They belonged to Mr. F. Barker, of 43, Rowan Road, Brook Green, a dealer in autographs, to whom I have expressed my acknowledgments in my edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson , for the permission which he gave me to print some of Johnson's letters that were in his possession. I may add that he has lent me also a large and curious collection of letters written to William and Andrew Strahan, by men of letters and publishers, chiefly Scottish. Of these I have made some use in my notes to the present work. It would be a great pity if the dispersion which threatens them were not averted.
My extracts from these papers are marked M. S. R. S. E.
Post , p. 266.
History of England , ed. 1802, ii. 101.
Post , pp. 76–84.
Post , pp. 86–92.
Post , pp. 114, 151, 247, 248, 255.
Post , pp. 50–58.
Post , pp. 49, 58–63.
Post , pp. 113, 134, 185, 289.
Post , p. 195, n. 29.
Post , pp. 114, 161, 173, 185, 201, 217.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Wealth of Nations were not published till the last year of Hume's life ( post , p. 314).
Post , pp. 174, 288, 308.
Post , p. 367.
Post , p. 289.
Post , p. 324.
Post , pp. 230, 233, 330–2, 346.
Post , p. 200.
Post , p. 342.
Post , p. 27.
Post , p. 351.
Post , p. 189.
Post , p. 163.
Hume showed his family pride by selecting the Earl of Home as one of the two witnesses to his will. For the spelling of the name see post , p. 9, n. 10.
The estate, which lay very near Berwick, bore the name of Ninewells. ‘It is so named from a cluster of springs of that number. They burst forth from a gentle declivity in front of the mansion, which has on each side a semicircular rising bank, covered with fine timber, and fall, after a short time, into the bed of the river Whitewater, which forms a boundary in the front.’ Burton's Life of Hume , i. 8.
Dr. Alexander Carlyle records the following anecdote, which he had from one of ‘Hume's most intimate friends, the Honourable Patrick Boyle.’ ‘When David and he were both in London, at the period when David's mother died, Mr. Boyle found him in the deepest affliction, and in a flood of tears. He said to him, “My friend, you owe this uncommon grief to your having thrown off the principles of religion; for if you had not, you would have been consoled by the firm belief that the good lady, who was not only the best of mothers, but the most pious of Christians, was now completely happy in the realms of the just.” To which David replied, “Though I threw out my speculations to entertain and employ the learned and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do not think so differently from the rest of mankind as you may imagine.”’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Autobiography , p. 273. With this anecdote we may contrast the following: Lord Charlemont ‘hinted’ to Hume, shortly after his return to England in 1766, ‘that he was convinced he must be perfectly happy in his new friend Rousseau, as their sentiments were, he believed, nearly similar. “Why no, man,” said he; “in that you are mistaken; Rousseau is not what you think him; he has a hankering after the Bible, and indeed is little better than a Christian in a way of his own.”’ Memoirs of the Earl of Charlemont , ed. 1812, i. 230.
The ‘ruling passion’ comes from Pope's Moral Essays , i. 174:—
Johnson speaks of this as Pope's ‘favourite theory,’ and adds:—‘Of any passion, thus innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted.’ Johnson's Works , ed. 1825, viii. 293.
Paul Voet, born 1619, died 1677, a Dutch jurisconsult, published among other works Commentarius in Institutiones imperiales. His son John, born 1647, died 1714, published Commentarius ad Pandectas. Nouv. Biog. Gén. xlvi. 335.
Arnold Vinnen, born 1588, died 1657. Francis Horner, in the plan which he laid down for the study of the Scotch law in 1797, says:—‘I must study both Heineccius and Vinnius.’ Life of Horner , ed. 1843, i. 52.
Hume, in a statement of his health which he drew up for a physician in the year 1734, says:—‘Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics knows that there is nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and philosopher.’ Burton's Hume , i. 31.
In this same statement, after describing a weakness of spirits into which he had fallen, which hindered him from ‘following out any train of thought by one continued stretch of view,’ he continues:—‘I found that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion; and that my whole time was spent betwixt the bad, with little or no share of the good. For this reason I resolved to seek out a more active life, and though I could not quit my pretensions in learning but with my last breath, to lay them aside for some time in order the more effectually to resume them.’ Ib. p. 37. It is a curious coincidence that Hume and Johnson were first attacked by melancholy at the same time. ‘About the beginning of September, 1729,’ says Hume, ‘all my ardour seemed to be in a moment extinguished.’ Ib. p. 31. ‘While Johnson was at Lichfield,’ writes Boswell, ‘in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria.’ Boswell's Life of Johnson , Clarendon Press edition, i. 63. We may compare with both these cases the melancholy into which John Stuart Mill sank at about the same age, in the autumn of 1826. Mill's Autobiography , ed. 1873, p. 133.
In the Memoirs of Hannah More , i. 16, it is stated that ‘she was much indebted for her critical knowledge to a linen-draper of Bristol, of the name of Peach. He had been the friend of Hume, who had shown his confidence in his judgment by entrusting to him the correction of his History , in which he used to say he had discovered more than two hundred Scotticisms.’ He told her that ‘Hume was dismissed from the merchant's counting-house on account of the promptitude of his pen in correction of the letters entrusted to him to copy.’ The narrative is not free from error, as it is stated in it that Hume resided two years in Bristol.
The publisher, John Noone, gave Hume £50, and twelve bound copies of the book for right to publish an edition of the first two volumes, of one thousand copies. Dr. Burton, after praising Noone's ‘discernment and liberality,’ continues:—‘It may be questioned whether in this age, when knowledge has spread so much wider, and money is so much less valuable, it would be easy to find a bookseller, who, on the ground of its internal merits, would give £50 for an edition of a new metaphysical work, by an unknown and young author.’ Burton's Hume , i. 66. The book had become so scarce by the time of Hume's death, that the reviewer of his Life in the Annual Register for 1776, ii. 28, thinks it needful, he says, to give some account of it.
Pope, Epil. Sat. ii. 226.
Hume not only published these Essays anonymously, but feigned that they were the work of a new author. Burton's Hume , i. 136. On June 13, 1742, he wrote to Henry Home (afterwards Lord Kames):—‘The Essays are all sold in London, as I am informed by two letters from English gentlemen of my acquaintance. There is a demand for them; and, as one of them tells me, Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, wonders there is not a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers. I am also told that Dr. Butler [the author of the Analogy ] has everywhere recommended them.’ Ib. p. 143. The first volume was published in 1741. They are mentioned in the list of books for March, 1742, in the Gent. Mag. , but are not reviewed. The Treatise of Human Nature was not even mentioned.
Hume, in a letter dated Feb. 19, 1751, speaks of ‘having read over almost all the classics both Greek and Latin.’ Burton's Hume , i. 326. See post , p. 322, n. 2, for an instance of his inaccuracy as a Greek scholar.
‘On March 5, 1748, the Marquis was found, on an inquest from the Court of Chancery in England, to be a lunatic, incapable of governing himself, and managing his own affairs, and to have been so since Dec 12, 1744.’ Burton's Hume , i. 171. ‘He appears to have been haunted by a spirit of literary ambition.’ He wrote a novel ‘of which,’ says Hume, ‘we were obliged to print off thirty copies, to make him believe that we had printed a thousand, and that they were to be dispersed all over the Kingdom.’ Ib. p. 173. Hume was treated with great insolence by a Captain Vincent, a cousin of the Marchioness-Dowager, whom he suspected of evil designs about the property. He was suddenly dismissed, and he was robbed of a quarter's salary of £75, which was clearly due to him. So late as the year 1761 he was still urging his claim, by which time the accumulated savings of the Annandale property amounted to £400,000. Whether he was paid or not is not known. Ib. p. 205. Dr. Thomas Murray, who in 1841 edited Letters of David Hume , says (p. 80) ‘that his claim was only resisted because the agents for the estates did not regard themselves safe in making any payments, unless the debt was established by legal evidence.’
So early as July 7, 1742, Horace Walpole had written:—‘Lord Annandale is at last mad in all the forms; he has long been an out-pensioner of Bedlam College.’ Letters , i. 185.
The incursion on the coast of France in 1746 was devised in the vain hope of saving the Ministry from disgrace, who had delayed the departure of the expedition against Canada till it was too late in the year. An attempt was first made against Port L’Orient; that disgracefully failing, a second was made against the peninsula of Quiberon. A ship of war was destroyed, a small fort was dismantled, and two little islands were held by our sailors for at least a fortnight. Lord Charlemont was told by General St. Clair (Sinclair), that he had earnestly requested from the War Office a set of accurate maps, as he was wholly unacquainted with the country which he was to invade. When he unpacked them, ‘they proved to be sea-charts!’ Memoirs of Charlemont , i. 16. Hume wrote to his brother:—‘The general and admiral were totally unacquainted with every part of the coast, without pilots, guides, or intelligence of any kind.’ Burton's Hume , i. 213.
Lord Charlemont, who met Hume at Turin, thus describes him:—‘Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume…. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher. His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable…. His wearing an uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. Sinclair was sent to the Courts of Vienna and Turin as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Austrians and Piedmontese. It was therefore thought necessary that his Secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet.’ Memoirs of Charlemont , i. 15. Horace Walpole, writing of Sinclair's appointment, says:—‘He is Scotchissime, in all the latitude of the word, and not very able.’ Letters , ii. 100.
See post , p. 302, n. 21.
This work, which was published anonymously, and at first under the title of Philosophical Essays on Human Understanding , is included in the list of books for April in the Gent. Mag. for 1748. It is not reviewed. Hume's publishers put a very moderate price on his philosophical works. This book was sold for three shillings, and his Essays Moral and Political for half-a-crown. Ib. 1742, p. 168.
A Free Enquiry into the miraculous powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries. Gent. Mag. , December, 1748. Gibbon, describing how, in the year 1753, in his undergraduate days at Oxford, ‘he bewildered himself in the errors of the Church of Rome,’ says:—‘It was not long since Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry had sounded an alarm in the theological world: much ink and much gall had been spilt in the defence of the primitive miracles; and the two dullest of their champions were crowned with academic honours by the University of Oxford. The name of Middleton was unpopular; and his proscription very naturally led me to peruse his writings, and those of his antagonists. His bold criticism, which approaches the precipice of infidelity, produced on my mind a singular effect; and had I persevered in the communion of Rome, I should now apply to my own fortune the prediction of the Sybil,
The elegance of style and freedom of argument were repelled by a shield of prejudice. I still revered the character, or rather the names of the saints and fathers whom Dr. Middleton exposes; nor could he destroy my implicit belief, that the gift of miraculous powers was continued in the Church during the first four or five centuries of Christianity. But I was unable to resist the weight of historical evidence, that within the same period most of the leading doctrines of Popery were already introduced in theory and practice: nor was my conclusion absurd, that miracles are the test of truth, and that the Church must be orthodox and pure, which was so often approved by the visible interposition of the Deity.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works , ed. 1814, i. 60. In his Vindication Gibbon says:—‘A theological barometer might be formed, of which Cardinal Baronius and our countryman, Dr. Middleton, should constitute the opposite and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest degree of credulity which was compatible with learning, and the latter rose to the highest pitch of scepticism in anywise consistent with religion.’ Ib. iv. 588.
Æneid , vi. 96.
It was the third edition. With three editions in seven years Hume might have been contented.
In the first edition, source.
‘Mr. Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge of conducting the publication of Johnson's Dictionary …. When the messenger who carried the last sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him, “Well, what did he say?” “Sir (answered the messenger) he said, thank God, I have done with him.” “I am glad (replied Johnson with a smile) that he thanks God for any thing.” … Johnson said of him, “I respect Millar, Sir; he has raised the price of literature.”’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 287. ‘Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, “Andrew Millar,” says Johnson, “is the Mæcenas of the age.”’ Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 200. Mr. Croker says that Millar was the bookseller described by Johnson on April 24, 1779, as ‘so habitually and equably drunk that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another.’ Croker's Boswell , 8vo. ed. p. 630. Drunkenness such as this seems inconsistent with ‘the consummate industry’ which Nichols praised in him. Nichols adds:—‘He was not extravagant; but contented himself with an occasional regale of humble port at an opposite tavern; so that his wealth accumulated rapidly.’ Nichols, Lit. Anec. iii. 387. By his italicising ‘not extravagant,’ he implies no doubt that he was somewhat near. In a note on Millar in my edition of Boswell , i. 287, I have made an absurd blunder in quoting, as if serious, a letter written by Hume in a spirit of wild extravagance.
See post , p. 149, n. 10, for the marriage of Millar's widow.
One of the answers was by Johnson's friend, Dr. William Adams. When Johnson and Boswell called on him in March 1776, at Pembroke College, of which he was then Master, ‘he told me,’ says Boswell, ‘he had once dined in company with Hume in London; that Hume shook hands with him, and said, “You have treated me much better than I deserve”; and that they exchanged visits. I took the liberty to object to treating an infidel writer with smooth civility…. Johnson coincided with me, and said, “When a man voluntarily engages in an important controversy, he is to do all he can to lessen his antagonist, because authority from personal respect has much weight with most people, and often more than reasoning. If my antagonist writes bad language, though that may not be essential to the question, I will attack him for his bad language.” Adams. “You would not jostle a chimney-sweeper.” Johnson. “Yes, Sir, if it were necessary to jostle him down. ”’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 441.
Hume forgets his reply to Rousseau ( post , p. 84), and his note in his History on ‘a person that has written an Enquiry historical and critical into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots; and has attempted to refute the foregoing narrative. It is in this note that he makes his famous assertion:—‘There are, indeed, three events in our history which may be regarded as touchstones of party-men. An English Whig, who asserts the reality of the Popish Plot, an Irish Catholic, who denies the massacre in 1641, and a Scotch Jacobite, who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be left to their prejudices.’ History of England , ed. 1802, v. 504. The ‘person’ was the Scotch Jacobite, Patrick Lord Elibank, to whom Hume wrote a very bitter letter. Burton's Hume , ii. 252.
