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XXXI.] NAMESs suppressed IN THE PAMPHLET. 103

Note I. Rousseau in his letter of Dec. 4, 1765, quoted in Hume's narrative, says :-'It is the advice also of Madam . . . . On which there is the following footnote:-'The person here mentioned desired her name might be suppressed. French editor. As the motive to the suppression of the lady's name can hardly be supposed to extend to this country, the English translator takes the liberty to mention the name of the Marchioness de Verdelin.' A Concise Account, p. 6. Mde. de Boufflers is mentioned on p. 86 as one of Hume's correspondents. Writing to her on Dec. 2, 1766, he says:— 'I had erased your name; but it seems not so but that it was legible; and it is accordingly printed. The bookseller, the printer, and the compositor all throw the blame on each other for this accident.' Private Corres. p. 230.

Grimm writing on Oct. 15, 1766 says:-Les personnes dont les noms sont supprimés dans ce procès sont madame la comtesse de Boufflers et madame la marquise de Verdelin.' Corres. Lit. v. 197.

LETTER XXXI.

Hume's Occupations as Under Secretary.

DEAR SIR

[Spring of 1767.]

I was sorry not to be at home, when you did me the Favour to call on me the other day: My occupations1 prevent my calling on you: But if you be any day at this End of the Town, the best way is to call on me at Mr. Conway's House, where I am every forenoon 2, and commonly between 10 and 3: It is in little Warwick Street: You'll do me a Pleasure in allowing me at any time half an hour's Conversation with you.

Friday, Forenoon.

I am Dear Sir Yours sincerely

DAVID HUME.

Note 1. Hume wrote to the Countess de Boufflers from London on March 1, 1767:-'There has happened, dear Madam, a small change in my situation and fortune since I wrote to you. I was then very deeply immersed in study, and thought of nothing but of retreat and indolence for the rest of my life, when I was surprised with a letter from Lord Hertford, urging me to come to London, and accept of the office of Depute-Secretary of State under his brother [General

Conway]. As my Lord knew that this step was contrary to the maxims which I had laid down to myself, he engaged my Lady Hertford to write me at the same time, and to inform me how much she and my Lord desired my compliance. I sat down once or twice to excuse myself; but I own, I could not find terms to express my refusal of a request made by persons to whose friendship I had been so much obliged. . . . I do not suspect myself at my years, and after such established habits of retreat, of being ensnared by this glimpse of Court favour to commence a new course of life, and relinquish my literary ambition for the pursuit of riches and honours in the state. On the contrary, I feel myself at present like a banished man in a strange country; I mean, not as I was while with you at Paris, but as I should be in Westphalia or Lithuania or any place the least to my fancy in the world.' Private Corres. p. 235. Horace Walpole writes in his Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 414 :-'It happened at this period [Feb. 1767] that Mr. Conway, who talked of nothing but resigning, became in want of a secretary, William Burke quitting his service to follow his cousin Edmund into Opposition. My surprise was very great when Mr. Conway declared his resolution of making David Hume, the historian, who had served his brother, Lord Hertford, in the same capacity at Paris, his secretary. [Walpole's surprise was not so much at the appointment of Hume, as at the indication it gave that Conway had no intention to resign.] . . . I was pleased with the designation of Hume, as it would give jealousy to the Rockinghams, who had not acted wisely in letting Burke detach himself from Mr. Conway; and I prevailed on Lady Hertford to write a second letter, more pressing than her lord's, to Mr. Hume to accept. The philosopher did not want much entreaty.'

Hume in a letter to Blair dated April 1, 1767, thus describes his occupations:-'My way of life here is very uniform, and by no means disagreeable. I pass all the forenoon in the Secretary's house from ten till three, where there arrive from time to time messengers that bring me all the secrets of the Kingdom, and indeed of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. I am seldom hurried; but have leisure at intervals to take up a book, or write a private letter, or converse with any friend that may call for me; and from dinner to bed-time is all my own. If you add to this that the person [General Conway] with whom I have the chief, if not only transactions, is the most reasonable, equal-tempered, and gentleman-like man imaginable, and Lady Aylesbury [the General's wife] the same, you will certainly think I have no reason to complain; and I am far from complaining. I only shall not regret when my duty is over, because to me the situation can lead to nothing, at least in all probability; and reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness. I mean my full contentment.' Burton's Hume, ii. 384. The cup of his philosophic happiness was never destined to be full. Like ordinary men he had his unsatisfied longings. His

XXXI.]

HUME'S ASPIRATIONS.

105

'full contentment,' should have come in the following year, when he was consoled for the loss of the easy dignity and the emoluments of an English Under-Secretary of State by a handsome pension conferred by the English King, and paid by the English people. It was then that his 'lounging and dosing, which he called thinking,' his 'supreme happiness,' thus found expression. 22nd July, 1768. There are fine doings in America. O! how I long to see America and the East Indies revolted, totally and finally,—the revenue reduced to half,-public credit fully discredited by bankruptcy, the third of London in ruins, and the rascally mob subdued! I think I am not too old to despair of being witness to all these blessings.' Burton's Hume, ii. 417.

