and because I was afraid that the civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a person of my age and humour; but on his lordship's repeating the invitation, I accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure and interest, to think myself happy in my connections with that nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother, General Conway'.

Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never imagine the strange reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and stations 2. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company with which the city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought once of settling there for life.

I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer 1765, Lord Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland'. I was chargé d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards the end of the year. In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly, of burying myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place not richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an experiment of a competency. But in 1767 I received from Mr Conway an invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation both the character of the person, and my connections with Lord Hertford, prevented me from declining. I returned to Edinburgh in 1769 very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue 1 See post, p. 69, n. 1; 103, n. I.

2 See post, p. 50, n. 3.

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.

of one thousand pounds a year ',) healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation 2.

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels3, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and, what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch that were I to name a period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man at sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I knew that I could have but very few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.

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.

2 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.

3 See post, p. 322, n. 2.

Six months before his death he had lost five stones' weight. Post, p. 312, n. I. 5 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, M. 7, and p. 329. In an interesti g 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.'

To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments) I was, I say, a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour', capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men, anywise

p. 211.

1 '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, 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; Iwe 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.' Barton's Hume, ii. 457. See post, p. 320.

2 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', 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.

That last infirmity of noble mind.'

Milton's Lycidas, 1. 71.

с

eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability'. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.

April 18, 1776.

LETTER from ADAM SMITH, LL.D. to WILLIAM STRAHAN, Esq. 2

Kirkaldy, Fifeshire,
Nov. 9, 1776.

Dear Sir,

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

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

He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with Mr John Home and myself, who had both come down from London on purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh. Mr Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing my journey. His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air; and, when he

1 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.

2 See post, pp. 346, 348.

See post, p. 319, n. 2.

See post, ib.

arrived in London, he was apparently in much better health than when he left Edinburgh'. He was advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own health. His symptoms however soon returned with their usual violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness and the most perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends; and sometimes in the evening with a party at his favourite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain, that notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying. 'I shall tell your friend colonel Edmondstone,' said doctor Dundas to him one day, 'that I left you much better, and in a fair way of recovery.' 'Doctor,' said he, as I believe you would not choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.' Colonel Edmondstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man, the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend the Marquis de la Fare'. Mr Hume's magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most

1 See post, p. 321.

2 See post, p. 323.

46

1

* 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 have not hearts of iron.' Mackenzie's Life of John Home, i. 65. * 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, and your works will render you immortal. I could never conceive that it was possible for any one to dislike you

1 '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.'

2 See post, p. 9.