‘I have the strangest reluctance to change places,’ wrote Hume from London on Jan. 25, 1759. Burton's Hume , ii. 50. This reluctance he expresses on other occasions. He might have remained at Ninewells had not his brother ‘plucked up a resolution’ and got married. Writing on March 19, 1751, he says:—'since my brother's departure, Katty [his sister] and I have been computing in our turn, and the result of our deliberation is, that we are to take up house in Berwick; where, if arithmetic and frugality don’t deceive us (and they are pretty certain arts), we shall be able, after providing for hunger, warmth, and cleanliness, to keep a stock in reserve, which we may afterwards turn to the purposes of hoarding, luxury, or charity.’ Burton's Hume , i. 338. On June 22 he wrote from Ninewells:—‘While interest remains as at present, I have £50 a year, a hundred pounds worth of books, great store of linens and fine clothes, and near £100 in my pocket; along with order, frugality, a strong spirit of independency, good health, a contented humour, and an unabating love of study. In these circumstances, I must esteem myself one of the happy and fortunate; and so far from being willing to draw my ticket over again in the lottery of life, there are very few prizes with which I would make an exchange. After some deliberation, I am resolved to settle in Edinburgh…. Besides other reasons which determine me to this resolution, I would not go too far away from my sister, who thinks she will soon follow me…. And as she can join £30 to my stock, and brings an equal love of order and frugality, we doubt not to make our revenues answer.’ Ib. p. 342. At the end of the year he was a candidate for the Chair of Logic in the University of Glasgow, which was vacated by Adam Smith's transference to the Chair of Moral Philosophy. He had, it is said, Edmund Burke for his competitor, but to both of them was preferred one Mr. Clow. Ib. p. 350. Adam Smith wrote to Dr. William Cullen:—‘Edin. Tuesday. November 1751…. I should prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague; but I am afraid the public would not be of my opinion; and the interest of the society will oblige us to have some regard to the opinion of the public.’ Thomson's Life of Cullen , i. 606.
It is in the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1752, but is not reviewed.
It was published in Dec. 1751. Gent. Mag. 1751, p. 574.
It is not even mentioned in the Gent. Mag.
In this post Hume succeeded Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland; ‘whose farewell letter to the Faculty of Advocates, when he resigned the office of their Librarian, should,’ said Johnson, ‘have been in Latin.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 216. Hume describes the post as ‘a petty office of forty or fifty guineas a year.’ He calls it also ‘a genteel office.’ Burton's Hume , i. 370. In 1754 he was censured by three of the curators—James Burnet (Lord Monboddo), Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes), and another—for buying three French books, which they described as ‘indecent, and unworthy of a place in a learned library.’ Writing about this to Adam Smith, he says:—‘Being equally unwilling to lose the use of the books, and to bear an indignity, I retain the office, but have given Blacklock, our blind poet, a bond of annuity for the salary. I have now put it out of these malicious fellows’ power to offer me any indignity, while my motive for remaining in this office is so apparent.’ Ib. p. 393. See post , p. 352, n. 4. In January, 1757, he resigned his office in the curtest of letters. Ib. ii. 18.
‘David Hume used to say that he did not find it an irksome task to him to go through a great many dull books when writing his History. “I then read,” said he, “not for pleasure, but in order to find out facts.” He compared it to a sportsman seeking hares, who does not mind what sort of ground it is that he goes over further than as he may find hares in it. From himself.’ Boswelliana , p. 263.
Hume writing to his friend William Mure about the first volume of his History says:—‘The first quality of an historian is to be true and impartial. The next to be interesting. If you do not say that I have done both parties justice, and if Mrs. Mure be not sorry for poor King Charles, I shall burn all my papers and return to philosophy.’ Burton's Hume , i. 409.
It is in the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for November, 1754, but is not reviewed; Hume wrote to the Earl of Balcarres from Edinburgh, on Dec. 17:—‘My History has been very much canvassed and read here in town, as I am told; and it has full as many inveterate enemies as partial defenders. The misfortune of a book, says Boileau, is not the being ill spoke of, but the not being spoken of at all. The sale has been very considerable here, about 450 copies in five weeks. How it has succeeded in London, I cannot precisely tell; only I observe that some of the weekly papers have been busy with me.—I am as great an Atheist as Bolingbroke; as great a Jacobite as Carte; I cannot write English, c.’ Burton's Hume , i. 412. Hume seems at one time to have attributed the smallness of the London sale to the fault of his Edinburgh bookseller, Baillie Hamilton. He wrote to Millar on April 12, 1755:—‘I think the London booksellers have had a sufficient triumph over him, when a book, which was much expected and was calculated to be popular, has had so small a sale in his hands. To make the triumph more complete I wish you would take what remains into your hands, and dispose of it in a few months.’ MS., R. S. E.
Horace Walpole, writing of it on March 27, 1755, speaks of it as ‘a book, which though more decried than ever book was, and certainly with faults, I cannot help liking much. It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-Abite ; where others abuse the Stuarts, he laughs at them: I am sure he does not spare their ministers. Harding [the Clerk of the House of Commons], who has the History of England at the ends of his parliament fingers, says that the Journals will contradict most of his facts. If it is so, I am sorry; for his style, which is the best we have in history, and his manner, imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing.’ Letters , ii. 428. Johnson called Hume ‘an echo of Voltaire.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 53.
Horace Walpole, writing on Oct. 4, 1745, in the midst of the alarm caused by the Young Pretender's victory at Preston-Pans, says:—‘The nobility are raising regiments, and everybody else is—being raised. Dr. Herring, the Archbishop of York, has set an example that would rouse the most indifferent: in two days after the news arrived at York of Cope's defeat, and when they every moment expected the victorious rebels at their gates, the Bishop made a speech to the assembled county, that had as much true spirit, honesty, and bravery in it as ever was penned by an historian for an ancient hero.’ Letters , i. 394. Herring was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1747.
Horace Walpole says that Stone, ‘with no pretensions in the world but by being attached to the House of Dorset, and by being brother of Mr. Stone [sub-governor to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III], had been hurried through two or three Irish bishoprics up to the very primacy of the kingdom, not only unwarrantably young, but without even the graver excuses of learning or sanctimony.’ Memoirs of George II , ed. 1822, i. 244.
Hume wrote to a friend on April 20, 1756:—‘Were I to change my habitation, I would retire to some provincial town in France, to trifle out my old age, near a warm sun in a good climate, a pleasant country, and amidst a sociable people. My stock would then maintain me in some opulence; for I have the satisfaction to tell you, dear Doctor, that on reviewing my affairs I find that I am worth £1600 sterling, which, at five per cent., makes near 1800 livres a year—that is, the pay of two French captains.’ Burton's Hume , i. 437. Horace Walpole, writing on March 28, 1777, says:—‘Have you read Hume's Life , and did you observe that he thought of retiring to France, and changing his name, because his works had not got him a name? Lord Bute called himself Sir John Stuart in Italy to shroud the beams of a title too gorgeous; but it is new to conceal a name that nobody had heard of.’ Letters , vi. 423.
For some Essays which he suppressed at this time see past , pp. 230–3, and p. 346, n. 2.
See post , pp. 20, 200. Gibbon in his Decline and Fall , ed. 1807, iv. 86, thus mentions ‘the Warburtonian school’:—‘The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the late Bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton; who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled Julian is strongly marked with all the peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.’
See post , pp. 2, 4.
See post , p. 75, n. 4, for his complaint in his last illness of the design of the Whigs to ruin him as an author. He forgets to point out that only four years after the publication of his second volume, by the accession of George III, the Tory writers were in a far more favourable position than the Whigs. See his Philosophical Works , ed. 1854, iii. 74, for a long passage on Whigs and Tories, which he suppressed in the later editions of his Essays. In it, speaking of the Tories, he had said:—‘There are few men of knowledge or learning, at least few philosophers since Mr. Locke has wrote, who would not be ashamed to be thought of that party.’
Hume wrote to Dr. Robertson on Jan. 25, 1759:—‘You will see what light and force this History of the Tudors bestows on that of the Stuarts. Had I been prudent, I should have begun with it. I care not to boast, but I will venture to say that I have now effectually stopped the mouths of all those villainous Whigs who railed at me.’ Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson , ed. 1811, p. 342. Horace Walpole wrote of it on March 15:—‘I have not advanced far in it, but it appears an inaccurate and careless, as it certainly has been a very hasty performance.’ Letters , iii. 216. It was brought out almost at the same time as Robertson's History of Scotland , Voltaire's Candide , and Johnson's Rasselas.
Dugald Stewart says:—‘Adam Smith observed to me, not long before his death, that after all his practice in writing he composed as slowly and with as great difficulty as at first. He added that Mr. Hume had acquired so great a facility, that the last volumes of his History were printed from his original copy, with a few marginal corrections. When Mr. Smith was composing, he generally walked up and down his apartment, dictating to a secretary. All Mr. Hume's works (I have been assured) were written with his own hand. A critical reader may, I think, perceive in the different styles of these two classical writers the effects of their different modes of study.’ Life of Adam Smith , ed. 1811, p. 107.
‘Horne Tooke said that Hume wrote his History as witches say their prayers—backwards.’ Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers , p. 123.
See post , p. 33, n. 2. In 1767 writing to a friend he says:—'some push me to continue my History. Millar offers me any price.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 392.
‘When Mr. David Hume began first to be known in the world as a philosopher, Mr. Thomas White, a decent rich merchant of London, said to him, “I am surprised, Mr. Hume, that a man of your good sense should think of being a philosopher. Why, I now took it into my head to be a philosopher for some time, but tired of it most confoundedly, and very soon gave it up.” “Pray, Sir,” said Mr. Hume, “in what branch of philosophy did you employ your researches? What books did you read?” “Books?” said Mr. White; “nay, Sir, I read no books, but I used to sit you whole forenoons a-yawning and poking the fire.”’ Boswelliana , p. 221. See Burton's Hume , ii. 392, where Hume speaks of his pleasure in ‘idleness, and sauntering and society.’ In reporting to a friend Lord Hertford's invitation he said, ‘he rouses me from a state of indolence and sloth, which I falsely dignified with the name of philosophy.’ Hume's Private Corres. p. 70.
Hume wrote to a friend on Jan. 9, 1764:—‘When I came up to London, I found that Mr. [afterwards Sir Charles] Bunbury, a gentleman of considerable fortune, and married to the Duke of Richmond's sister, had already been appointed Secretary; but was so disagreeable to the ambassador that he was resolved never to see, or do business with his secretary, and therefore desired I should attend him, in order to perform the functions.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 183. In another letter he adds:—‘The King gave me a pension of £200 a year for life, to engage me to attend his Lordship. My Lord is very impatient to have me Secretary to the Embassy; and writes very earnest letters to that purpose to the Ministers…. Mr. Bunbury has great interest…. The appointments of this office are above £1000 a year, and the expense attending it nothing.’ Ib. p. 188. See post , pp. 40, 69, n , 1.
See post , p. 69, n. 1; 103, n. 1.
See post , p. 50, n. 3.
Johnson in his Dictionary gives resilience , and resiliency , but not resile.
See post , p. 69, n. 1.
He passes over in silence his quarrel with Rousseau which took place in this year ( post , p. 74).
See post , p. 86, n. 1.
Hume, I conjecture, means to say that his invested property was not larger, but that by the addition to his pension, which he owed to Lord Hertford's friendship ( post , p. 55), he had a much larger income. He had also a much larger stock of uninvested money.
See post , p. 103, n. 1.
On Oct. 6, 1767, he wrote to his brother:—‘My income will be above £1100 a year, of which I shall not spend much above the half.’ MS., R. S. E.
Gibbon, only ‘twenty hours before his death, happened to fall into a conversation, not uncommon with him, on the probable duration of his life. He said that he thought himself a good life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works , ed. 1814, i. 422.
See post , p. 322, n. 2.
Six months before his death he had lost five stones’ weight. Post , p. 312, n. 1.
Gibbon in his fifty-second year wrote:—‘I shall soon enter into the period which, as the most agreeable of his long life, was selected by the judgment and experience of the sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the eloquent historian of nature [Buffon], who fixes our moral happiness to the mature season in which our passions are supposed to be calmed, our duties fulfilled, our ambition satisfied, our fame and fortune established on a solid basis. In private conversation that great and amiable man added the weight of his own experience; and this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far more inclined to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose any premature decay of the mind or body; but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works , i. 275.
See post , p. 55, n. 7, and p. 329. In an interesting review of his Life and Writings in the Annual Register for 1776, ii. 31, it is said that by the time his History was finished, ‘his reputation was complete. He was considered as the greatest writer of the age: his most insignificant performances were sought after with avidity.’
‘Dr. Robertson used frequently to say that in Mr. Hume's gaiety there was something which approached to infantine. ’ Stewart's Life of Robertson , ed. 1811, p. 211. Dr. Blair, in a letter to Hume's nephew dated Nov. 20, 1797, speaks of ‘that amiable naiveté and sprightly gaiety for which his uncle was so distinguished.’ M.S., R. S. E. Gray, writing to Dr. Beattie on July 2, 1770, asks:—‘Is not that naiveté and good-humour, which Hume's admirers celebrate in him, owing to this, that he has continued all his days an infant, but one that unhappily has been taught to read and write?’ Mason's Gray , ed. 1807, ii. 298. Dr. Burton tells how at the beginning of Hume's last illness a woman called on him ‘with the information that she had been intrusted with a message to him from on High. “This is a very important matter, Madam,” said the philosopher; “we must take it with deliberation;—perhaps you had better get a little temporal refreshment before you begin. Lassie, bring this good lady a glass of wine.” While she was preparing for the attack he entered good-humouredly into conversation with her; and discovering that her husband was a chandler, announced that he stood very much in want at that time of some temporal lights, and intrusted his guest with a very large order. This unexpected stroke of business at once absorbed all the good woman's thoughts; and forgetting her important mission she immediately trotted home to acquaint her husband with the good news.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 457. See post , p. 320.
Goldsmith admitted to Walpole that he envied Shakespeare. Walpole's Letters , vi. 379. Hume, in like manner, was jealous of Thomas à Becket. After mentioning the thousands of pilgrims to his tomb, he continues:—‘It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity of noble minds 1 , that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world can never expect such tributes of praise as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to mankind.’ Hist. of Eng. , ed. 1802, i. 422.
Lord Cockburn, in his Memoirs , ed. 1856, p. 201, gives a curious instance how thirty years after Hume's death the zealots of Edinburgh made use of the prejudices entertained against him to persecute Professor John Leslie.
See post , pp. 346, 348.
See post , p. 319, n. 2.
