of the Reason of this continued low Price of Stocks 7. : They say, that Money is as scarce in private Transactions. But what is the Reason of that, after the Peace has been establishd for above a twelve month?

Since I wrote the above, I have procurd the two first printed Sheets, from Mad e Riccoboni. They will secure you the Property, if you think proper to have them translated, which I think they very much deserve. The whole will make two small Volumes.

These are the proof Sheets corrected. The Translator must follow the Corrections on the Margins. What do you think of a French Edition also of the Original?

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 Mad e 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 Messenger 1. ; the other by General Clerk 2. .

LETTER XIX.

The Printing-Presses in London: Medicine for the Dutch Ambassador.

Dear Sir

I receivd Yours, for which I am much obligd to you: It gave me great Insight into the Affairs you mention.

I am desird by some People here to enquire how many Presses there may be in London. I suppose it must be an Affair more of Conjecture than of exact Calculation 1. .

I send you over three other Sheets. The Work seems to be very fine. The Author cannot exactly tell how many Pages each Volume will contain; but two Volumes of such large Print in 12°, must make but a small Book.

I am Yours sincerely
D. H.
Paris , 18 April , 1764.

P.S.—Since I wrote the above, I have again seen Madame Riccoboni, who tells me that she is now near a Certainty with regard to the Size of her Work. It will be 4 Volumes in twelves of about 240 pages each. The Dutch Ambassador has desird me to procure him the enclosd Medicine. The whole must not be bought nor sent at a time. Send only so many as may make a small Packet, which a Courier may carry. Pack them up carefully under Cover to Lord Hertford, and send them to Northumberland House in the Strand. Pardon this Trouble.

LETTER XX.

Madame Riccoboni's Novel.

Dear Sir,

I see sometimes Mad e Riccoboni, who is extremely surpriz’d, that Mr. Becket answers none of her Letters, sends her none of the Copies which she bespoke, informs her nothing of the Success of her Book, and in short takes no manner of Notice of her 1. . I beseech you make him write, or write yourself for him, if he continues obstinately negligent. I owe Mr. Becket three Pounds, which I shall either pay him in London, or pay M de Riccoboni for him, in case the Success of her Book has been such, as to entitle her to any Recompence. You or Becket may write her in English. Her Direction is Rue Poissoniere au dela le boulevard. I am somewhat in a hurry, which will apologize for the Shortness of my Letter. I am always much oblig’d to you, when you have Leizure to write to me 2. ; being very sincerely Dear Sir

Your most obedient Servant
David Hume.
Paris , 28 of Decr. 1764.

LETTER XXI.

Session of 1765: Rage against the Scots.

Paris , 26 of Jany. 1765.
Dear Sir ,

I receivd both your Letters, which gave me great Satisfaction. Your Accounts of things are the fullest and most candid I meet with; and if your Leizure allowd you, you coud not do me a greater Satisfaction, than to continue them, when any thing remarkable occurs. I think there is all the Probability that this will prove a quiet Session 1. ; and there is a general Tranquillity establishd in Europe 2. ; so that we have nothing to do but cultivate Letters: There appears here a much greater Zeal of that kind than in England 3. ; but the best & most taking works of the French are generally publishd in Geneva or Holland, and are in London before they are in Paris 4. : So that I cannot have an Opportunity of serving you in the way I coud wish. I am sorry, that the last Publication 5. has not been successfull. I only saw the Beginning and judged from the Authors Character. The Beginning is much the best of the Work. I have not lost view of continuing my History 6. . But as to the Point of my rising in Reputation, I doubt much of it 7. : The mad and wicked Rage against the Scots, I am told, continues and encreases, and the English are such a mobbish People as never to distinguish. Happily their Opinion gives me no great Concern 8. . I see in your Chronicle 9. an Abridgement of a Treatise on the Constitution 10. ; which Treatise seems to be nothing but an Abridgement of my History; yet I shall engage, that the Author has not nam’d me from the beginning to the end of his Performance. On the whole, I can have no Motive of Ambition or Love of Fame to continue my History: Money in my present Circumstances is no Temptation: If I execute that Work, as is probable, it must be for Amusement to myself, after I am tir’d of Idleness. My Health and Spirits are as good at present as when I was five and twenty. Believe me, Dear S ir , with great Sincerity,

Your affectionate Friend and humble Servant
David Hume.
My Compliments to D r. Franklin 11. .

The House of Lords was not however careless of the tranquillity of America. On March 6 of this year the keeper of the Sun Tavern, in the Strand, was summoned to their bar, and examined about an exhibition in his house of two Indian Warriors. He assured their Lordships‘that they had their meals regularly and drank nothing stronger than small beer.’ The House resolved:‘That the bringing from America any of the Indians who are under his Majesty's protection, without proper authority for so doing, may tend to give great dissatisfaction to the Indian nations, and be of dangerous consequence to his Majesty's subjects residing in the Colonies.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. p. 51.

1 In the Parl. Hist. xvii. 164, we read:—’April 10, 1771. Lord North opened his budget.’

Grimm, writing on Jan. 1, 1766, on the eve of Hume's return to England, says:—’M. Hume doit aimer la France; il y a requ l’accueil le plus distingué et le plus flatteur. Paris et la cour se sont disputé l’honneur de se surpasser….Ce qu’il y a encore de plaisant, c’est que toutes les jolies femmes se le sont arraché, et que le gros philosophe écossais s’est plu dans leur société. C’est un excellent homme que David Hume; il est naturellement serein, il entend finement, il dit quelquefois avec sel, quoiqu’il parle peu; mais il est lourd, il n’a ni chaleur, ni grace, ni agrément dans l’esprit, ni rien qui soit propre à s’allier au ramage de ces charmantes petites machines qu’on appelle jolies femmes.’ Corresp. Lit. v. 3.