Note 2. Boswell, who was careful to clear his writings of Scotticisms, in the third edition of his Life of Johnson in at least four places changed forenoon into morning. Boswell's Johnson, ii. 283, n. 3. Hume in one of his early letters says:-'I last summer undertook a very laborious task which was to travel eight miles every morning, and as many in the forenoon to and from a mineral well.' Burton's Hume, i. 34. Note 3. Pall Mall. Note 4. This letter must have been written soon after Hume's arrival in London, at the end of February, 1767. Adam Smith, writing to him on the following June 7, addresses his letter:-'To David Hume Esq. Under Secretary for the Northern Department, at Mr. Secretary Conway's house, London.' M. S. R.S. E. In the Court and City Register for 1765, p. 108, is a list of Ambassadors and Ministers which shews how the business with foreign countries was divided between the two Secretaries of State :

Little Warwick Street opened out of Cockspur Street,

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DEAR SIR

LETTER XXXII.

An Appointment sought for Strahan.

[Spring of 1767.]

I spoke to Lord Hertford on Sunday Evening: I know not if what I said woud have any Influence; but he seemd to think, that the Determination of that Question woud depend on the Lords who had been active in conducting the Affair, viz: Marchmont1, Sandes2 and Bautitout 3: I know not by what means you can have Access to them.

I send you a Volume of Olivet's Cicero at Mr. Millar's Desire, who proposes instantly to begin an Edition of my Essays in that Form, as a Forerunner to the like Edition of my History". Let us see a Sample of your English Press: I do not believe you can make such a Book; and I give you a Defiance. Pray return the Book carefully, after you have carefully survey'd it.

If Becket has a few Copies to spare of the French Edition of my Controversy with Rousseau, I shoud be glad to have three or four of them.

There was a good pleasant Paper, inserted, I believe in your Chronicle, about three months ago. It containd Rousseau's Articles of Charge against me, and then some good humourd Raillery against him and Voltaire and me". I shoud be glad to have two or three Copies of it, if you can readily find them.

I know not if Becket printed Voltaire's Letter to me, but if he did he may perhaps have two or three Copies to spare, which woud oblige me.

I am Dr Sir Yours sincerely

D. H.

Note 1. Hugh, third Earl of Marchmont, the friend and executor of Pope. He is the 'Polwarth' in Pope's Seventeen Hundred and

XXXII.]

THE EARL OF MARCHMONT.

107

Thirty Eight (ii. 130), and the 'Marchmont' of his Grotto. 'Were there no other memorials,' writes Boswell, 'he will be immortalised by that line of Pope in the verses on his Grotto :

"And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul."' Life of Johnson, iv. 51. See ib. iii. 392 for Johnson's interview with him. He was at this time Keeper of the Great Seal for Scotland. Court and City Register, 1765, p. 140. Boswell recommends his pronunciation of English as a proper model for a Scotch gentleman. 'His Lordship told me,' he says, 'with great good humour that the master of a shop in London, where he was not known, said to him, "I suppose, Sir, you are an American." "Why so, Sir?" said his Lordship. "Because, Sir," replied the shopkeeper, "you speak neither English nor Scotch, but something different from both, which I conclude is the language of America." Ib. ii. 160. Boswell's recommendation contrasts oddly with Colonel Barré's 'ridiculous description' of Marchmont's pronunciation. In a debate on Dec. 13, 1770, on a difference between the two Houses, the Members of the House of Commons having been turned out of the House of Lords, Barré said: 'It seemed as if the mob had broke in; and they certainly acted in a very extraordinary manner. One of the heads of this mob-for there were two-was a Scotchman. I heard him call out several times, "Clear the Hoose! Clear the Hoose." The face of the other was hardly human; for he had contrived to put on a nose of an enormous size, that disfigured him completely, and his eyes started out of his head in so frightful a way, that he seemed to be undergoing the operation of being strangled.' The Scotchman was the Earl of Marchmont and the other peer the Earl of Denbigh. Cavendish Debates, ii. 162. See also Chatham Corres. iv. 58. For Lord Denbigh see post, Letter of May 10, 1776.

Note 2. Samuel Sandys, first Baron Sandys, who was known in his House of Commons days as 'the Motion-maker.' Smollett's History of England, ed. 1800, iii. 16. Horace Walpole describes him as 'a republican, raised on the fall of Sir Robert Walpole to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, then degraded to a peer and cofferer', and soon afterwards laid aside.' Letters, i. 104. Sir Denis Le Marchant, in a note on Walpole's Memoirs of George III, iv. 119, says that Sandys 'had been placed at the Board of Trade in 1760. He seems to have regarded the post as a sinecure-as indeed it in a great measure became by the withdrawal of the West Indies from the department.'

Note 3. Norborne Berkeley, Lord Bottetourt. Horace Walpole, writing on Aug. 9, 1768, about a visit to London, says :-'I saw nothing there but the ruins of loo, Lady Hertford's cribbage, and Lord Bottetourt, like patience on a monument, smiling in grief. He is

1 'A principal officer of his majesty's Court, next under the Comptroller.' Johnson's Dictionary.

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