See post , ib.
See post , p. 321.
See post , p. 323.
Colonel Edmondstoune of Newton had served in the Expedition against France in 1746, when most likely he had become acquainted with Hume. Burton's Hume , i. 212. On Aug. 6, 1776, Hume wrote to John Home the poet:—‘Poor Edmondstoune and I parted to-day with a plentiful effusion of tears; all those Belzebubians 1 have not hearts of iron.’ Mackenzie's Life of john Home , i. 65.
‘Edmondstoune was a member of what was called the Ruffian Club; men whose hearts were milder than their manners, and their principles more correct than their habits of life.’
‘Colonel Edmondstoune's letter has been preserved, and is as follows:—
“Linlithgow, Wednesday.
My Dear, Dear David,—My heart is very full. I could not see you this morning. I thought it was better for us both. You can’t die, you must live in the memory of all your friends and acquaintances 2 , and your works will render you immortal. I could never conceive that it was possible for any one to dislike you or hate you. He must be more than savage who could be an enemy to a man of the best head and heart 1 , and of the most amiable manners.
Burton's Hume , ii. 510.
These lines were written seventeen years before Chaulieu's death. They are entitled Épître à M. Le Marquis De La Fare, qui m’avait demandé mon portrait, en 1703. They were incorrectly quoted by Colonel Edmondstoune, but I have corrected them in accordance with the text of the edition of 1774 of Les Œuvres de Chaulieu , tome i. p. 220. For David we find of course La Fare.
See post , p. 9.
‘Dr. Johnson added “ something much too rough ,” both as to Mr. Hume's head and heart, which I suppress.’ Boswell's Life of Johnson , v. 30.
Hume's final corrections were sent only thirteen days before his death ( post , p. 342).
See post , p. 344, n. 3, for Hume's thrift, in the case of a letter which he sent to Adam Smith.
See post , p. 343, n. 2.
The passages enclosed in brackets, which were not in the letter as published by Adam Smith, are taken from the original in the possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Dr. W. Cullen wrote to Dr. Hunter on Sept. 17, 1776:—‘You desire an account of Mr. Hume's last days, and I give it you with some pleasure, for though I could not look upon him in his last illness without much concern, yet the tranquillity and pleasantry which he constantly discovered did even then give me satisfaction, and now that the curtain is dropped allows me to indulge the less alloyed reflection. It was truly an example “des grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisantant 1 ; ” and to me who have been so often shocked with the horrors of the superstitious on such occasions, the reflection on such a death is truly agreeable. For many weeks before his death he was very sensible of his gradual decay, and his answer to inquiries after his health was several times that he was going as fast as his enemies could wish, and as easily as his friends could desire. He was not however without a frequent recurrence of pain and uneasiness, but he passed most part of the day in his drawing-room, admitted the visits of his friends, and with his usual spirit conversed with them upon literature, politics, or whatever else was accidentally started. In conversation he seemed to be perfectly at ease, and to the last abounded with that pleasantry, and those curious and entertaining anecdotes which ever distinguished him. This however I always considered rather as an effort to be agreeable, and he at length acknowledged that it became too much for his strength. For a few days before his death he became more averse to receive visits; speaking became more and more difficult for him; and for twelve hours before his death his speech failed altogether. His senses and judgment did not fail till the last hour of his life. He constantly discovered a strong sensibility to the attention and care of his friends, and amidst great uneasiness and languor never betrayed any peevishness or impatience.’ After recounting the anecdote about Lucian and the codicil to his will ( post , p. 9, n. 10), Dr. Cullen continues:—‘These are a few particulars, which may perhaps appear trifling, but to me no particulars seem trifling that relate to so great a man. It is perhaps from trifles that we can best distinguish the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the philosopher, at a time when the most part of mankind are under disquiet, auxiety, and sometimes even horror. I consider the sacrifice of the cock as a more certain evidence of the tranquillity of Socrates than his Discourse on Immortality ’. Thomson's Life of Dr. Cullen , i. 607.
‘In reference to a work so entitled, published at Amsterdam in 1732.’
Dr. Blair, in a letter to Strahan dated April 10, 1778, said:—‘Poor David! what an irreparable blank does he make amongst us here. Taking him all in all, we shall never see the like 1 Indeed, I cannot but agree with what Adam Smith says of him in the last sentence of his printed letter to you.’ Rosebery ms.
Boswell records on Sept. 16, 1777:—‘I mentioned to Dr. Johnson that David Hume's persisting in his infidelity when he was dying shocked me much. Johnson. “Why should it shock you, Sir? Hume owned he had never read the New Testament with attention. Here then was a man who had been at no pains to inquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way. It was not to be expected that the prospect of death would alter his way of thinking, unless God should send an angel to set him right.” I said I had reason to believe that the thought of annihilation gave Hume no pain. Johnson. “It was not so, Sir. He had a vanity in being thought easy. It is more probable that he should assume an appearance of ease, than that so very improbable a thing should be, as a man not afraid of going (as, in spite of his delusive theory, he cannot be sure but he may go) into an unknown state, and not being uneasy at leaving all he knew. And you are to consider that upon his own principle of annihilation he had no motive to speak the truth.”’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 153. Boswell had suggested to Johnson on July 9 of the same year that he should ‘knock Hume's and Smith's heads together, and make vain and ostentations infidelity exceedingly ridiculous.’ Ib. iii. 119. See ib. v. 30, n. 3, for Dr. Horne's Letter to Adam Smith, LL.D., On the Life, Death and Philosophy of his Friend, David Hume, Esq. By one of the People called Christians.
Hamlet , Act i. Sc. 2.
Nichols's Lit. Anec. , iii. 391.
Boswell's Life of Johnson , i. 425.
Post , p. 64, n. 11.
Boswell's Johnson , ii. 226.
Nichols's Lit. Anec. , iii. 392.
Nichols's Lit. Anec. , iii. 393.
Boswell's Johnson , iii. 258.
Ib. i. 287.
Gibbon's Misc. Works , ed. 1814, i. 222.
Post , p. 314.
Forbes's Life of Beattie , ed. 1824, p. 341.
Post , pp. 214, 224, 231.
Post , p. 235.
Post , p. 335, n. 14.
Post , p. 145.
Boswell's Johnson , ii. 137.
Ib. iii. 331.
Ib. ii. 137.
Ib. ii. 137.
Ib. iii. 364.
Ib. iii. 364.
Post , p. 352.
Letter dated Dec. 21, 1780, Barker MSS.
Barker MSS.
Boswell's Johnson , v. 92.
Forbes's Life of Beattie , p. 341.
Post , p. 266.
Leslie and Taylor's Life of Reynolds , ed. 1865, ii. 302.
Boswell's Johnson , iv. 428, 435.
Note 1.‘Baillie, Bailie. A magistrate second in rank, in a royal borough; an alderman.’ Jamieson's Dict. of the Scottish Language.
Note 2. In November 1754 he published The History of Great Britain. Volume I. Containing the reigns of James I, and Charles I. quarto. Price 14s. in boards; in November 1756 the second volume from the death of Charles I, to the Revolution; in March 1759 The History of England under the House of Tudor. 2 vols. quarto. Price £1 in boards; and in November 1761 The History of England from the invasion of Julius Cœsar to the accession of Henry VII. 2 vols. quarto. He had at one time intended to carry down the first instalment of his work beyond the Revolution. In a letter written in 1753 he says:—‘My work divides into three very moderate volumes: one to end with the death of Charles the First; the second at the Revolution; the third at the Accession; for I dare come no nearer the present times.’ Burton's Hume , i. 378. The following curious letter in my possession, written by Gavin Hamilton, of the firm of Hamilton, Balfour & Neill, Edinburgh booksellers, shews that a year later Hume intended to make the Treaty of Utrecht the conclusion of his work. No doubt he resolved to stop there to avoid the necessity of describing the Jacobite plot which was formed by some of Anne's ministers, and was baffled by her sudden death. Such a matter was of too delicate a nature to have much attraction for a man whose love of tranquillity grew far more rapidly even than his years.
‘ My dear Willie ,
‘in any important step I make, in bussines, I should rekon my self very much out of my duty to you as on of my sincerest freinds if I did not un bosome my self, lett this serve for preamble to what I am going to say.
‘I have within these ten days concluded a bargain that is rekoned very bold by every body that hears of it, and some think it rash, because they never heard of the like pass here; tho’ at the same time I remain very well content with my bargain.
‘John Balfour and I have agread to pay 1200£ sterling of coppy money, for a single impression of a book,‘tis the history of great britain composed by David Hume our scots authour. I print 2000 and have right to print no more, the calcul will stand thus, to print 3 quarto volls which it will make, will cost with advertisements and incidents about 320 per voll: the book will sell at 15/bound or ten shillings to Bk. Sellers in sheets, but lett us rekon the London coppies only producing 9 shilling, then 2000 coppies will yeald about 920£ sterling per voll after deducing 320£ for printing and 400£ to the authour which is not payable very soon, there remains of proffit for our selves about 200£ per voll, which we are content to putt up with as we are perswaded that this first impression will be short while in hands, and this is the next question, how do you know that? all I can say to you in the bounds of a very short letter is that we have been at due pains to inform our selves of the merit of the work and are well satisfyed one that head that it is the prittyest thing ever was attempted in the English History, the three volls contians three grand periods, the first from the union of the Crowns to the death of the king, the 2 d voll from the death of the king to the Revolution, and the last till the treaty of Utrecht, the facts are well vouched and thrown together into a light as to give the treu character of the times, it is neither whig nor tory but truely imparshal.
‘To Mr. William Strachan Printer in New street near Fleet street London.’
Whether this bookseller was related to Burns's Gavin Hamilton I have not been able to ascertain.
It is clear from Hume's letter to Strahan that the bargain, as described by Hamilton, was never completed. To the Edinburgh firm he sold only the right of publishing the first edition of the first volume. The second volume was brought out by Andrew Millar, the great London bookseller, who became at length the owner of the entire copyright of the whole History. Writing to Millar on April 12, 1755, Hume had said:—Baillie Hamilton is a very honest Man, and far from being interested. But he is passionate and even wrong headed to a degree.’ On May 27, 1756, he wrote:—’I agree that the edition be 1750.’ M.S.R.S.E.
Note 3. In his letter to Millar of April 12, 1755 he had said:—’I have always said to all my acquaintaince that if the first Volume bore a little of a Tory aspect, the second wou’d probably be as grateful to the opposite Party. The two first Princes of the House of Stuart were certainly more excusable than the two second. The constitution was in their time very ambiguous and undetermin’d, and their Parliaments were, in many respects, refractory and obstinate: But Charles the 2 nd knew, that he had succeeded to a very limited Monarchy: His long Parliament was indulgent to him, and even consisted almost entirely of Royalists; yet he could not be quiet, nor contented with a legal Authority. I need not mention the Oppressions in Scotland nor the absurd conduct of K. James the 2 nd. These are obvious and glaring Points. Upon the whole, I wish the two Volumes had been published together. Neither one Party nor the other would, in that Case, have had the least Pretext of reproaching me with Partiality.’— M.S.R.S.E.
Note 4. Both in his Autobiography and in his correspondence he shews that he had but little of this kind of endurance.
Note 5. These must have been the unsold copies of the first volume.
Note 1. The first volume contained the Reigns of James I, and Charles I. Hume wrote to William Mure in 1757 (the exact date is not given):—’I must own that I think my first volume a great deal better than the second. The subject admitted of more eloquence and of greater nicety of reasoning and more acute distinctions.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 20.
Note 2. In his Autobiography he says of the second volume:—’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.’ On the fly-leaf of the copy in the Bodleian of vol. i. of the first edition I have found in the hand-writing of the Rev. Charles Godwyn, Fellow of Balliol College, and a great benefactor to the Bodleian Library, the following entry, interesting as shewing the opinion formed of Hume at this time in England:—’I have heard much of Mr. Hume from persons who know him well, and think him to be one of the oddest characters in the world. Consider him as an historian and in private life there is not a better man living. No man has more generous sentiments of social virtue. He has great candour and humanity and the utmost regard for truth. Consider him as a philosopher in his speculative capacity, there is not a grain of virtue or religion in him…. I am informed that he has a great regard for the Church of England, and that if he was disposed to make choice of a religion, he would give this the preference. Written in the year 1757.’
Note 3. Hume refers, I believe, to the edition of his Essays and Treatises which was published in one quarto volume in 1758 (perhaps in the late autumn of 1757). He wrote to Millar on Dec. 4, 1756:—’I am extremely desirous to have these four volumes [of Philosophical Writings ], with that which you will publish this winter, brought into a quarto volume.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 4.
Note 4. See post , p. 18.
Note 5.‘One Bowyer’ was William Bowyer,‘confessedly the most learned printer of the eighteenth century.’ Nichols's Lit. Anec. i. 2. Johnson wrote to Nichols on Oct. 20, 1784:—’At Ashbourne, where I had very little company, I had the luck to borrow Mr. Bowyer's Life ; a book, so full of contemporary history that a literary man must find some of his old friends.’ Boswell's Johnson , iv. 369.