Goldsmith wrote in 1759 in The Present State of Polite Learning , ch. vii:—’The fair sex in France have also not a little contributed to prevent the decline of taste and literature, by expecting such qualifications in their admirers. A man of fashion at Paris, however contemptible we may think him here, must be acquainted with the reigning modes of philosophy as well as of dress to be able to entertain his mistress agreeably. The sprightly pedants are not to be caught by dumb show, by the squeeze of a hand, or the ogling of a broad eye; but must be pursued at once through all the labyrinths of the Newtonian system, or the metaphysics of Locke.’ Dr. Moore, in his View of Society and Manners in France , 1779 (i. 24), says:—’Many of the eminent men of letters are received at the houses of the first nobility on the most liberal footing. You can scarcely believe the influence which this body of men have in the gay and dissipated city of Paris. Their opinions not only determine the merit of works of taste and science, but they have considerable weight on the manners and sentiments of people of rank, of the public in general, and consequently are not without effect on the measures of government.’ He points out the influence of the fashionable world on the men of letters,‘whose air, behaviour and conversation are equally purified from the awkward timidity contracted in retirement, and the disgusting arrogance inspired by university honours or church dignities. At Paris the pedants of Moliere are to be seen on the stage only.’ Ib. p. 26.

Mrs. Barbauld says:—’I believe it is true that in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most other parts of Europe.’ She censures‘the contemptuous manner in which Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:—’The doors of the Great,’ she says,‘were never opened to him.’ Richardson Corresp. i. clxxiv. Horace Walpole wrote from Paris on Sept. 22, 1765:—’For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else to do. I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed professedly; and besides in this country one is sure it is only the fashion of the day. Their taste in it is worst of all: could one believe that when they read our authors Richardson and Mr. Hume should be their favourites? The latter is treated here with perfect veneration. His History , so falsified in many points, so partial in many, so very unequal in its parts, is thought the standard of writing.’ Letters , iv. 408.‘The veneration’ with which he was received Hume describes to Robertson, on Dec. 1, 1763:—’do you ask me about my course of life? I can only say, that I eat nothing but ambrosia, drink nothing but nectar, breathe nothing but incense, and tread on nothing but flowers. Every man I meet, and still more every lady, would think they were wanting in the most indispensable duty, if they did not make to me a long and elaborate harangue in my praise. What happened last week, when I had the honour of being presented to the D[auphi]n's children at Versailles, is one of the most curious scenes I have yet passed through. The Duc de B[erri] the eldest [afterwards Lewis XVI] a boy of ten years old, stepped forth, and told me how many friends and admirers I had in this country, and that he reckoned himself in the number from the pleasure he had received from the reading of many passages in my works. When he had finished, his brother, the Count de P[rovence], [afterwards Lewis XVIII] who is two years younger, began his discourse, and informed me that I had been long and impatiently expected in France; and that he himself expected soon to have great satisfaction from the reading of my fine History. But what is more curious; when I was carried thence to the Count d’A[rtois] [afterwards Charles X], who is but four years of age 1 , I heard him mumble something, which, though he had forgot it in the way, I conjectured from some scattered words to have been also a panegyric dictated to him.’ Stewart's Robertson , p. 353.

The Marquis of Tavistock wrote to the Duke of Bedford from Paris on April 6, 1764:—’I have lived so much with French people that it's a wonder I have not yet seen the illustre Hume , for there is nobody so fêté by the fine ladies as he is.’ Correspondence of John, Duke of Bedford , iii. 261. The esteem in which Richardson was held at this time is shown by a letter of the Marquis de Mirabeau, the author of L’ami des Hommes , to Hume, dated Aug. 3, 1763. He writes:—’Je vous avoue que le plus digne des hommes selon moi, Richardson seul m’aurait souvent fait regreter de ne savoir pas l’anglais.’ M.S.R.S.E.

Lord Charlemont, after stating that‘no man from his manners was surely less formed for French society than Hume,’ attributes his reception to the fact that‘free thinking and English frocks were the fashion, and the Anglomanie was the ton du pays. ’ He tells the following anecdote of the first Lord Holland who about this time visited Paris.‘The French concluded that an Englishman of his reputation must be a philosopher, and must be admired. It was customary with him to doze after dinner, and one day at a great entertainment he happened to fall asleep. “Le voilà!” says a Marquis, pulling his neighbour by the sleeve, “Le voilà qui pense!”’ He adds that, though Hume's conversation could give little pleasure to French men, still less to French women,‘yet no lady's toilette was complete without Hume's attendance. At the Opera his broad unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux jolis minois. ’ Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont , i. 234.

In one respect Hume had owned that authors were far better off here than on the other side of the Channel. After describing to Elliot in 1762 his comfortable flat in James's Court, for which he had paid £500, he continues:—’On comparing my situation with poor Rousseau's, I cannot but reflect how much better book-sellers we have in this country than they in France.’ Stewart's Robertson , p. 360. Voltaire, in his review of Julia Mandeville , says:—’Pour peu qu’un roman, une tragédie, une comédie ait de succès à Londres, on en fait trois et quatre éditions en peu de mois; c’est que l’état mitoyen est plus riche et plus instruit en Angleterre qu’en France, &c.’ Œuvres de Voltaire , xliii. 364.

Little more than a year before Hume wrote that‘the little company in London that is worth conversing with are cold and unsociable,’ Reynolds and Johnson had founded their famous club. Boswell's Johnson , i. 477. Nearly ninety years after he had complained of the want of zeal in England for the cultivation of letters, Darwin was lamenting the indifference to science. Writing in 1854 about an unsolicited grant by the Colonial Government of Tasmania towards the expenses of Sir. J. Hooker's Flora of Tasmania , he says:—’ It is really a very singular and delightful fact, contrasted with the slight appreciation of science in the old country.’ Life of Darwin , i. 394.

1 The three princes were nine, eight, and six years old.

’Edinburgh, March 10, 1763. I am in a good measure idle at present; but if I tire of this way of Life, as is probable, I shall certainly continue my History , and have no Thoughts of any other work. But in this State of Affairs, I suppose your People of Rank and Quality woud throw the Door in my Face because I am a Scotsman.’ M. S. R. S. E.

’Edinburgh, 12 March, 1763. I am engaged in no work at present; but if I tire of idleness, or more properly speaking, of reading for my amusement, I may probably continue my History. My only discouragement is that I cannot hope to finish this work in my closet, but must apply to the great for papers and intelligence, a thing I mortally abhor.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 146.