Note 6. Hume, Scot of Scots though he was, spared no pains to clear his style from Scotticisms. He laments‘his misfortune to write in the language of the most stupid and factious barbarians in the world’ ( post , Letter of Oct. 25, 1769); but none the less does he rebuke Gibbon for composing his first work in French.‘Let the French,’ he writes,‘triumph in the present diffusion of their tongue. Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we need less dread the inundation of barbarians, promise a superior stability and duration to the English language.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works , i. 204. Though he never, like Mallet,‘cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation’ (Johnson's Works , viii. 464), but always spoke‘in a broad Scotch tone,’ yet his words were always English.‘He never used Scotch’ said one who as a young man had known him well. Burton's Hume , ii. 440. Like most of the Scotch literary men of his day he had studied English almost as laboriously as if it were wholly a foreign tongue. Beattie ( Life by Forbes, ed. 1824, p. 243) wrote on Jan. 5, 1778:—’We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language, which we understand but cannot speak.’ He adds:—’I have spent some years in labouring to acquire the art of giving a vernacular cast to the English we write.’ Johnson accused Hume of Gallicisms.‘Why, Sir, his style is not English; the structure of his sentences is French.’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 439. Lord Mansfield told Dr. A. Carlyle that‘when he was reading Hume and Robertson's books, he did not think he was reading English.’ Carlyle's Auto. p. 516. Hume in the fourth chapter of his History of England , expresses his deliberate preference for the foreign element in our language. He speaks of‘that mixture of French which is at present to be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and best part of our language.’ Ed. 1802, i. 259. Francis Horner, in his student days at Edinburgh, making‘a very rigid examination of the style of Mr. Hume in his History ,’ says,‘I am astonished to find it abound so much both in inaccuracies and inelegancies.’ Memoirs of Horner , i. 11. Mackintosh, speaking of Hume's philosophical works, says:—’In clearness and vivacity he surpassed all English speculators…. It must be owned that he not only copied the liveliness and perspicuity of French writers, but the structure of their sentences; that he has frequently violated the rules of English syntax; and what is a more serious offence, that his style exhibits little of the idiom and genius of the language; it too often betrays a Scotchman whose literary habits were formed in France.’ Of the History he says:—’The negligences of style, which are too frequent in this noble work, may be left to the petty grammarian.’ Life of Mackintosh , ii. 168. Horace Walpole, on the other hand, speaking of the first volume of the History , when it was as yet in its first unrevised edition, says that‘his style which is the best we have in history…. is very pleasing.’ Letters , ii. 429. Gibbon ( Misc. Works , i. 122) writing after Hume's death, records how in‘the repeated perusals’ of his History ,‘the careless inimitable beauties often forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair.’ Hume sought the aid of writers far inferior to himself in general powers in his eagerness to refine his style. Mallet, Johnson's‘beggarly Scotchman,’ treated him with the insolence of a superior. Hume writing to Millar in 1756 about the second volume of his History says:—’Notwithstanding Mr. Mallet's impertinence in not answering my letter (for it deserves no better a name), if you can engage him from yourself to mark on the perusal such slips of language as he thinks I have fallen into in this volume it will be a great obligation to me; I mean that I shall lie under an obligation to you; for I would not willingly owe any to him.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 3. Six or seven years later Mallet wrote to Hume about the last two volumes of the History :—’I have done at last what nothing but the greatest regard for the writer and the truest friendship for the man could have made me submit to; I have gone over both your volumes again with the eye and attention of a mere grammarian. The task of looking after verbal mistakes or errors against the idiom of a tongue, though not unnecessary, is trivial and disgusting in the greatest degree; but your work and you deserved it of me.’ Ib. p. 142. So early as 1754, Hume sending Wilkes a copy of the History ‘asks his advice as to language, and says:—“Notwithstanding all the pains I have taken in the study of the English language, I am still jealous of my pen.”’ Historical MSS. Com. 4th Report, p. 401. As late as 1775, in the last year of his life, he set two young Scotch lads, fresh from an English school, the task of detecting the Scotticisms in his account of Harold. Caldwell Papers , i. 39. The following from a letter to a Scotch doctor settled in London, is an instance of the points on which he sought assistance:—’You know that the word enough or enuff , as it is pronounced by the English, we commonly in Scotland, when it is applied to number, pronounce enow. Thus we would say:—“Such a one has books enow for study, but not leisure enuff.” Now I want to know whether the English make the same distinction.’ Burton's Hume , i. 384. It will be seen hereafter how grateful he was to Strahan for the assistance which he gave him in correcting his style.‘Strahan,’ says Dr. Beattie,‘was eminently skilled in composition, and had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson.’ Forbes's Beattie , p. 341. Dr. Burton gives instances of the corrections in the second edition of the History. Life of Hume , ii. 79. See ante , Adam Smith's letter for the humorous way in which Hume a few days before his death joked about his love of making corrections. He was ready in his turn to help others in refining their style. Dr. Franklin wrote to him from Coventry, on Sept. 27, 1760:—’I thank you for your friendly Admonition relating to unusual Words in the Pamphlet. It will be of service to me. The pejorate and the colonize , since they are not in common use here, I give up as bad.’ Franklin goes on to regret that we cannot‘make new words when we want them by composition of old ones whose meanings are already well understood,’ as uncomeatable for inaccessible. ’ M.S.R.S.E. Hume was shewn in manuscript Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind. Though it was an attack on his own philosophy, yet in reading it‘he kept,’ he says,‘a watchful eye all along over the style,’ so that he might point out any Scotticisms. Burton's Hume , ii. 154. When Boswell told Johnson that ’david Hume had made a short collection of Scotticisms, “I wonder,” said Johnson, “that he should find them.”’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 72. In this list (given in Hume's Phil. Works , ed. 1854, i. cxii) some expressions were included which were good English at the time, and others which pass current now, as:—
| Scotch . | English . |
|---|---|
| Friends and acquaintances. | Friends and acquaintance. |
| Incarcerate. | Imprison. |
| Tear to pieces. | Tear in pieces 1 . |
| In the long run. | At long run. |
| ’Tis a question if. | ’Tis a question whether. |
| Simply impossible. | Absolutely impossible. |
| Nothing else. | No other thing. |
| There, where. | Thither, whither. |
| Defunct. | Deceased. |
| Adduce a proof. | Produce a proof. |
| In no event. | In no case. |
| Common soldiers. | Private men. |
| To open up. | To open, or lay open. |
| On a sudden. | Of a sudden. |
It was this laborious study of English by Scotch authors that explains Churchill's lines on Dr. Armstrong's Day :
‘Where all but barren labour was forgot, And the vain stiffness of a Letter’d Scot.’
A passage in Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson , which was published in 1801, places in the strongest, and I may add the strangest light the difficulties under which a Scotch writer still laboured.‘The influence,’ he says,‘of Scottish associations, so far as it is favourable to antiquity, is confined to Scotchmen alone, and furnishes no resources to the writer who aspires to a place among the English classics. Nay, such is the effect of that provincial situation to which Scotland is now reduced, that the transactions of former ages are apt to convey to ourselves exaggerated conceptions of barbarism from the uncouth and degraded dialect in which they are recorded.’ Within four years after this was written Scott was to publish his Lay of the Last Minstrel , and within thirteen years his Waverley.
Note 7. In duodecimo.
Note 8. Impression is defined by Johnson as Edition; number printed at once; one course of printing.
Note 9. Johnson was like Hume in this.‘The loftiness of his mind prevented him from ever dedicating.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 1. Boswell on the contrary dedicated his chief works.‘For my own part,’ he wrote,‘I own I am proud enough. But I do not relish the stateliness of not dedicating at all.’ Ib. n. 2.
Note 10. The author of Douglas signed himself John Home, as did most of that name.‘The practice of writing Hume,’ says David Hume,‘is by far the most ancient and most general till about the Restoration, when it became common to spell Home contrary to the pronunciation.’ Burton's Hume , i. 7. Sir Walter Scott, in a review of Home's Works , says:—’The word is uniformly, in Scotland, pronounced Hume ; and in ancient documents we have seen it written Heume, Hewme, and Hoome.’ Quarterly Review , No. 71, p. 170. He should have added that a Scotchman's pronunciation of Hume is not the same as an Englishman's.
1 ‘Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator.’ Julius Casar , iii. 2.
The historian was not able to persuade his elder brother, the Laird of Ninewells, to adopt his mode of spelling. To the poet‘he at one time jocularly proposed that they should determine the controversy by casting lots. “Nay,” says John, “this is a most extraordinary proposal, Mr. Philosopher; for if you lose, you take your own name, and if I lose, I take another man's.”’ Home's Works , i. 164. Hume went on joking with him to the last about the spelling. When, accompanied by Home, he was returning to Edinburgh to die, after his fruitless journey to Bath, he sent a card of invitation to Dr. Blair which began:—’Mr. John Hume, alias Home, alias The Home.’ To his will he added as a codicil:—’I leave to my friend Mr. John Home of Kilduff ten dozen of my old claret, at his choice, and one single bottle of that other liquor called port. I also leave to him six dozen of port, provided that he attests under his hand, signed John Hume , that he has himself alone finished that bottle at two sittings. By this concession he will at once terminate the only two differences that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.’ Ib. p. 163. Home, like almost all Scotchmen, drank claret.‘On the enforcement of the high duty on French wine’ in Scotland, he made the following epigram:—
‘Firm and erect the Caledonian stood, Old was his mutton and his claret good. “Let him drink port,” an English statesman cried—He drank the poison, and his spirit died.’ Ib. p. 164.
Wilkes in The North Briton , No. 12 (date of Aug. 22, 1762) makes no distinction between the names, no doubt intentionally. He writes:—’There is one Scottish pension I have been told of which afforded me real pleasure. It is Mr. Hume's; for I am satisfied that it must be given to Mr. David Hume, whose writings have been justly admired both abroad and at home, and not to Mr. John Hume, who has endeavoured to bring the name into contempt by putting it to two insipid tragedies and other trash in the Scottish Miscellanies. ’ Hume's pension was not given till 1764. Burton's Hume , ii. 191. For Home's pension see below, n. 12. Johnson in his Life of Collins writes Home's name Hume. Works , viii. 403.
Note 11. Home was thirty-four years old.
Note 12. Home's tragedy was finished in 1754. In the first sketch of the play Young Norval was Young Forman.‘Even after the first representations [at Edinburgh] the name Randolph was substituted for Barnet, which had struck some of the English part of the audience as producing a bad effect from its being the same with that of the village near London.’ Home's Works , i. 36, 101. Hume writing about the play to Spence on Oct. 15 of that year, says:—’As you are a Lover of Letters, I shall inform you of a Piece of News which will be agreeable to you: We may hope to see good Tragedies in the English Language. A young man called Hume, a clergyman of this Country, discovers a very fine Genius for that Species of Composition.’ Spence's Anecdotes , p. 452. To Adam Smith he wrote:—’When it shall be printed (which will be soon) I am persuaded it will be esteemed the best, and by French critics the only tragedy of our language.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 17. It was in this same year, 1754, that in the Appendix to the Reign of James I, writing of Shakespeare, he says:—’His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily excuse, than that want of taste which often prevails in his productions, and which gives way only by intervals to the irradiations of genius.’ Adam Smith was not inferior to his friend in perversity of taste. He regretted that in comedy the English writers had not followed the model of the French school in the use of rhyme. Dugald Stewart's Life of Adam Smith , p. 71. Wordsworth had some justification for describing Adam Smith as‘the worst critic, David Hume not excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed seems natural, has produced.’ Wordsworth's Works , ed. 1857, vi. 367. H. C. Robinson ( Diary , i. 311) records, though evidently with imperfect recollection, a saying of Coleridge about Hume's preference of the French tragedians to Shakespeare:—’Hume comprehended as much of Shakespeare as an apothecary's phial would, placed under the falls of Niagara.’ Burns however was no better than Hume or Smith. In one of his Prologues he says of Scotland:—
‘Here Douglas forms wild Shakespeare into plan.’
Douglas was refused by Garrick to whom it was first offered.‘After reading it, he returned it with an opinion that it was totally unfit for the stage.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 304. It was brought out in Edinburgh in the end of 1756, and met with the greatest success. Among the clergy however a flame was kindled, for not only was the author a minister, but at the performance several ministers were present. The Presbytery of Edinburgh published a paper‘lamenting the extraordinary and unprecedented countenance given of late to the playhouse in that city.’ The Presbytery of Glasgow, on Feb. 2. 1757, the day after the date of Hume's letter in the text, supported their brothers in Edinburgh in the following manner:—’Having good reason to believe that this paper refers to the following melancholy but notorious facts, that one who is a minister of the Church of Scotland did himself write and compose a stage-play, entitled The Tragedy of Douglas , and got it to be acted on the theatre at Edinburgh; and that he, with several other ministers of this church were present, and some of them oftener than once, at the acting of the said play before a numerous audience: The Presbytery being deeply affected with this new and strange appearance do think it their duty,’ etc. Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 89. One of these ministers was punished by a six weeks’ suspension,‘owing a mitigated sentence to his plea that, though he attended, he concealed himself as well as he could to avoid giving offence.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. P. 315. Dr. Carlyle writing of himself says:—’I had attended the play-house, not on the first or second, but on the third night of the performance, being well aware that all the fanatics and some other enemies would be on the watch, and make all the advantage they possibly could against me. But six or seven friends of the author, clergymen from the Merse [Home's country] having attended reproached me for my cowardice; and above all the author himself and some female friends of his having heated me by their upbraidings I went on the third night, and having taken charge of the ladies I drew on myself all the clamours of tongues and violence of persecution which I afterwards underwent.’ Ib. p. 314. Home, who was threatened with an ecclesiastical prosecution,‘gave in a demission of his office on the following 7th of June, and withdrew from the Church.’ Ib. p. 325. Some years before he had been introduced to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, who said to him:—’Mr. Home, I am now too old to hope for an opportunity of doing you any material service myself; but I will do you the greatest favour in my power by presenting you to my nephew, the Earl of Bute.’ Home's Works , i. 33. The value of Lord Bute's friendship was now seen. Home from this time‘lived very much with him, and was in habits of intimacy with his young pupil, the Prince of Wales [afterwards George III].’ Ib. p. 50. A few days before he left the Church he had received a pension of £100 a year from the Princess Dowager of Wales. Walpole's Letters , iii. 78. Four years later George III in the very beginning of his reign‘settled on him a pension of £300 per annum from his privy purse.’ Not long afterwards he gave him a post worth the same sum. Home's Works , i. 58.
Churchill in The Prophecy of Famine ( Poems , ed. 1766, i. 103) introduces, among the Scotch who flocked to London,
‘Home, disbanded from the sons of prayer For loving plays.’
He continues:—
‘Thence simple bards, by simple prudence taught, To this wise town by simple patrons brought, In simple manner utter simple lays, And take with simple pensions simple praise.’ Ib. p. 103.
Home made a generous use of his money.‘“His house,” said Dr. Adam Ferguson, “was always as full of his friends as it could hold, fuller than in modern manners it could be made to hold.” Hume told Ferguson he should lecture his friend on his want of attention to money-matters. “I am afraid I should do so with little effect,” he answered; “and to tell you the truth, I am not sure if I don’t like him the better for this foible.”’ Home's Works , i. 59. It was a foible from which Hume, who in early life had had to practise‘very rigid frugality’ ( ante , Hume's Auto. ), remained singularly free. When Lord Elibank, who was somewhat parsimonious, heard of the pension, he said,‘It is a very laudable grant, and I rejoice at it; but it is no more in the power of the King to make Adam Ferguson or John Home rich than to make me poor.’ Ib. p. 54.
Some years before Hume dedicated his Dissertations to Home, Collins had inscribed to him his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands.
‘Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose naiads long Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay,‘Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.’
In 1760 Voltaire brought out his comedy L‘Écossaise under the veil of a translation of a piece by John Home. In the preface he says:—’La comédie dont nous présentons la traduction aux amateurs de la littérature est de M. Hume, pasteur de l’église d’Édimbourg, déjà connu par deux belles tragédies jouées à Londres: il est parent et ami de ce célèbre philosophe M. Hume qui a creusé avec tant de hardiesse et de sagacité les fondemens de la métaphysique et de la morale. Ces deux philosophes font également honneur à l’Écosse, leur patrie.’ Œuvres de Voltaire , ed. 1819. v. 12.
Note 1. Hume, as I have shewn ( ante , p. 3), had sold only the copyright of the first edition of the first volume to the Edinburgh booksellers. The first edition of the second volume he had sold to Millar, for £700, it seems. Writing to him on Sept. 3 of this year about the History of England under the Tudors , which at that time he thought would be comprised in one somewhat bulky volume, he says:—’I am willing to engage with you for the same price, viz. seven hundred pounds, payable three months after the publication.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 37. What he now wishes to sell is the copyright of the first two volumes of the House of Stuart. As Hamilton and Balfour had agreed to pay £1200 for three volumes it may be assumed that they paid £400 for one. For the second volume, if my supposition is right, Hume received £700. If he was paid 800 guineas, i. e. £840 for the entire property in the two volumes, his total payment for the House of Stuart amounted to £1940. Robertson was offered by Hamilton and Balfour £500 for one edition of his History of Scotland. Burton's Hume , ii. 42. For his Charles V he was to receive from Cadell and Strahan £3400, with £400 more in case of a second edition. Robertson to Strahan, May 27, 1768. Barker MSS. See post , Letter of June 21, 1770, for Hume's complaint of Hamilton's extravagance.
Note 2. Addison, Bolingbroke, and Johnson had pointed out the inferiority of English historians. Hume wrote in 1753:—’You know that there is no post of honour in the English Parnassus more vacant than that of history.’ Burton's Hume , i. 378. Gibbon ( Misc. Works , i. 122) writing of the year 1759 says:—’The old reproach that no British altars had been raised to the Muse of history was recently disproved by the first performances of Robertson and Hume.’ Though Hume complained of the slow sale of his own History , yet he wrote in 1769:—’People now heed the theatre almost as little as the pulpit. History now is the favourite reading, and our friend [Robertson] the favourite historian.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 421. Robertson's History of Scotland went through fourteen editions in thirty four years. Stewart's Life of Robertson , p. 326.‘The first impression of Gibbon's Decline and Fall was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand.’ Gibbon's Works , i. 223. See post , Letter of Aug. 1770, where Hume says:—’I believe this is the historical age and this the historical nation.’
Note 3. Horace Walpole, Whig though he was, wrote of Hume's first volume ( Letters , ii. 428):—’It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-Abite : where others abuse the Stuarts he laughs at them: I am sure he does not spare their ministers.’ This was before Hume had made, as he tells us in his Autobiography ,‘above a hundred alterations in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, all of them invariably to the Tory side.’ Rousseau wrote in August, 1762:—’M. Hume est le plus vrai philosophe que je connaisse, et le seul historien qui jamais ait écrit avec impartialité. Il n’a pas plus aimé la vérité que moi, j’ose le croire; mais j’ai mis quelquefois de la passion dans mes recherches, et lui n’a mis dans les siennes que ses lumières et son beau génie.’ Hume's Private Corres. p. 25. Voltaire begins a brief notice of Hume's History by saying :—’Jamais le public n’a mieux senti qu’il n’appartient qu’aux philosophes d’écrire l’histoire.’ He continues:—’M. Hume, dans son histoire, ne paraltni parlementaire, ni royaliste, ni anglican, ni presbytérien; on ne découvre en lui que l’homme équitable.’ He ends :—’La fureur des partis a long-temps privé l’Angleterre d’une bonne histoire comme d’un bon gouvernement. Ce qu’un tory écrivait était nié par les whigs, démentis à leur tour par les torys…. dans le nouvel historien on découvre un esprit supérieur à sa matière, qui parle des faiblesses, des erreurs et des barbaries, comme un médecin parle des maladies épidémiques.’ Œuvres de Voltaire , ed. 1819–25, xxv. 517.
Note 4. Douglas. ‘The play had unbounded success for a great many nights in Edinburgh…. The town was in an uproar of exultation that a Scotchman had written a tragedy of the first rate, and that its merit was first submitted to their judgment.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 311.
Note 5. Hume wrote to Millar on Jan. 20, 1757, that some of the poet's friends‘were seized with an apprehension that the dedication of my Dissertations to him would hurt that party in the Church with which he had always been connected, and would involve him, and them of consequence, in the suspicion of infidelity.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 18. A little later he wrote to Mr. Mure:—’Pray whether do you pity or blame me most with regard to this dedication of my Dissertations to my friend, the poet? I am sure I never executed anything which was either more elegant in the composition or more generous in the intention; yet such an alarm seized some fools here (men of very good sense, but fools in that particular), that they assailed both him and me with the utmost violence, and engaged us to change our intention. I wrote to Millar to suppress that dedication; two posts after I retracted that order. Can anything be more unlucky than that in the interval of these four days he should have opened his sale, and disposed of 800 copies without that dedication, whence I imagined my friend would reap some advantage, and myself so much honour?’ Ib. ii. 21. In the Dedication Hume addressing Home says:—’You possess the true theatric Genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from the unhappy Barbarism of the one and Licentiousness of the other.’
Note 1. On Dec. 18, 1759, Hume writing to Millar about the History of the Tudors , says:—’I think that an Index will be very proper, and am glad that you free me from the Trouble of undertaking that Task, for which I know myself to be very unfit.’ M. S. R. S. E.
Note 2. See post , note on Letter of March 25, 1771.
Note 3. William Mure of Caldwell, one of Hume's correspondents, who was in 1761 made a Baron of the Exchequer in Scotland. Burton's Hume , i. 152. He was at this time Member for Renfrewshire. Parl. Hist. xv. 321.
Note 4. James Oswald, Member for the Kirkaldy Burghs, at this time a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations. Ib. p. 322. Horace Walpole, writing of an important division in Parliament just before Sir Robert Walpole's fall, says of the Opposition :—’They have turned the Scotch to the best account. There is a young Oswald, who had engaged to Sir R. but has voted against us. Sir R. sent a friend to reproach him ; the moment the gentleman who had engaged for him came into the room, Oswald said, “You had like to have led me into a fine error! did you not tell me that Sir R. would have the majority?”’ Letters , i. 121. He was one of Hume's closest friends. See Burton's Hume , i. 156.
Note 5. Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Member for Selkirkshire, afterwards third baronet of that name, and father of the First Earl of Minto. See post , Letter of March 13, 1770.
Note 6. Sir Henry Erskine was Member for the Crail Boroughs. Horace Walpole, writing on March 13, 1751, says that‘Erskine, who had just come into Parliament, was laying a foundation for the next reign by attacking the Mutiny Bill.’ Letters , ii. 242. In Jan. 1756 he was dismissed the army ( ib. p. 498); but a few days after the accession of George III, Walpole, calling him’the favourite of the favourite,’—that is to say of Lord Bute—says that he is to be rewarded with the command of a regiment. Ib. iii. 359. He and Hume had attended General St. Clair in his military embassy to the Courts of Vienna and Turin. Ante Hume's Autobiography. Hume describes him paying court to his constituents in 1754.‘I was lately told that one day last winter he went to pay a visit to a deacon's wife, who happened in that very instant to be gutting fish. He came up to her with open arms, and said he hoped madam was well, and that the young ladies her daughters were in good health. “Oh, come not near me,” cried she, “Sir Harry; I am in a sad pickle, as nasty as a beast.” “Not at all, Madam,” replied he; “you are in a very agreeable négligé.” “Well,” said she, “I shall never be able to understand your fine English.” “I mean, Madam,” returned he, “that you are drest in a very genteel deshabillé.”’ Burton's Hume , i. 397.
Note 1. In Feb. 1757, Hume published the four Dissertations , entitled The Natural History of Religion; Of the Passions; Of Tragedy; Of the Standard of Taste , separately in a duodecimo volume, price three shillings. Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 94. He included them in the quarto edition of his Essays and Treatises which was published either at the end of that year or the beginning of the next. It was the latter two of the Dissertations that were inserted among the Essays. See post , Letters of Jan. 25 and Feb. 7, 1772, for the two Essays which Hume had suppressed.
Note 2.‘Lammas, a name for August 1. Anglo-Saxon, hláf-mœsse , literally,‘loaf-mass.’ A loaf was on this day offered as a first-fruits of harvest.’ Skeat's Etym. Dict.
Note 3. Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, describes the great change caused in Scotland‘within these five-and-twenty or thirty years by the erection of new banking companies in almost every considerable town, and even in some country villages.’ After explaining the Scotch system of‘cash accounts’ he goes on to say:—’The facility of discounting bills of exchange, it may be thought, indeed gives the English merchants a conveniency equivalent to the cash accounts of the Scotch merchants. But the Scotch merchants, it must be remembered, can discount their bills of exchange as easily as the English merchants; and have besides the additional conveniency of their cash accounts.’ Ed. 1811, ii. 32, 38. Hume in his Essay Of the Balance of Trade describes the same system under the name of a Bank-Credit.
Note 4. In the Gent. Mag. for March 1757 nearly seven columns are given to an abstract of the story of the tragedy. Dr. A. Carlyle ( Auto. p. 325) says that‘it was acted in Covent Garden (for Garrick, though now the author's friend, could not possibly let it be performed in his theatre [Drury Lane] after having pronounced it unfit for the stage), where it had great success. It still maintains its ground, [written about the year 1800,] has been more frequently acted, and is more popular than any tragedy in the English language.’ The speech in it that begins‘My name is Norval,’ is perhaps all of it that is now remembered.
Note 5. Hume, writing of Home's earlier tragedy Agis , said:—’The author, I thought, had corrupted his taste by the imitation of Shakespeare, whom he ought only to have admired.’ He continues:—’But the same author has composed a new tragedy [ Douglas ] on a subject of invention; and here he appears a true disciple of Sophocles and Racine. I hope in time he will vindicate the English stage from the reproach of barbarism.’ Burton's Hume , i. 392.
Note 6. Ninewells was the estate of which‘Hume's ancestors had been proprietors for several generations.’ It was now held by his elder brother, John Home. It lies so close to Berwick, that Hume may be said to have missed being an Englishman by only a mile or two. Yet, according to Ramsay of Ochtertyre, before the Rebellion of 1745‘the people of Northumberland and the Merse, who spoke dialects of the same language, and were only separated by a river, had little more intercourse than those of Kent and Normandy.’ Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century , ii. 213. Ninewells takes its name‘from a cluster of nine springs, that burst forth from a gentle declivity in front of the mansion, which has on each side a semi-circular rising bank, covered with fine timber, and fall, after a short time, into the bed of the River Whitewater, which forms a boundary in the front.’ Burton's Hume , i. 8.
Note 1. Remarks on Mr. David Hume's Essay on the Natural History of Religion , by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. W., is advertised in the list of books for May 1757. Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 243. The book was written by Warburton and Hurd. On Feb. 7 of this year Warburton, writing to Hurd about Hume's Essay , says:—’I will trim the rogue's jacket, at least sit upon his skirts, as you will see when you come hither, and find his margins scribbled over … They say this man has several moral qualities. It may be so. But there are vices of the mind as well as body; and a wickeder heart, and more determined to do public mischief, I think I never knew.’ Letters from a late Eminent Prelate to one of his Friends , p. 239. In a second letter he writes that he is‘beating out of the mass’ an answer to Hume, to which Hurd is‘to give the elegance of form and splendour of polish…. I propose it to bear something like this title, Remarks on Mr. Hume's late Essay, called the Natural History of Religion, by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. W. I propose the address should be with the dryness and reserve of a stranger…. The address will remove it from me; the author, a Gentleman of Cambridge , from you; and the secrecy in printing from us both.’ Ib. p. 241.
The publication of Hume's Autobiography was at once followed by a republication of the Remarks. Speaking in it of his Natural History of Religion , Hume had said:—’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. This pamphlet gave me some consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.’ To the new edition of the Remarks was prefixed‘the following Advertisement from the bookseller to the reader:
‘“The following is supposed to be the pamphlet referred to by the late Mr. David Hume as being written by Dr. Hurd. Upon my applying to the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry [Hurd] for his permission to republish it, he very readily gave me his consent. His Lordship only added, he was sorry he could not take himself the WHOLE infamy of the charge brought against him; but that he should hereafter, if he thought it worth his while, explain himself more particularly on that subject.
Annual Register , 1777, ii. 9.
Strand, March , 1777.
Hume at once suspected that Warburton had had a hand in the pamphlet. On Sept. 3 he wrote to Millar:—’I am positively assured that Dr. Warburton wrote that letter to himself, which you sent me; and indeed the style discovers him sufficiently. I should answer him; but he attacks so small a corner of my building, that I can abandon it without drawing great consequences after it.’ At the end of the letter Hume adds:—’I should not be displeased that you read to Dr. Warburton the paragraph in the first page with regard to himself. The hopes of getting an answer might probably engage him to give us something farther of the same kind; which at least saves you the expense of advertising. I see the Doctor likes a literary squabble.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 35. On July 28, 1759, in a letter to Adam Smith, mentioning some more‘abuse’ by Hurd, he says:—‘He is of the Warburtonian school; and consequently very insolent and very scurrilous; but I shall never reply a word to him.’ Ib. p. 60. Johnson shews why even Warburton might be left unanswered by those whom he attacked.‘When I read Warburton first, and observed his force and his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that was not the case; for Warburton by extending his abuse rendered it ineffectual.’ Boswell's Johnson , v. 93. Speaking of his controversy with Lowth he said:—’I do not know which of them calls names best.’ Ib. ii. 37.