’Edinburgh, 28 March, 1763. I may perhaps very soon gather silently together the books which will enable me to sketch out the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and shall finish them afterwards, together with that of George I; in London. But to tell you the truth, I have an aversion to appear in that capital till I see that more justice is done tome with regard to the preceding volumes. The languishing sale of this edition makes me conjecture that the time is not yet come; and the general rage against the Scots is an additional discouragement.’ Ib. ii. 147. (Seven weeks after this letter was written Boswell, on being introduced to Johnson, said:—’I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 392.)

’Paris, 14 Jany. 1765. I am now in a situation to have access to all the families which have papers relative to public affairs transacted in the end of the last and beginning of this century…. The rage and prejudice of parties frighten me; and above all, this rage against the Scots, which is so dishonourable, and indeed so infamous to the English nation. We hear that it increases every day without the least appearance of provocation on our part. It has frequently made me resolve never in my life to set foot on English ground. I dread if I should undertake a more modern history the impertinence and ill manners, to which it would expose me.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 264.

’[1766.] Some push me to continue my History. Millar offers me any price. All the Marlborough papers are offered me; and I believe nobody would venture to refuse me. But cui bono? Why should I forego idleness and sauntering and society, and expose myself again to the clamours of a stupid factious public ?’ Ib. ii. 392. (The Marlborough papers had been in Mallet's possession. For more than twenty years‘ he had a pension from the late Duke of Marlborough to promote his industry,’ in publishing them. On his death in 1765 it was found that he had not even touched them. Boswell's Johnson , v. 175.)

’Oct. 6, 1767. When Mr. Conway was on the point of resigning, I desird him to propose to the King that I might afterwards have the liberty of inspecting all the public Offices for such Papers as might serve to my purpose. His Majesty said that he was glad I had that object in my Eye; and I should certainly have all the Assistance in his Power.’ David Hume to John Home of Ninewells. M. S. R. S. E.

’8 Oct. 1766. I shall probably do as you advise, and sketch out the outlines of the two or three subsequent reigns, which I may finish at London.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 393.

’London, 27 Nov. 1767. The king himself has been pleased to order that all the records and public offices shall be open to me, and has even sent for some papers from Hanover, which he thought would be useful.’ Private Corresp. p. 250.

’London, 26 April, 1768. Lord Hertford told me that he and his brother [General Conway] had made a point with the King and the ministers, that in consideration of my services I should have some further provision made for me, which was immediately assented to, only loaded with this condition by the King, that I should seriously apply myself to the consummation of my History. ’ Ib. p. 257.

’London, 24 May, 1768. The King has given me a considerable augmentation of my pension, expressing at the same time his expectation that I am to continue my History. This motive, with my habits of application, will probably engage me in this undertaking, and occupy me for some years.’ Ib. p. 261.

Strahan wrote to Sir A. Mitchell on April 1, 1768:—’Mr. D. Hume dined with me to-day. He is now applying in good earnest to the continuation of his History, having collected very considerable materials.’ M. S. R. S. E. On May 14, 1768, Boswell, whom Hume had lately visited, wrote:—’david is going to give us two more volumes of History , down to George II. I wish he may not mire himself in the Brunswick sands. Pactolus is there.’ Letters of Boswell , p. 151. On Dec. 9, writing from Edinburgh, Boswell says:—’ Mr. Hume is not to go to Paris; he is busy with the continuance of his History. ’ Ib. p. 159. Hume relapses once more into indolence. He writes to Strahan on May 22, 1770:—’I am fully determined never to continue my History, and have indeed put it entirely out of my power by retiring to this country for the rest of my life.’ Two years later his determination is not quite so strong.‘If I find my time lie heavy on my hands, I may, for my amusement, undertake a reign or two after the Revolution. But I believe, in case of my composing any more, I had better write something that has no Reference to the affairs of these factious Barbarians.’ Post , Letter of March 5,1772. His amusement apparently does not require any fresh composition, for at the beginning of the next year he writes:—’ Considering the treatment I have met with, it would have been very silly for me at my years to continue writing any more, and still more blamable to warp my principles and sentiments in conformity to the prejudices of a stupid, factious nation, with whom I am heartily disgusted.’ Post , Letter of Jan. 30, 1773.

A great change was wrought in Hume by the storm of abuse which burst on his countrymen when the new King put himself and the nation in the leading-strings of the Earl of Bute. Though he had written the History of England , he never seemed to understand for one moment the anger that was stirred up in a proud people, when their Great Commoner had to yield to the favourite of a Palace, with his vile system of‘King's friends’ and secret‘influence.’ Some indulgence must be extended to him as a man, though not perhaps as a philosopher, on account of the disappointment which he himself had suffered through his origin. As will be seen ( post , p. 58) he was refused the high office of Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland merely because he was born north of the Tweed. His return from France, which followed close on this humiliation, still further embittered his feelings. In that country his genius had been recognised to the full.‘Few people,’ wrote Dr. Blair to him,‘have been more fortunate than you; you have enjoyed in France the full blaze of your reputation and fame; you have tasted all the pleasures of a court and of public life; and after receiving every tribute due to letters and to merit, you retire before it was too late to your own philosophic ease and tranquillity.’ Blair to Hume, Oct. 8, 1765. M. S. R. S. E. Philosophic ease was not by any means enough. His ruling passion, as he himself owned in his Autobiography , was‘love of literary fame.’ To him might be applied, though not in all its extent, what Johnson said of Richardson:—’He could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.’ (Piozzi's Anecdotes , p. 184.) He returned to our shores one of the most famous men in Europe, and he at once passed from‘the full blaze’ to that dim and uncertain glimmer which was all that genius could throw round itself here. Had he been content with the company of men of letters, his love of fame might perhaps have been satisfied; but he was used to the homage of men and women of rank and fashion in the most famous drawing-rooms of Paris. Princes no longer made him addresses, nor did fine ladies‘believe him implicitly,’ (Walpole's Letters , iv. 426). His vanity, I believe, was wounded just as was Rousseau's, when that philosopher found how quickly a great writer sinks into insignificance in London. Both men were wanting in that humour which‘holds the world but as the world,’ and in the midst of disappointments and neglect smiles at them and at itself.