On the publication of Hume's Autobiography , Horace Walpole wrote to Mason:—’It is a nothing, a brief account of his disappointments on his irreligious works making no noise at first, and his historic making some. He boasts that in the latter he dared to revive the cause of despotism—a great honour truly to a philosopher; and he speaks of your friend, Bishop Hurd, with a freedom that I dare to say the whole Court will profess to his Lordship they think monstrous rudeness. My Lord H[ertford], whose piety could swallow Hume's infidelity, will be shocked now that he should have employed such a brute.’ Letters , vi. 420. See ante in Hume's Autobiography , his‘fixed resolution never to reply to any body,’ and post , Letter of June 25, 1771 for a fresh attack on’Warburton and his gang.’
Note 2. Perhaps a corrected copy of his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects , of which a new edition was published in the following year.‘Mr. Becket’ is probably Thomas Becket, the bookseller, who had been, and perhaps still was, one of Millar's assistants. See Nichols's Lit. Anec. iii. 387. He had apparently some connection with the Scotch, for he published Macpherson's Ossian. He may at this time have been on a visit to Edinburgh.
Note 1. The Advertisement or Preface is as follows:—'some Alterations are made on the Titles of the Treatises, contained in the following Volume. What in former Editions was called Essays moral and political , is here entitled Essays, moral, political, and literary, Part I. The political Discourses form the second Part. What in former Editions was called, Philosophical Essays concerning human Understanding , is here entitled An Enquiry concerning human Understanding. The four Dissertations lately published are dispersed thro’ different Parts of this Volume.’
Note 2. The mistakes occur in the following passages in Sections viii and ix of An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals :—
‘The most profound metaphysics, indeed, might be employed in explaining the various kinds and species of wit; and many classes of it, which are now received on the sole testimony of taste and sentiment, might, perhaps, be resolved into more general principles. But this is sufficient for our present purpose, that it does not affect taste and sentiment, and bestowing an immediate enjoyment, is a sure source of approbation and affection.’ The word not that I have italicised should be omitted.
“Tis sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely without the greatest absurdity cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, together with the elements of the wolf and serpent. Let these generous sentiments be supposed ever so weak; let them be sufficient to move even a hand or finger of our body; they must still direct the determinations of our mind, and where everything else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous.’ Sufficient is a misprint for insufficient. In the copy in the British Museum the corrections with the pen have not been made.
Note 1. Hume had written to Millar on Sept. 3:—’I am pretty certain that I shall be able to deliver to you the manuscript [of the History of England under the Tudors ] about a twelvemonth hence… You seemed desirous that we should mutually enter into articles about this volume; which I declined, till I should be so much advanced as to be sure of my resolution of executing it, and could judge with some certainty of the bulk.’ He goes on to ask for £700. Burton's Hume , ii. 37.
Note 1. The History of Great Britain under the Stuarts , of which Hume was preparing a second edition. The first volume, requiring as it did more alterations, was not sent up till six weeks later ( post , p. 28).
Note 2. By‘this previous volume’ he means the second volume of The History of England under the Tudors. The History of the Reign of James I having been published before the History of the Reign of Elizabeth was begun had now to be so altered that one volume might be‘adjusted’ to the other.
Note 3. Millar had bought from Hamilton and Balfour the unsold copies of the first volume.
Note 4. Hume says that when the two volumes of a work are brought out at different times not so many copies are taken of the second as of the first.
Note 5. For Johnson's praise of Millar, see ante , note on Hume's Autobiography.
Note 1. Millar, as was seen in the last letter, was hesitating about reprinting the first volume of the History of the Stuarts , of which more copies had been printed than of the second volume.
Note 2. The original title of the first published portion of his work had been The History of Great Britain, Volume I. Containing the reigns of James I and Charles I.
Note 3. Hume writing to Millar on June 20, 1758 about a volume of Sketches and Essays that Dr. Armstrong published anonymously, says:—’I find the ingenious author, whoever he be, ridicules the new method of spelling, as he calls it; but that method of spelling honor , instead of honour , was Lord Bolingbroke's, Dr. Middleton's, and Mr. Pope's; besides many other eminent writers. However, to tell truth, I hate to be any way particular in a trifle; and therefore if Mr. Strahan has not printed off above ten or twelve sheets, I should not be displeased if you told him to follow the usual, that is, his own way of spelling throughout.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 43. Boling-broke and Pope certainly did not always follow the new spelling. In the Patriot King, ed. 1750, I find indeed splendor , but also honour and favour. In the second edition of The Dunciad , Pope follows the old spelling, as also in the first edition of Seventeen Hundred and Thirty Eight. He spells however again, agen. In turning over a page or two of the first volume of the first edition of Hume's History I came on such spelling as tho’, thro’-out, knowlege, spred, ardor, splendor, favor, rigor, labored. Boswell in the Preface to his Tour to Corsica , published in 1767, writes:—’Of late it has become the fashion to render our language more neat and trim by leaving out k after c , and u in the last syllable of words which used to end in our. ’
Note 1. The History of England under the House of Tudor. It was published in two volumes quarto early in the following year. See Gent. Mag. 1759, p. 133.
Note 2. Dr. A. Carlyle ( Auto. p. 302) tells how John Home three years earlier started on the same journey on horse-back, with his‘tragedy in one pocket of his great coat and his clean shirt and night cap in the other.’ His friends, alarmed lest the tragedy should be lost, persuaded him to buy a pair of leather bags. In the spring of 1758 Carlyle accompanied his eldest sister to London.‘It is to be noted,’ he writes,‘that we could get no four-wheeled chaise till we came to Durham. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.’ Ib. p. 331.‘The first toll,’ says Hume,‘we read of in England for mending the highways was imposed in the reign of Edward III. It was that for repairing the road between St. Giles's and Temple-bar.’ Ed. 1802, ii. 496.‘The morning of the Perthshire election in 1761 I heard James, Duke of Athole, say that in 1713, when he was chosen member of Parliament, there was a great meeting, yet his father's coach was the only carriage there.’ Scotland and Scotsmen , ii. 88.
Note 1. This letter, I have little doubt, was written on the conclusion of the History of England under the House of Tudor. That it was written, not in Edinburgh, but in London, is clear from the letter itself. Hume had gone thither towards the end of 1758, to see this portion of his work through the press. Robertson, who was on the eve of publishing his History of Scotland , would be most eager to see how his friend had dealt with that period in which the affairs of England and Scotland became so much involved. Here there was some danger of a rivalry between the two friends.‘I was exceedingly sorry,’ wrote Hume to Robertson on Jan. 25, 1759,‘not to be able to comply with your desire, when you expressed your wish that I should not write this period.’ Stewart's Robertson , p. 341. In the same letter he says:—’I am nearly printed out, and shall be sure to send you a copy by the stage-coach, or some other conveyance.’ The only ground of hesitation I had in fixing the date is that Hume speaks of‘my volume,’ whereas the History of the Tudors was in two volumes. In the last letter, however, he speaks of it as‘my new volume.’ He cannot be speaking of his History of the Stuarts which was indeed published a volume at a time, for he was in Edinburgh when both volumes were brought out. Dr. Burton is in error when he states ( Life of Hume , ii. 65) that Hume on his return to Scotland about the beginning of November, 1759, left behind him the History of the Tudors for publication. It had already been shewn ( ib. p. 52) that the book was published in the previous spring.
Hume wrote to Robertson about the beginning of March:— ‘Next week I am published, and then I expect a constant comparison will be made between Dr. Robertson and Mr. Hume. I shall tell you in a few weeks which of these Heroes is likely to prevail. Meanwhile I can inform both of them for their comforts, that their combat is not likely to make half as much noise as that between Broughton and the one-eyed coachman.’ Stewart's Robertson , p. 345. In the concluding volumes of his History he pays Robertson the compliment of speaking of him as‘an elegant historian.’ Ed. 1802, ii. 486.
Note 2. Millar, no doubt, without obtaining Hume's consent, had shewn a copy also to his old assailant Warburton ; who wrote to Hurd on March 3 of this year:—’Hume has out-done himself in this new History in showing his contempt of Religion…. If his history be well received, I shall conclude that there is even an end of all pretence to religion. But I should think it will not; because I fancy the good reception of Robertson's proceeded from the decency of it.’ Letters from a late Eminent Prelate , p. 282.
Note 3. Dr. A. Carlyle, writing of September, 1759, says that‘he supped one night with the celebrated Dr. Franklin at Dr. Robertson's house, then at the head of the Cowgate, where he had come at Whit-sunday, after his being translated to Edinburgh. Dr. Franklin had his son with him; and there were David Hume, Adam Smith, and two or three more.’‘Franklin,’ he adds,‘was a silent man;’ but his son was open and communicative, and pleased the company better than his father.’ Carlyle's Auto. p. 394. Sir Walter Scott's father had married the year before, and had taken a house at the head of the College Wynd which led up from the Cowgate to the College. Here Scott was born on Aug. 15, 1771. Lockhart's Scott , ed. 1839, i. 19. Robertson was not made Principal of the College till 1762.
Note 4. Boswell writing in May, 1775, about his departure from London for Scotland says:—’dr. Johnson went with me to the inn in Holborn, where the Newcastle fly sets out.’ Letters of Boswell , p. 196. New Street, in which Strahan lived, is close to Holborn.
Note 5.‘Andrew Reid, a man not without considerable abilities, and not unacquainted with letters or with life, undertook to persuade Lyttelton, as he had persuaded himself, that he was master of the secret of punctuation; and as fear begets credulity he was employed, I know not at what price, to point the pages of Henry the Second. ’ Lyttelton's fear was of hostile critics. He published his book‘with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.’ Johnson's Works , viii. 492.
Note 1. The reference below to the King's Speech shows that this letter was written shortly after Nov. 18, 1760.
Note 2. Hume was finishing the last part of his History, the first as it now stands— The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cœsar to the Accession of Henry VII. On July 28, 1759, he had written to Adam Smith:—’I signed yesterday an agreement with Mr. Millar, where I mention that I proposed to write The History of England from the beginning till the accession of Henry VII; and he engages to give me £1400 for the copy. This is the first previous agreement ever I made with a bookseller. I shall execute this work at leisure, without fatiguing myself by such ardent application as I have hitherto employed.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 60. Francis Horner records:—’I have heard from very good authority that when Hume was engaged in the composition of his History, he generally worked thirteen hours a day.’ Horner's Memoirs , i. 175. It was published at the end of 1761.‘The copy-money given me by the booksellers,’ writes Hume in his Autobiography ,‘much exceeded anything formerly known in England. I was become not only independent, but opulent.’ Horace Walpole wrote of these volumes on Dec. 8, 1761 ( Letters , iii. 465):—’I not only know what has been written, but what would be written. Our story is so exhausted that, to make it new, they really make it new. Mr. Hume has exalted Edward the Second and depressed Edward the Third. The next historian, I suppose, will make James the First a hero and geld Charles the Second.’
Note 3. On June 29 of the following year, 1761, Hume wrote from Ninewells that he was‘so far on his road to London.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 90. That he was in London as late as Sept. 2 is shown by a letter in his Private Correspondence , p. 4. He went up, no doubt, to carry his two new volumes through the press. The Devil was the printer's devil, or messenger who would bring the proofs. See Boswell's Johnson , iv. 99, for‘a very respectable author who married a printer's devil.’
Note 4. Our friend was Andrew Millar. His first shop, when he started business in a very small way, was close to St. Clement's Church. Nichols, Lit. Anec. vi. 443. He had afterwards moved to the shop that had been occupied by‘Jacob Tonson, the friend and bookseller of Dryden, at “Shakspeare's Head, over against Catherine Street in the Strand,” now No. 141 (since rebuilt). Millar was a Scotchman, and distinguished his house by the sign of “Buchanan's Head.”’ Cunningham's Hand-Book of London , ed. 1850, p. 475.
Note 5. Perhaps Dr. William Rose, of Chiswick,‘the eminent schoolmaster and critic, and one of Andrew Millar's literary counsellors. He was largely concerned in the Monthly Review. ’ Nichols, Lit. Anec. iii. 386.
Note 6. George III began to reign on Oct. 25, 1760.‘The accession of George the Third to the throne of these Kingdoms,’ wrote Boswell,‘opened a new and brighter prospect to men of literary merit, who had been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign.’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 372. For Hume it was indeed the Augustan age. In 1765 he was appointed Secretary to the Embassy at Paris, having for nearly two years performed the duties of that office ( ante, Auto. ), and in 1767 he was made one of the Under-Secretaries of State. In 1765 a pension of £400 a year was settled on him. Burton's Hume , ii. 289. In 1751 his income was only £50 a year, while he had‘a hundred pounds’ worth of books, great store of linens and fine clothes, and near £100 in his pocket.’ Ib. i. 342.‘In 1769 I returned to Edinburgh,’ he writes,‘very opulent, for I possessed a revenue of £1000 a year.’ Ante, Auto. Johnson received a pension of £300 a year, Beattie of £200, and Home of £300 with an appointment. Adam Smith was made a Commissioner of Customs, and Robert Burns a gauger. The hack-partisan, Shebbeare, who had written himself into the pillory under George II, wrote himself into a pension under George III.’ Boswell's Johnson , ii. 112, n. 3. Gray, Goldsmith, Shenstone, Smollett, Sterne and Cowper lived and died unpensioned.
Note 7.‘Nov. 4, 1760. The Archbishop [Secker] has such hopes of the young King that he is never out of the circle. He trod upon the Duke's [Duke of Cumberland] foot on Sunday in the haste of his zeal; the Duke said to him, “My Lord, if your Grace is in such a hurry to make your court that is the way.”’ Walpole's Letters , iii. 359.‘Nov. 24, 1760. The Archbishop, who is never out of the drawing-room, has great hopes from the King's goodness that he shall make something of him, that is something bad of him.’ Ib. p. 365.
Note 8.‘My good brother and ally the King of Prussia [Frederick the Great], although surrounded with numerous armies of enemies, has with a magnanimity and perseverance almost beyond example not only withstood their various attacks, but has obtained very considerable victories over them.’ King's Speech on opening Parliament, Nov. 18, 1760. Parl. Hist. xv. 983. Horace Walpole, writing six days later about his forthcoming Anecdotes of Painting , says ( Letters , iii. 365):—’It neither flatters the King of Prussia nor Prince Ferdinand …; how should it please?’