In the extracts from his letters given in Note 3 the bitterness of his feelings has been seen. The following passages show that it did not lessen with growing years:—

’Paris, 1 Dec. 1763. It is probable that this place will long be my home. I feel little inclination to the factious barbarians of London.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 178.

’Paris, 27 March, 1764. I have been accustomed to meet with nothing but insults and indignities from my native country 1. ’ Ib. p. 191.

’Paris, 26 April, 1764. The taste for literature is neither decayed nor depraved here, as with the barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames.’ Ib. p. 196.

’Paris, 22 Sept. 1764. From what human motive or consideration can I prefer living in England than in foreign countries? I believe, taking the continent of Europe from Petersburgh to Lisbon and from Bergen to Naples, there is not one who ever heard of my name, who has not heard of it with advantage, both in point of morals and genius. I do not believe there is one Englishman in fifty who, if he heard I had broke my neck to-night, would be sorry. Some, because I am not a Whig; some because I am not a Christian; and all because I am a Scotsman. Can you seriously talk of my continuing an Englishman 2 ? Am I, or are you, an Englishman? Do they not treat with derision our pretensions to that name, and with hatred our just pretensions to surpass and govern them?’ Ib. p. 238.

’Paris, 14 Jany. 1765. The rage and prejudice of parties frighten me; and above all this rage against the Scots, which is so dishonourable, and indeed so infamous to the English nation. We hear that it increases every day without the least appearance of provocation on our part. It has frequently made me resolve never in my life to set foot on English ground.’ Ib. p. 265.

’Paris, Aug. 23, 1765. I have a reluctance to think of living among the factious barbarians of London; who will hate me because I am a Scotsman, and am not a Whig, and despise me because I am a man of letters…. Lord Hertford, on his arrival in London, found great difficulty of executing his intentions in my favour 1. The cry is loud against the Scots; and the present ministry 2 are unwilling to support any of our countrymen, lest they bear the reproach of being connected with Lord Bute.’ Ib. p. 290.

’Paris, Nov. 5, 1765. London is the capital of my own country; but it never pleased me much. Letters are there held in no honour; Scotsmen are hated; superstition and ignorance gain ground daily.’ Ib. p. 292.

It was my duty, as editor of Boswell's Life of Johnson , to gather in a Concordance Johnson's sayings against the Scotch. I shall feel more confidence among my friends of that race, when I show them that Hume in his abuse of the English as much surpassed Johnson in violence as he was inferior to him in wit. On one occasion, and on one alone, do I find him writing as an Englishman. In a letter to the Abbé Morellet, dated London, July 10, 1769, he says:—’The Abbé Galliani goes to Naples; he does well to leave Paris before I come thither; for I should certainly put him to death for all the ill he has spoken of England. But it has happened, as was foretold by his friend Caraccioli, who said that the Abbé would remain two months in this country, would speak all himself, would not allow an Englishman to utter a syllable, and after returning would give the character of the nation during the rest of his life as if he were perfectly well acquainted with them.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 428.

He urges indeed his brother to give his eldest son an English education, so that he may not, by staying in Scotland,‘acquire such an accent as he will never be able to cure of.’ Ib. p. 403. In his History moreover he recognises the advantage of a union of the two nations. So early as the reign of Edward I. he speaks of it as‘a project so favourable to the happiness and grandeur of both Kingdoms.’ He describes that King's attempt to seize the Scottish crown, as a‘great object, very advantageous to England, perhaps in the end no less beneficial to Scotland, but extremely unjust and iniquitous in itself.’ Ed. 1802, ii. 246, 250.

I do not find that Hume's friends among his countrymen shared in the violence of his dislike. On the contrary some of them remonstrated with him. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote to him in the autumn of 1764:—’Notwithstanding all you say, we are both Englishmen; that is, true British subjects, entitled to every emolument and advantage that our happy constitution can bestow. Do not you speak and write and publish what you please? and though attacking favourite and popular opinions, are you not in the confidential friendship of Lord Hertford, and intrusted with the most important national concerns? Am not I a member of Parliament….? Had it not been for the clamour of a Scott , perhaps indeed I might have been in some more active, but not more honourable or lucrative situation. This clamour we all know is merely artificial and occasional. It will in time give way to some other equally absurd and ill-founded, when you, if you will, may become a bishop and I a minister.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 240. In the same month Millar sent him the following extract from a letter which he had received from Adam Smith, who was at Paris:—’Though I am very happy here, I long passionately to rejoin my old friends, and if I had once got fairly to your side of the water, I think I should never cross it again. Recommend the same sober way of thinking to Hume. He is light-headed, tell him, when he talks of coming to spend the remainder of his days here or in France. Remember me to him most affectionately.’ M. S. R. S. E.

On Feb. 25 of the following year (1765) Millar wrote:—’You are totally mistaken about any prejudice against the Scots in general here. I find no difference of respect to particulars. The cry was raised and is continued only with a view to distress Lord Bute whom they heartily hate, and it would have been happy for his Country he had never been born; his particular friendship being placed on weak or designing men is a misfortune and the certain [?] affectation and manner is disgusting.’ Ib. John Crawfurd wrote to Hume on Jan. 20, 1767:—’What you say of your being detested as a Scotsman, and despised as a man of letters is melancholy nonsense.’ Ib. Boswell,‘a very universal man’ as he was, we find associating with Churchill only two or three months after that scurrilous but most vigorous writer had bitterly assailed Scotland in his Prophecy of Famine. It was by‘the witty sallies’ of him and of a libeller equally gross, John Wilkes, that the young Scotchman‘was enlivened’ on the morning on which he first called on Johnson. Boswell's Johnson , i. 395. On the other hand, Boswell's friend, George Dempster, a Member of Parliament well known in his day, writing to him in 1775 about Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands , shows how strong the English antipathy was. He says:—’I hope the book will induce many of Dr. Johnson's countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch; who certainly would never have formed those combinations which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners.’ Ib. v. 408. Nevertheless the great popularity of the Scotch authors, Blair, Beattie, Robertson, and Hume himself; the‘extraordinary applause’ that was given to Beattie in the Theatre at Oxford, when on July 9, 1773 he received his degree of Doctor of Laws, show that, however strong may have been the general feeling against the race, it did not necessarily extend in all its force to individuals.

That the provocation was very great that Hume as a Scotchman received cannot be denied. That much of the attack was provoked, as I have said, by the favour shown to his countrymen by the King's Scotch favourite, is equally true. Johnson, who was disposed to think well of the Earl of Bute, from whom as Prime Minister he had received his pension, said of him:—’Lord Bute showed an undue partiality to Scotchmen. He turned out Dr. Nichols, a very eminent man, from being physician to the King, to make room for one of his countrymen, a man very low in his profession. He had Wedderburne and Home to go on errands for him. He had occasion for people to go on errands for him; but he should not have had Scotchmen; and certainly he should not have suffered them to have access to him before the first people in England.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 354. There was however another and a less worthy ground for the general ill-will of the English towards the North Britons. There was a jealousy of the success which the Scotch were fairly winning in almost every path of life. The knowledge which they had gained in their schools and universities,‘countenanced in general,’ to use Johnson's words,‘by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enabled them to find, or to make their way to employment, riches, and distinction.’ Johnson's Works , ix. 158.

The following anecdote, recorded by Jefferson in his Diary , illustrates this Scotch occupation of England:—’The confederation of the States, while on the carpet before the old Congress, was strenuously opposed by the smaller States, which feared being swallowed up by the larger ones. We were long engaged in the discussion; it produced great heats, much ill-humour, & intemperate declarations from some members. Dr. Franklin at length brought the debate to a close with one of his little apologues. He observed that “at the time of the Union of England and Scotland the Duke of Argyle was most violently opposed to that measure, and among other things predicted that, as the whale had swallowed Jonah, so Scotland would be swallowed by England. However (said the Doctor) when Lord Bute came into the Government, he soon brought into its administration so many of his countrymen, that it was found in the event that Jonah swallowed the whale.” This little story produced a general laugh, and restored good humour, and the article of difficulty was passed.’ Life of Franklin , ed. by J. Bigelow, 1879, iii. 299.

Having shown Hume's rage against the English, I will now give a few instances of‘the mad and wicked rage against the Scots.’ Wilkes, in the North Briton , No. xiii. (Aug. 28, 1762), in a passage which he says comes from Howell, writes:—

’As for fruit for their grandsire Adam's sake they [the Scotch] never planted any; and for other trees, had Christ been betrayed in this country (as doubtless he should, had he come as a stranger) Judas had sooner found the grace of repentance than a tree to hang himself on.’ This attack he follows up with such abuse as the following:—’Jany. 22, 1763. A Scot hath no more right to preferment in England than a Hanoverian or a Hottentot.’ Ib. No. 34.

’April 2, 1763. The restless and turbulent disposition of the Scottish nation before the Union, with their constant attachment to France and declared enmity to England, their repeated perfidies and rebellions since that period, with their servile behaviour in times of need and overbearing insolence in power, have justly rendered the very name Scot hateful to every true Englishman.’ Wilkes goes on to attack Lord Bute for‘his gross partiality to his own beggarly countrymen 1. ’ Ib. No. 44.

Churchill's Prophecy of Famine , published in 1763, is full of scurrilous passages such as:—

’Oft have I heard thee mourn the wretched lot Of the poor, mean, despis’d, insulted Scot.’

Works , ed. 1766, i. 105.

’Jockey, whose manly high-bon’d cheeks to crown With freckles spotted flam’d the golden down, With mikle art could on the bagpipes play, E’en from the rising to the setting day; Sawney as long without remorse could bawl Home's madrigals and ditties from Fingal. Oft at his strains, all natural tho’ rude, The Highland Lass forgot her want of food, And whilst she scratch’d her lover into rest Sunk pleas’d, though hungry, on her Sawney's breast.’

Ib. i. 111.

In his last poem, written in 1764, on his departure from England, he says, speaking of the Muses:—

’If fashionable grown, and fond of pow’r With hum’rous Scots let them disport their hour; Let them dance fairy-like, round Ossian's tomb; Let them forge lies and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very Prince of verse, Make something like a tragedy in Erse.’

Ib. ii. 328.

F. Greville, writing to Hume from Brussels on Sept. 24, 1764, about‘that wretch Churchill,’ says:—’My own heart glowed at the honest indignation he seems to have excited in your breast, and you flatter me very much in pouring it out so freely before me.’ M. S. R. S. E. Walpole wrote on Nov. 15 of the same year:—’Churchill, the poet, is dead—to the great joy of the Ministry and the Scotch.’ Letters , iv. 291. Beattie, in some lines written shortly after Churchill's death, did what he could to pay back the poet's insults. They end:—

'sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest? Judas, though dead, though damned, we still detest.’