Note 9. Johnson, writing in 1756 of the general toleration of religion granted by Frederick, says:—’It is the great taint of his character that he has given reason to doubt whether this toleration is the effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good.’ Johnson's Works , vi. 443. Voltaire, describing the life at Potsdam, says:—Il n’entrait jamais dans le palais ni femmes ni prêtres. En un mot Frédéric vivait sans cour, sans conseil, et sans culte.’ ( Œuvres de Voltaire , ed. 1819–25, lxiv. 210. In La Loi Naturelle (written about 1751) Voltaire writes:—
Note 10.‘That happy extinction of divisions and that union and good harmony which continue to prevail amongst my subjects afford me the most agreeable prospects.’ Parl. Hist. xv. 985. Horace Walpole, writing three weeks later, says:—’I have a maxim that “the extinction of party is the origin of faction.”’ Letters , iii. 370. In 1783 Boswell and Johnson were discussing how it was that‘this has been a very factious reign.’ Boswell's Johnson , iv. 200.
Note 11. In 1756 Hume wrote to Dr. Clephane:—’With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men I think I am very moderate. My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles, my representations of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 11. On May 15, 1761, he wrote to the Countess De Boufflers:—’The spirit of faction which prevails in this country, and which is a natural attendant on civil liberty, carries everything to extremes on the one side as well as on the other; and I have the satisfaction to find that my performance has alternately given displeasure to both parties.’ Priv. Corresp. p. 2. See ante in his Autobiography for the alterations made by him in his History of the Stuarts ‘invariably to the Tory side.’ The student who reflects on the light that has of late years been thrown on the history of England under the Stuarts will smile at Hume's self-complacency when he writes:—’I have been very busy in adding the Authorities to the Volumes of the Stuarts…. I fancy that I shall be able to put my account of that Period of English History beyond controversy.’ Letter of Dec. 18, 1759. M. S. R. S. E. In his Autobiography , written shortly before his death, he says:—’I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre.’
Note 1. James Macpherson, in the summer of 1760, published Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands. Gray, who had seen some of them in manuscript, wrote:—’I am gone mad about them ; they are said to be translations (literal and in prose) from the Erse tongue, done by one Macpherson, a young clergyman in the Highlands … I was so struck with their beauty that I writ into Scotland to make a thousand inquiries; the letters I have in return are ill-wrote, ill-reasoned, unsatisfactory, calculated (one would imagine) to deceive, and yet not cunning enough to do it cleverly. In short the whole external evidence would make one believe these fragments counterfeit; but the internal is so strong on the other side that I am resolved to believe them genuine spite of the Devil and the Kirk…. In short this man is the very demon of poetry, or he has lighted on a treasure hid for ages.’ Mason's Gray , ed. 1807, ii. 163. He reproached Mason with‘the affectation of not admiring,’ who says in a note:—’It was rather a want of credulity than admiration that Mr. Gray should have laid to my charge.’ Ib. p. 170. Hume, in a letter dated Aug. 16, 1760, which was shown to Gray, says:—’Certain it is that these poems are in every body's mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition … Everybody in Edinburgh is so convinced of this truth, that we have endeavoured to put Mr. Macpherson on a way of procuring us more of these wild flowers. He is a modest, sensible, young man, not settled in any living…. We have therefore set about a subscription of a guinea or two guineas a-piece, in order to enable him to undertake a mission into the Highlands, where he hopes to recover more of these fragments.’ Burton's Hume , i. 463. Dr. A. Carlyle ( Auto , p. 276) told Hume that he had met but two people in Scotland who doubted their authenticity. Gibbon even so late as 1776 quotes Ossian in the first volume of the Decline and Fall , ch. vi, though he admits that‘something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions.’ Horace Walpole at first was a believer. On April 14, 1761, he wrote:—’My doubts of the genuineness are all vanished.’ Letters , iii. 395. Eight months later, when the first volume of Ossian was published, his doubts returned as convictions :—’ Fingal is come out; I have not yet got through it; not but it is very fine—yet I cannot at once compass an epic poem now. It tires me to death to read how many ways a warrior is like the moon, or the sun, or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean. Fingal is a brave collection of similes, and will serve all the boys at Eton and Westminster for these twenty years. I will trust you with a secret, but you must not disclose it; I should be ruined with my Scotch friends; in short I cannot believe it genuine.’ Ib. p. 466. In a long review of this volume in the Annual Register for 1761, ii. 276, we are told that‘the venerable author and his elegant translator have mutually conferred immortality on each other.’ The reviewer perhaps was Burke. The following passage is not unworthy of his pen.‘The editor has recovered from the obscurity of barbarism, the rust of fifteen hundred years, and the last breath of a dying language , these inestimable relics of the genuine spirit of poetry.’ Johnson from the first scorned them as forgeries and as froth.‘Sir,’ he said,‘a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 396, n. 3. To Macpherson, who had threatened him in‘a foolish and impudent letter,’he wrote:—’I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.’ Ib. ii. 298. Blair foolishly flattered himself at one time that he had convinced Johnson. He wrote to Hume on July 1, 1765:—’Have not I silenced all infidelity and even scepticism concerning Fingal in the Appendix to my Dissertation … I have converted even that barbarian Sam. Johnson by it, who as L[ord] Elibank tells me owns himself now convinced. Will you still have any scruples?’ M. S. R. S. E.
Hume in time changed his opinion both of Macpherson and his poems.‘I have scarce ever known,’ he wrote in 1763,‘a man more perverse and unamiable.’ Burton's Hume , i. 470. Dr. A. Carlyle says that‘Hume at first gloried in Ossian's poems, but on going to London he went over to the other side, and loudly affirmed them to be inventions of Macpherson.’ Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 276. From London, Hume wrote to Dr. Blair on Sept. 19, 1763:—’I often hear them totally rejected with disdain and indignation, as a palpable and most impudent forgery. This opinion has indeed become very prevalent among the men of letters in London.’ Burton's Hume , i. 465. He wrote an Essay on the Authenticity of Ossian's Poems , though he never published it, perhaps out of regard for his friend Dr. Blair, who stood forth as Macpherson's champion, perhaps from his unwillingness to expose a Scotchman. In it he says:—’I think the fate of this production the most curious effect of prejudice, where superstition had no share, that ever was in the world. A tiresome, insipid performance, which, if it had been presented in its real form as the work of a contemporary, an obscure Highlander, no man could ever have had the patience to have once perused, has, by passing for the poetry of a royal bard who flourished fifteen centuries ago, been universally read, has been pretty generally admired, and has been translated in prose and verse into several languages of Europe. Even the style of the supposed English translation has been admired, though harsh and absurd in the highest degree; jumping perpetually from verse to prose, and from prose to verse; and running, most of it, in the light cadence and measure of Molly Mog. Such is the Erse epic which has been puffed with a zeal and enthusiasm that has drawn a ridicule on my countrymen.’ Ib. i. 471.
Macpherson flourished by his roguery. He had a pension which Horace Walpole in one place puts at £600 a year and in another place at £800, for‘supervising the newspapers’ ( Journal of the Reign of George III , ii. 17, 483); he sat for a time in Parliament (Wheatley's Wraxall's Memoirs , v. 218), and he was buried in Westminster Abbey (Stanley's Westminster Abbey , ed. 1868, p. 298).
Note 2. A MS. letter of Hume of this time that I have seen is dated‘Edinburgh, Jacksland, 1st Jany. 1761.’‘Jack's Land,’ says Dr. Burton,’ was a tenement in the Canongate, right opposite to a house in which Smollett occasionally resided with his sister. The term “Land” applied to one of those edifices—some of them ten or twelve stories high—in which the citizens of Edinburgh, pressed upwards as it were by the increase of the population within a narrow circuit of walls, made stair-cases supply the place of streets, and erected perpendicular thoroughfares. A single floor was a century ago [written in 1846] sufficient to accommodate the family of a Scottish nobleman.’ Life of Hume , i. 343.
Note 1. What was the nature of the prophecy I have not been able to ascertain.
Note 2. Hume wrote to Millar on March 15, 1762:—’I am running over both the ancient history and the Tudors, and shall send you them up by the wagon as soon as they are corrected. Please tell Mr. Strahan to keep carefully this copy I send up, as well as that which I left of the Stuarts; for if you intend to print an octavo edition next summer, it will be better to do it from these copies which are corrected than from the new edition, where there will necessarily be some errors of the press.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 130. The copy which he tells Millar he is sending up is no doubt‘the second volume of the Stuarts’ mentioned in the letter to Strahan. It is not‘the ancient history’ or‘the Tudors,’ for both of these he is correcting, nor one of the volumes of‘the Stuarts,’ which he had left in London corrected on his visit in 1761. It must therefore be the second volume, and the letter must have been written at the same time as the one to Millar.
Note 3. Hume wrote to Millar on March 18, 1764:—’I shoud be glad to know how your new Method of publishing Volume by Volume has succeeded.’ M.S.R.S.E. Whether he is speaking of the edition of his own History in eight volumes published in 1763, or of some other book, I do not know.
The first uniform edition of the History was that of 1763 in 8 vols. octavo; in 1770 a quarto edition was published, also in 8 vols.
Note 1. Hume wrote from Edinburgh to Adam Smith on Aug. 9, 1763:—’I have got an invitation, accompanied with great prospects and expectations, from Lord Hertford, if I would accompany him, though at first without any character, in his embassy to Paris. I hesitated much on the acceptance of this offer, though in appearance very inviting; and I thought it ridiculous at my years to be entering on a new scene, and to put myself in the lists as a candidate of fortune. But I reflected that I had in a manner abjured all literary occupations; that I resolved to give up my future life entirely to amusements; that there could not be a better pastime than such a journey, especially with a man of Lord Hertford's character; and that it would be easy to prevent my acceptance from having the least appearance of dependance.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 157. Writing from London on Sept. 13, after mentioning all the advantages of the position, he continues:—’But notwithstanding all these considerations, shall I tell you the truth? I repine at my loss of ease and leisure and retirement and independence; and it is not without a sigh I look backwards, nor without reluctance that I cast my eye forwards.’ Ib. p. 161. On Nov. 9 he wrote from Fontainebleau:—’I am sensible that I set out too late and that I am misplaced; and I wish twice or thrice a-day for my easy chair and my retreat in James's Court. Never think, dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of your own fireside and your own time you can be unhappy, or that any other circumstance can make an addition to your enjoyment.’ Ib. p. 173. In an undated letter he says:—’Thus you see my present plan of life sketched out, but it is unsuitable to my age and temper; and I am determined to retrench and to abandon the fine folks before they abandon me.’ Ib. p. 181.
Note 2. John Worrall kept a book shop in Bell Yard, Temple Bar; and his brother Thomas one at Temple Bar. Nichols, Lit. Anec. iii. 739.
Note 3. In the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for November 1739, p. 608, is entered The Jamaica Laws from 1681 to 1737. Printed by J. Basket. Folio, price £1 1 s.
Note 1. Two days earlier Hume, writing to Millar, had asked him to send to him‘a copy of this new Book burnd by Order of the House of Commons.’ M.S.R.S.E. Very likely he had heard of the book from the Earl of Hertford, to whom Horace Walpole had written on Feb. 24:—’The events of the week have been a complaint made by Lord Lyttelton in your House of a book called Droit le Roy ; a tract written in the highest strain of prerogative, and drawn from all the old obsolete law-books on that question. The ministers met this complaint with much affected indignation, and even, on the complaint being communicated to us, took it up themselves; and both Houses have ordered the book to be burned by the hangman.’ Letters , iv. 198.
Note 2. Voltaire's Traité sur la Tolérance à l’Occasion de la Mort de Jean Calas was published at the end of 1763. Voltaire, in his letters written in December of that year, tells of the difficulties he had in getting it introduced from Switzerland into France. On Dec. 13 he wrote to D’Alembert:—’Vous ne savez pas combien il est difficile de faire parvenir de gros paquets par la poste…. L’éditeur a pris, pour envoyer à Paris ses ballots, une route si détournée et si longue, qu’ils n’arriveront pas à Paris cette année.’ In a postscript he adds:—’Les pauvres Cramer [his publishers at Geneva] ont été obligés de faire faire à leurs paquets le tour de l’Europe, pour arriver à Paris.’ Œuvres de Voltaire , ed. 1819—25, lxii. 252—4. On Dec. 31 he writes:—’deux paquets adressés à M. Damilaville sont restés entre les griffes des vautours. Il faut que le vôtre n’ait point échappé à leur barbarie, puisque je n’ai aucune nouvelle de vous; tout cela m’embarrasse. Je vois qu’on ne tolère ni la Tolérance ni les tolérans.’ Ib. p. 259. On Feb. 13, 1764, he writes:—’Le petit livret de la Tolérance a déjà fait au moins quelque bien. Il a tiré un pauvre diable des galères, et un autre de prison. Leur crime était d’avoir entendu en plein champ la parole de Dieu prêchée par un ministre huguenot. Ils ont bien promis de n’entendre de sermon de leur vie.’ Ib. p. 270. Later on he described the treatise as‘le catéchisme de quiconque a du bon sens et de l’équité.’ Ib. lxiv. 315.
Note 3. Mme. Riccoboni was born in 1714 and died in 1792. She belonged to a family of good position which was ruined by sharing in Law's speculations. For a short time she was on the stage, where she met with but moderate success. Her husband who died in 1772 was an actor, and belonged to a family of actors. Among her novels were Les lettres de Fanny Butler, Les lettres de Julie Catesby , and L’histoire de Miss Jenny. Her last days were passed in great poverty. Nouv. Biog. Gén. xlii. 153. She was a correspondent of Garrick. Writing to him on May 15, 1765, she says:—’J’ai reçu hier par un libraire de Paris des compliments très-honnêtes d’une Madame Broock ou Brock, je ne m’en souviens plus. C’est la traductrice de Milady Catesby: elle écrit qu’elle en est à la quatrième édition. Cela est fort différent de Monsieur Becket, qui s’est ruiné avec Miss Jenny. Cette dame me fait demander la permission de m’envoyer ses ouvrages. J’avais dessein de lui faire tenir les miens; mais Monsieur Hume ne la connaissait point, et s’avisa de donner cette malheureuse Jenny à Monsieur Becket, qui en a fait un garde-boutique, un fond de magasin pour ses arrière-neveux.’ Garrick Corresp. ii. 436. In the list of books in the Gent. Mag. for April and May 1760, p. 251, I find‘ Letters from Lady Catesby to Lady Henrietta Campley. From the French. Price three shillings. Dodsley.’ According to the Dict. of Nat. Biog. vi. 420, this book soon reached a sixth edition. Mrs. Frances Brooke, the translator, was the author of The Siege of Sinope. She pressed Johnson to look over this play till at last he told her that she must correct it herself.‘“But, Sir,” said she, “I have no time. I have already so many irons in the fire.” “Why, then, Madam,” said he, “the best thing I can advise you to do is to put your tragedy along with your irons.”’ Hannah More's Memoirs , i. 200.