The‘rage’ continued for years after Bute's retirement from office, for the secret‘influence’ was still suspected. Dr. A. Carlyle ( Auto. p. 509) says that in 1769 Garrick, who was bringing out a new play by John Home,‘justly alarmed at the jealousy and dislike which prevailed at that time against Lord Bute and the Scotch, had advised the author to change the title of Rivine into that of The Fatal Discovery , and had provided a student of Oxford who appeared at the rehearsals as the author, and wished Home of all things to remain concealed till the play had its run. But John, whose vanity was too sanguine to admit of any fear or caution, and whose appetite for praise rebelled against the counsel that would deprive him for a moment of his fame, too soon discovered the secret, and though the play survived its nine nights, yet the house evidently slackened after the town heard that John was the author.’ Murphy, in his Life of Garrick , p. 295, says of Home's play:—’The names of the persons of the piece are grating to an English ear. Kastreel, Dunton, Connon , and the like are exotics beneath the dignity of tragedy. The play might as well be written in Erse.’ Dr. Blair, on the other hand, as became the champion of Ossian , writing to Hume on March 11, 1769, says:—’I have this morning received The Fatal Discovery by post. I sit down to read it with great greediness. What made Home give it such a foolish Novel kind of name? Rivine ought to have been the name of the play.’ M. S. R. S. E. We may pause a moment to reflect on the vast change in sentiment that has been wrought since the days when a Highland name was thought sufficient to damn a play. Now, not only Lowlanders, but even Englishmen, when they go to‘the mountains of the North’ are proud to disguise themselves in a dress which their forefathers in Edinburgh or in London, in the days of David Hume and John Home, would have looked on with a feeling of scorn not altogether unmingled with fear. Perhaps by the end of the twentieth century the descendants of the Orangemen of Belfast and Londonderry, and people of rank and fortune from England, when they go to shoot and fish in the wilds of Kerry or Connemara, will hope in their long frieze coats, their knee breeches, and their worsted stockings, to be taken for the children of the soil. Johnson, when he was surrounded by the M’Craas with their‘very savage wildness of aspect and manner,’ and felt that‘it was much the same as being with a tribe of Indians,’ if any one had told him that in another hundred years English gentlemen would be proud to be mistaken for Highlanders, in all probability would have replied:—'sir, you lie, and you know that you lie.’ It was less than twenty years before the date of Hume's letter that Ray, in his History of the Rebellion of 1745 (p. vii), describes the Young Pretender's army as‘the barbarians that over-run the country.’

To return from this digression to the main subject of this note. Smollett in Humphry Clinker , published in 1771, (Letter of July 13), describes how‘from Doncaster northwards all the windows of all the inns are scrawled with doggrel rhymes in abuse of the Scottish nation.’ Lord Shelburne wrote:—’I can scarce conceive a Scotchman capable of liberality, and capable of impartiality.’ Fitzmaurice's Shelburne , iii. 441. Of Lord Mansfield he wrote that‘like the generality of Scotch he had no regard to truth whatever.’ Ib. i. 89. Horace Walpole was, in his old age, as violent against the Scotch as Hume against the English.‘June 14, 1780. What a nation is Scotland; in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the Kings that favour it the most! National prejudices, I know, are very vulgar; but, if there are national characteristics, can one but dislike the soils and climates that concur to produce them?’ Letters , vii. 400.‘Feb. 5, 1781. Pray look into the last Critical Review but one; there you will find that David Hume in a saucy blockheadly note calls Locke, Algernon Sidney, and Bishop Hoadly despicable writers. I believe that ere long the Scotch will call the English lousy ! and that Goody Hunter will broach the assertion in an Anatomic lecture. Not content with debasing and disgracing us as a nation by losing America, destroying our Empire, and making us the scorn and prey of Europe, the Scotch would annihilate our patriots, martyrs, heroes and geniuses. Algernon Sidney, Lord Russell, King William, the Duke of Marlborough, Locke, are to be traduced and levelled, and with the aid of their fellow-labourer Johnson, who spits at them while he tugs at the same oar, Milton, Addison, Prior and Gray are to make way for the dull forgeries of Ossian, and such wights as Davy and Johnny Home, Lord Kames, Lord Monboddo, and Adam Smith!—Oh! if you [Mason the Poet] have a drop of English ink in your veins, rouse and revenge your country! Do not let us be run down and brazened out of all our virtue, genius, sense and taste by Laplanders and Bœotians, who never produced one original writer in verse or prose.’ Ib. p. 511.

A curious contrast to the violence of Walpole's attack is afforded by a passage in a letter written in the spring of 1759, in which Hume informs Robertson of the great popularity of the History of Scotland. ‘Mr. Walpole,’ he says,‘triumphs in the success of his favourites, the Scotch.’ Stewart's Life of Robertson , p. 180. A justification for Hume's statement is found in Walpole's own letters; for on March 25 of this year he wrote to Sir David Dalrymple:—’I could not help smiling, Sir, at being taxed with insincerity for my encomiums on Scotland. They were given in a manner a little too serious to admit of irony, and (as partialities cannot be supposed entirely ceased) with too much risk of disapprobation in this part of the world, not to flow from my heart. My friends have long known my opinion on this point, and it is too much formed on fact for me to retract it, if I were so disposed.’ Letters , iii. 217. This was written, be it observed, while George II was King, and the Earl of Bute nothing more than the favourite of the Princess Dowager of Wales.

See post, Letters of Oct. 25, 1769; March 5, 1772; Jan. 30, 1773.

1 By native country he means Great Britain, as distinguished from France.

2 His correspondent, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, had written to him:—’Love the French as much as you will; but above all continue still an Englishman.’ Ib. p. 235.

1 He had intended to take Hume to Ireland as his Secretary, in his post of Lord Lieutenant.

2 The Rockingham Ministry.

1 Johnson in 1754 had said that Bolingbroke‘left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death.’ Boswell's Johnson, i.268.

’Philada. July 5, 1775.

’M R. S TRAHAN ,

’You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction.—You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People,—Look upon your Hands!—They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! You and I were long friends.—You are now my Enemy,—and

’I am, yours,

’B. F RANKLIN. ’

[Franklin's Memoirs , ed. 1818, iii. i.]

Their friendship was renewed when peace was made between the two countries. Franklin wrote to Strahan in 1784:—’I remember your observing once to me, as we sat together in the House of Commons, that no two journeymen printers within your knowledge had met with such success in the world as ourselves. You were then at the head of your profession, and soon afterwards became a Member of Parliament. I was an agent for a few provinces, and now act for them.’ Ib. p. 172.

LETTER XXII.

The King's Birth-day kept in Paris.

Dear S ir

There have some Transactions pass’d with you of late 1. , which much excite our Curiosity at a Distance; but I do not wish that you woud write me your Opinion freely about them, unless you can get a private hand, by whom you can send your Letter 2. .

I shall be much obligd to you, if you will be so good as to insert the following Article in the Chronicle 3. , and give it about to the other Papers.

’Paris. On Tuesday the fourth of June, being the Anniversary of his Majesty's Birth day, the Earl of Hertford, Ambassador from England, invited all the English of Rank and Condition in this Place, to the Number of seventy Persons, who dind with him and celebrated that Solemnity. The Company appeard very Splendid, being almost all drest in new and rich Cloaths on this Occasion; the Entertainment was magnificent, and the usual Healths were drunk with great Loyalty and Alacrity by all present 4. .’

I am sorry it is not allowd me to communicate to you any more interesting Intelligence; but be assurd of my Regard, and excuse my abrupt Conclusion, as I write in a Hurry.

I am Dear Sir Yours most sincerely
David Hume.
Paris , 6 th of June , 1765.

’May 25, 1765. My last, I think, was of the 16th. Since that we have had events of almost every sort. A whole administration dismissed, taken again, suspended, confirmed; an insurrection; and we have been at the eve of a civil war. Many thousand weavers rose on a bill for their relief being thrown out of the House of Lords by the Duke of Bedford. For four days they were suffered to march about the town with colours displayed, petitioning the King, surrounding the House of Lords, mobbing and wounding the Duke of Bedford, and at last besieging his house, which with his family was narrowly saved from destruction. At last it grew a regular siege and blockade; but by garrisoning it with horse and foot literally, and calling in several regiments the tumult is appeased. Lord Bute rashly taking advantage of this unpopularity of his enemies, advised the King to notify to his Ministers that he intended to dismiss them,—and by this step, no succedaneum being prepared, reduced his Majesty to the alternative of laying his crown at the foot of Mr. Pitt or of the Duke of Bedford; and as it proved at last, of both. The Duke of Cumberland was sent for, and was sent to Mr. Pitt, from whom, though offering almost carte blanche , he received a peremptory refusal. The next measure was to form a Ministry from the Opposition. Willing were they, but timid. Without Mr. Pitt nobody would engage. The King was forced to desire his old Ministers to stay where they were…. Here are all the great and opulent noble families engaged on one side or the other. Here is the King insulted and prisoner, his Mother stigmatised, his Uncle affronted, his Favourite persecuted. It is again a scene of Bohuns, Montforts and Plantagenets…. When I recollect all I have seen and known, I seem to be as old as Methuselah; indeed I was born in politics,—but I hope not to die in them. With all my experience, these last five weeks have taught me more than any other ten years.’ Walpole to Mann. Letters , iv. 370-2.

’June 26, 1765. You have known your country in more perilous situations, but you never knew it in a more distracted one in time of peace than it is in at present. Nor had I ever more difficulty to describe its position to you. Times of party have their great outlines which even such historians as Hollingshed or Smollett can seize. But a season of faction is another guess thing. It depends on personal characters, intrigues and minute circumstances, which make little noise and escape the eyes of the generality. The details are as much too numerous for a letter as, when the moment is past, they become too trifling and uninteresting for history.’ Ib. p. 377.

Burke, writing on May 18 to Henry Flood, said:—’Nothing but an intractable temper in your friend Pitt can prevent a most admirable and lasting system from being put together; and this crisis will shew whether pride or patriotism be predominant in his character; for you may be assured that he has it now in his power to come into the service of his country upon any plan of politics he may choose to dictate, with great and honourable terms to himself and to every friend he has in the world; and with such a stretch of power as will be equal to everything but absolute despotism over the King and kingdom. A few days will shew whether he will take this part, or that of continuing on his back at Hayes, talking fustian, excluded from all ministerial, and incapable of all parliamentary service; for his gout is worse than ever, but his pride may disable him more than his gout. These matters so fill our imaginations here that with our mob of six or seven thousand weavers who pursue the Ministry, and do not leave them quiet or safety in their houses, we have little to think of other things.’ Burke's Private Corres. i. 80.

Dr. Blair wrote to Hume in Paris on July 1 [1765]:—’Our Political Revolutions here would amaze you…. All that seems to be certain is that L. B. [Lord Bute] is worsted and — [the King] made a prisoner. If the present Establishment take any root, it will probably end in his relapsing altogether into the condition of a private man and amusing himself with his Wife and his Children; now that they have found the ways of subduing him.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Macaulay, in his second Essay on the Earl of Chatham (ed. 1874, iv. 318), describing his conduct at this time says:—’And now began a long series of errors on the part of the illustrious statesman, errors which involved his country in difficulties and distresses more serious even than those from which his genius had formerly rescued her. His language was haughty, unreasonable, almost unintelligible. The only thing which could be discerned, through a cloud of vague and not very gracious phrases, was that he would not at that moment take office.’

’London, June 8, 1757. The public, perhaps at the moment I write this, is at the crisis of its fate ∗ But I say no more. For at the Post Office, it is said, they use a liberty without licence (just the contrary of what is done everywhere else, where they use licence without liberty) to open people's letters.’ Warburton to Hurd. Letters from a late Eminent Prelate, ed. 1809, p. 244.

’London, June 26, 1765. You know, my dear Sir, I never expect you to answer me on these delicate subjects [a threatened change of Ministry]. I even send this by a safe conveyance to Lord Hertford at Paris, as I did a former one which I hope you received.’ Horace Walpole to Mann. Letters , iv. 378.