Note 4. L’histoire de Miss Jenny Revel, écrite et envoyée par elle à Milady Comtesse de Roscommon. In the translation, The History of Miss Jenny Salisbury, addressed to the Countess of Roscommon.
Note 5. No doubt one of the couriers or messengers going between the French Embassy and London. See post , p. 45.
Note 6. Horace Walpole, writing from Paris on Sept. 22, 1765, says ( Letters , iv. 407):—’There are swarms of English here, but most of them are going to my great satisfaction.’
Note 7. Hume wrote to Millar on April 8, 1762:—’I was extremely obliged to you for advancing the money in order to enable me to take part in the last subscription. I shall certainly keep it till the Peace, which seems now to be in a tolerable good way; and then I shall be a considerable gainer.’ M. S. R. S. E. On Aug. 30 of the same year Robert Wood, the author of The Ruins of Palmyra and for some time an Under-Secretary of State, wrote to Hume:—'shan’t we see you next winter with a pair of quartos? You must make haste to put them into the funds, for scrip rises fast. Ramsay and little Hall talk of nothing else but their paper riches. We consider every shilling we put in as eighteen-pence the moment it goes to the Alley’ [’Change Alley]. Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume , p. 263. On Nov. 22 following, Hume wrote from Edinburgh to Millar:—’The Stocks are now very high; but I suppose will not come to their full height this twelvemonth, and till then I fancy you will not think it prudent in me to sell out.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 140. On Sept. 3, 1764, he wrote to Millar from Paris:—’The lowness of stocks surely proceeds not from any apprehension of war; never was a general peace established in Europe with more likelihood of its continuance; but I fancy your stocks are become at last too weighty, to the conviction of all the world. What must happen if we go on at the same rate during another war?’ Ib. p. 232. Millar replied early in 1765:—’It is generally believed that Mr. Grenville is a good manager of the finances and in general means well; as a proof of it, our stocks have been creeping up daily, and it is now generally believed that 3 per cent. will soon come to par if affairs continue peaceable.’ Ib. p. 265. In Feb. 1762, the 3 per cent. consols were as low as 62, Gent. Mag. 1762, p. 96: by November they had risen to 86. Ib. p. 554. On March 2o, 1764, the day on which Hume wrote, they were at 85. Ib. 1764, p. 148. In March 1737, during the long peace of Walpole's ministry, Sir John Barnard in a motion for the reduction of interest said:—’Every one knows that even those public securities which bear an interest of 3 per cent. only now sell at a premium in‘Change Alley.’ Parl. Hist. x. 74.
Note 1. Messenger. See ante , p. 44, n. 5.
Note 2. Hume, writing on April 26 of this year, says:—’It is almost out of the memory of man that any British has been here on a footing of familiarity with the good company except my Lord Holderness…. I may add General Clarke, who was liked and esteemed by several people of merit, which he owed to his great cleverness and ingenuity, and to his surprising courage in introducing himself.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 194. Dr. A. Carlyle, who met Clarke at Harrogate in 1764, gives a very different account of him ( Auto. p. 451):—’He was a very singular man, of a very ingenious and active intellect, though he had broke short in his education by entering at an early age into the army; and having by nature a copious elocution, he threw out his notions, which were often new, with a force and rapidity which stunned you more than they convinced. He applied his warlike ideas to colloquial intercourse, and attacked your opinions as he would do a redoubt or a castle, not by sap and mine, but by open storm. I must confess that of all the men who had so much understanding he was the most disagreeable person to converse with whom I ever knew…. You must contradict him and wrangle with him, or you had no peace.’
Note 1. Strahan replied on July 10:—’It is not easy to say how many presses there are in London, but as near as I can guess they are from 150 to 200—150 is pretty near the truth, I mean such as [are] constantly employed.’ M. S. R. S. E. He adds:—’At present, and indeed ever since Wilkes's affair was finished, we have been in a state of most profound tranquillity. The Names of Pitt and Wilkes and Liberty and Privilege are heard no more…. Lord Bute still holds his usual Influence at Court and is very likely to do so long; for the King (if I may use the expression) doats upon him. Certain it is, he does nothing without his Advice and Approbation.’ Wilkes, on Feb. 21 of this year had been convicted of re-publishing No. 45 of the North Briton , and of printing and publishing an Essay on Woman. As he did not appear to receive judgment he was outlawed and was at this time in Paris.
Note 1. T. Becket was the publisher of the translation of Mme. Riccoboni's new novel. On Aug. 31, 1765 she wrote to Garrick:—’J’ai remis à Mr. Foley la petite somme dont j’étais redevable à Mr. Becket. Remerciez-le bien pour moi, I charge you. Je ne lui écris point, dans la crainte qu’il ne se fasse lire ma lettre par son traducteur, qui y trouverait une foule de malédictions contre lui. Jenny est pitoyable; une traduction lâche, froide, pleine de contresens, de répétitions, de plates épithètes, snowy hands, the fountain of love , fy, eh, fy! rien de plus long, de plus maussade, ce n’est ni mon style ni mes idées.’ Garrick Corresp. ii. 457. In‘fy, eh, fy’ she is imitating Garrick. Boswell describes him as saying on one occasion:—’You are, perhaps, the worst—eh, eh!’Boswell's Johnson , ii. 83; and on another occasion:—’What! eh! is Strahan a good judge of an epigram?’ Ib. iii. 258.
Note 2. On Jan. 11, 1765 Strahan replied:—’Mme. Riccoboni's book does not sell at all. Of course we must be losers…. We have been all this summer in a state of profound tranquillity… Wilkes's last letter hath made very little impression, and serves only to bolt the door against himself, and seal his expulsion from his country.’ M. S. R. S. E. Wilkes's letter was addressed to the Electors of Aylesbury, dated Oct. 22, 1764, and first printed in Paris. Almon's Wilkes , iii. 85.
Note 1. Sir Gilbert Elliot wrote to Hume on March 25, 1765:—’Our business here draws to a close. To-morrow Mr. Grenville opens ∗ the budget, as it is usually called.’ M. S. R. S. E. So quiet indeed was the Session that it closed as early as May 25. The King in his speech on that day said:—’The dispatch which you have given with so much zeal and wisdom to the public business enables me now to put a period to this Session of Parliament…. I have seen with the most perfect approbation that you have employed this season of tranquillity in promoting those objects which I have recommended to your attention; and in framing such regulations as may best enforce the just authority of the legislature, and at the same time secure and extend the commerce, and unite the interests of every part of my dominions.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 78. It was in this quiet Session that the American Stamp Act was carried. Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation , in 1774, answering the statement that the opposition shown to it in Parliament had encouraged the Americans, said:—’As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger in your gallery when the Act was under consideration. Far from anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the Act, and that with great reserve and remarkable temper. There was but one division in the whole progress of the Bill; and the minority did not reach to more than 39 or 40. In the House of Lords I do not recollect that there was any debate or division at all.’ Payne's Select Works of Burke , i. 140.
Note 2. Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann on March 26 of this year:—’I don’t remember the day when I was reduced to complain in winter and Parliament-tide of having nothing to say. Yet it is this kind of nothing that has occasioned my long silence. There has not been an event, from a debate to a wedding, capable of making a paragraph. Such calms often forerun storms.’ Letters , iv. 337. Though he was in Parliament at the time, yet he only once mentions the debates on the Stamp Act. On Feb. 12, he wrote:—’There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one slight day on the American taxes.’ Ib. p. 322.
Note 3. Hume wrote to Blair on April 6 of this year:—’There is a very remarkable difference between London and Paris, of which I gave warning to Helvétius when he went over lately to England, and of which he told me on his return he was fully sensible. If a man have the misfortune in the former place to attach himself to letters, even if he succeeds, I know not with whom he is to live, nor how he is to pass his time in a suitable society. The little company there that is worth conversing with are cold and unsociable; or are warmed only by faction and cabal; so that a man who plays no part in public affairs becomes altogether insignificant; and if he is not rich he becomes even contemptible. Hence that nation are relapsing fast into the deepest stupidity and ignorance. But in Paris a man that distinguishes himself in letters meets immediately with regard and attention.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 268. When he was in London in 1767, while thanking Dr. Blair for offering to introduce him to Dr. Percy, he says:—’It would be impracticable for me to cultivate his friendship, as men of letters here have no place of rendezvous; and are indeed sunk and forgot in the general torrent of the world.’ Ib. p. 385.
Note 4. See ante , p. 43, n. 2, for an explanation of this.
Note 5. Mme. Riccoboni's novel.
Note 6. Hume's History closes with the Revolution. The following extracts from his letters show that a continuation of it was for some years in his thoughts.
Note 7. Dr. J. H. Burton, writing of the years 1765–6, says:—’Allusion has occasionally been made to the difficulty of satisfying Hume with any amount of literary success. His correspondence with Millar is a long grumble about the prejudices he has had to encounter, and their influence on the circulation of his works; while the bookseller, by the most glowing pictures of their popularity, is only able to elicit a partial gleam of content.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 263. It is shown hereafter (Letter of March 13, 1770) that Millar's pictures were more glowing than correct. Nevertheless, Hume's success as a writer was so great that‘Millar offered him any price’ for the continuation of his History. At the close of his life he wrote in his Autobiography :—’I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre.’
Note 8. The violence of Hume's feelings towards the English is not seen in his earlier correspondence. He had even at one time thought of settling in London. On Jan. 25, 1759, he wrote:—’I used every expedient to evade this journey to London; yet it is now uncertain whether I shall ever leave it.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 50. On July 28 in the same year he wrote:—’I am in doubt whether I shall stay here and execute the work; or return to Scotland, and only come up here to consult the manuscripts. I have several inducements on both sides. Scotland suits my fortune best, and is the seat of my principal friendships; but it is too narrow a place for me.’ Ib. p. 61. (Boswell in like manner‘complained to Johnson that he felt himself discontented in Scotland, as too narrow a sphere.’ Boswell's Johnson , iii. 176.)
Note 9. In 1756 Johnson‘accepted of a guinea for writing the introduction to The London Chronicle , an evening newspaper…. This Chronicle still subsists,’ continues Boswell,‘and from what I observed, when I was abroad, has a more extensive circulation upon the Continent than any of the English newspapers. It was constantly read by Johnson himself.’ Boswell's Johnson , i. 317. Boswell wrote to Johnson on March 12, 1778:—’The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours; for I found it contradicted in The London Chronicle , which I could depend upon as authentic concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it.’ Ib. iii. 221.
Note 10.‘ An Essay on the Constitution of England , price 1 s. 6 d. T. Becket and P. de Hondt, London’: London Chronicle , Jan. 5, 1765. In the number for Jan. 10 three columns of extracts are given.
Note 11. Franklin had met Hume when he visited Edinburgh in 1759. Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 395. Later on he stayed in his house in James's Court for several weeks. Ib. p. 437. Dr. Carlyle does not mention the year of his second visit, but I have little doubt that it was in 1771. See post , Letter of Nov. 12, 1771. Franklin's friendship with his brother-printer Strahan, which had been long and close, was broken by the American War. Strahan, who was a strong supporter of Lord North's ministry, received from his old friend the following letter:—
Note 1. The Grenville Ministry which had been formed on April 16, 1763, was succeeded by the Rockingham Ministry on July 13, 1765. The nature of the transactions which excited Hume's curiosity at a distance can be seen in the following extracts:—
Note 2. In the letter writers of this age distrust is very often shewn of the Post Office. Such passages as the following are not unfrequently met with:—’London, April 19, 1748. I know that most letters from and to me are opened.’ Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Day-rolles. Chesterfield's Misc. Works , iv. 47.
Note 3. It was inserted in the Chronicle of June 13.
Note 4. On June 5 of the previous year Wilkes wrote from Paris, where he was living in exile:—’Lord Hertford gave yesterday a grand dinner to all the English here except one , and to the true Irish Whigs; nor, like a good courtier, did he omit the new converts, the Scotch…. I am the single Englishman not invited by the ambassador of my country on the only day I can at Paris shew my attachment to my Sovereign, as if I was disaffected to the present establishment…. To say the truth, I passed the day much more to my satisfaction than I should have done in a set of mixed or suspicious company; a fulsome dull dinner; two hours of mighty grave conversation to be purchased (in all civility) by six more of Pharaoh—which I detest as well as every other kind of gaming.’ Almon's Memoirs of Wilkes , iii. 124-7.
.
Note 1. On July 13, 1765, Hume received his commission under the Great Seal as Secretary to the Embassy at Paris. On June 3, on hearing of the appointment, he had written to Elliot:—’In spite of Atheism and Deism, of Whiggism and Toryism, of Scotticism and Philosophy, I am now possessed of an office of credit, and of £1200 a year.’ Burton's Hume , ii. 281. The fall of the Grenville Ministry made a great change in his fortune. His patron, the Earl of Hertford, was offered by the Marquis of Rockingham the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. For some time the Earl hesitated between Ireland and Paris.‘He takes the former,’ wrote Walpole on July 30 ( Letters , iv. 388),‘not very gladly, but to accommodate his brother, and his nephew, Grafton.’ His brother, General Conway, and the Duke of Grafton were the two Secretaries of State in the new Ministry. Hume was left to represent the Ambassador till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, Lord Hertford's successor, in November, 1765. Horace Walpole, who visited Paris in the interval, wrote on Sept. 26 ( Ib. p. 409):—’Lady Hertford is gone and the Duke of Richmond not come; consequently I am as isolé as I can wish to be.’ He lodged in the same hotel as Hume, and often met him; yet he makes very little mention of him in his letters. The two men had but little in common.