’London, Aug. 29, 1766. I am told there is a great fracas at the Post Office about a letter from the Duke of Bedford to the Duke of Grafton [the Prime Minister] having been opened. Mr. Saxby is named as the person doing it, and is under strict examination, I hear, to name who set him on to do it…. Sept. 2. Saxby is turned out of an office of £1200 a year for opening the Duke of Bedford's letter, it is said, to the Duke of Grafton.’ Mr. Lloyd to Mr. Grenville. Grenville Papers , iii. 311. The editor quotes a Private Memorial to Mr. Grenville, when Prime Minister, from Mr. Anthony Todd, the Secretary to the General Post Office, dated August 1763, containing an account of £5810 Secret Service Money applied to the payment of the allowances on the Secret List for one year. A request was made that the allowance of one Mr. Bode might be increased,‘for engraving the many seals we are obliged to make use of.’ On this Secret List Mr. Todd's name is entered for £750, with £25 added,‘for distributing these allowances.’ His regular salary was only £200 ( Court and City Register for 1765, p. 129). It must have been raised later on, for on June 17, 1783, Mr. Pitt in the Debate on his Bill for Reform of Abuses in the Public Offices,‘speaking of fees mentioned the place of the Secretary of the Post Office, who with a salary of five or six hundred pounds made an annual income of upwards of three thousand. Mr. Pitt stated this to arise from his having two and a half per cent. on all packets [packet-boats]; and in the last year of the war he said £140,000 had been expended in packets, so many were either lost at sea or taken.’ Parl. Hist. xxiii. 951. I was puzzled at finding in the Secret List the Bishop of Bath and Wells as the recipient of £500 a year; but after some search I solved the mystery by discovering the following mention of him by Horace Walpole in 1741:—’Old Weston of Exeter is dead. Dr. Clarke, the Dean, Dr. Willes, the decipherer, and Dr. Gilbert of Llandaff are candidates to succeed him. Sir R[obert Walpole, the Prime-Minister] is for Willes, who, he says, knows so many secrets that he might insist upon being made Archbishop.’ Letters , i. 116. His death is thus mentioned in the Gent. Mag. for Dec. 1773, p. 582:—’In Hill Street, Berkeley Square, aged 80, Dr. Edward Willes, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, and joint Decipherer (with his son Edward Willes, Esq.) to the King. He was consecrated Bishop of St. David's in 1742, and translated to the see of Bath and Wells in 1743.’ Edward Willes is entered on the Secret List as receiving £500, and Thomas Willes £300.

’dublin, May 19, 1769. To avoid the impertinence of a post-office I take the opportunity of sending this by a private hand.’ Earl of Charlemont to Burke. Burke Corres. i. 167.

’Gregories, July 9, 1769. Might I presume to suggest that just at this time he [the Duke of Richmond] may possibly expect to hear from your lordship by the first safe conveyance. If the letter be given to his porter it will be sent by the coach to Goodwood.’ Burke to the Marquis of Rockingham. Ib. p. 176.

If we may trust Hume the correspondence of private life was safe. He wrote to the Countess de Boufflers in 1775:—’No private letters are ever opened here.’ Hume's Private Corres. p. 282.

At this time the posts to France left London on Tuesday and Friday in every week, and arrived in London from France on Monday and Friday. Their punctual arrival must of course have depended on a favourable wind. Court and City Register for 1765, p. 132.

1 The Pitt and Newcastle Ministry was forming.

LETTER XXIII.

Faction in England.

Compeigne , 4 of Augt. , 1765.
Dear S ir

Your Letter is the most satisfactory and most impartial Account of the present Transactions, which I have met with from any hand. I give you thanks for it. I had long entertain’d Hopes, that, being here in a foreign Employment, we lay much out of the Road of Faction; and that your Ministry in England might toss and tumble over one another, without affecting us; but I see we are now involvd to a certain degree, and must run the Fate of the rest. It is probable I shall be soon in England when I shall have an Opportunity of conversing with you and thanking you more fully 1. . I am glad to hear better Accounts of Mr. Millar.

Yours
D. H.

For some time it seemed that Hume was to have a still higher office.‘Lord Hertford had assured him that he would not accept of the Lord-Lieutenancy unless he were allowed the naming of the Secretary.’ He had now heard that‘the office was destined for himself in conjunction with Lord Hertford's son, Lord Beauchamp.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 287. On Aug. 4, Hume wrote to his brother from Compiègne:—’My Sallary [as Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant] will be about 2000 a year…. This is an office of Credit and Dignity, and the Secretary has always an unquestioned Claim, whenever his Term expires, of being provided for in a handsome Manner. Thus you see a splendid Fortune awaits me; yet you cannot imagine with what Regret I leave this Country. It is like Stepping out of Light into Darkness to exchange Paris for Dublin…. I shall probably have it in my Power to do Service to my Friends, particularly to your young Folks. For as to you and myself it is long since we thought our Fortunes entirely made…. I shall remain all the Winter and Spring in Ireland; and no more for two Years.’ M.S.R.S.E.

Before the end of the month he learnt that the office was not for him. He wrote to his brother:—’Lord Hertford, on his arrival in London, found great difficulty of executing his intentions in my favour. The cry is loud against the Scots; and the present Ministry are unwilling to support any of our countrymen, lest they bear the reproach of being connected with Lord Bute. For this reason Lord Hertford departed from his project; which he did the more readily, as he knew I had a great reluctance to the office of Secretary for Ireland, which requires a talent for speaking in public to which I was never accustomed. I must also have kept a kind of open house, and have drunk and caroused with the Irish, a course of living to which I am as little accustomed.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 290.

In a letter to Adam Smith, dated Nov. 5, after mentioning‘the Rage against the Scots,’ he adds:—’Perhaps the Zeal against Deists entered for a share.’ In the same letter he describes the office as one‘of great Dignity, as the Secretary is in a manner prime Minister of that Kingdom.’ M.S.R.S.E.

Two years later we find Junius mocking at‘a Scotch secretary teaching the Irish people the true pronunciation of the English language.’ In a note it is stated that it was Sir Gilbert Elliot, Hume's friend, who was meant. Letters of Junius , ed. 1812, ii. 474.

When the Earl of Chesterfield was made Lord Lieutenant in the year 1745, he chose for his Secretary‘one “who was,” he said, “a very genteel pretty young fellow, but not a man of business.” On the first visit his Secretary paid him, he told him, “Sir, you will receive the emoluments of your place; but I will do the business myself, being determined to have no first Minister.”’ Chesterfield's Misc. Works , i. 255. We may wonder whether Hume, if he had been appointed, would, like Windham, have felt‘some modest and virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to practise those arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has occasion to employ. “Don’t be afraid, Sir (said Johnson, with a pleasant smile,) you will soon make a very pretty rascal.”’ Boswell's Johnson , iv. 200. Among the Hume Papers belonging to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I found the following letter written to him the year before by one Mr. O’Conor.