PREFACE.

In the summer of last year I was allowed to examine this series of Letters1. The interest with which I read them made me long to save them from dispersion. Were they once scattered by auction, their fate would be the fate of the leaves of the Sibyl

Numquam deinde cavo volitantia prendere saxo,

Nec revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curat.

The price that was asked for them, though large in itself, was moderate when the importance of the collection was considered. Yet for some weeks I almost despaired of finding a purchaser. The funds at the disposal of the Bodleian Library were altogether inadequate. At the British Museum I should probably have met with success, had not its grant been lately curtailed. By the happy suggestion of the Master of Balliol College I applied to the Earl of Rosebery. His lordship at once consented to buy the whole collection. The obligation under which he has thereby laid men of letters will, I feel sure, be by them gratefully acknowledged. Unfortunately

1 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.

the series is not quite perfect, for a few of the letters had been sold separately by a previous owner. My efforts to get copies of these have been so far fruitless.

In preparing my notes I have made use of the collection of Hume Papers in the possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh'. I had hoped to find among them the other side of the correspondence, but in this I was disappointed. Only a few of Strahan's letters have been preserved. Of one letter that was missing he happily had kept a copy. Hume, with a levity which is only found in a man who is indifferent to strict truthfulness, had charged him with deception. The answer which was sent must have startled that ease-loving philosopher from his complacency, and taught him a lesson which it was a disgrace to him not to have learnt long before 2.

In my notes my aim has been not only to make every letter clear, but also to bring before my readers. the thoughts and the feelings of Hume's contemporaries in regard to the subjects which he discusses. 'Every book,' he says, 'should be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other books". If this rule is just, I could not but let my notes swell under my hand, so varied and so interesting are the matters touched on in his letters. On his quarrel with Rousseau I dwell at considerable length. The rank which the two men held in the republic of letters was so high, the interest which their strife excited was so great, and the spectators of the contest were so eminent, that even at this distance of time it deserves to be carefully studied. My endeavour has been not only to examine the conduct of the two men, but also to exhibit the opinions which were entertained by all who were in

1 My extracts from these papers are marked M. S. R. S. E.

2 Post, p. 266.

3

History of England, ed. 1802, ii. 101.

• Post, pp. 76-84.

any way concerned1. The violence of Hume's feelings towards the English which is shown in many of his letters 2 is curious enough to justify a long note3. It was due it is clear partly to a deep sense of slighted merit, and partly to anger at what he describes as 'the mad and wicked rage against the Scots.' Violent as he was towards Englishmen in general, still more violent was he towards the most famous Englishman of his time. Why Lord Chatham roused his anger I have attempted to explain. The confidence of Hume's belief that the country was on the eve of bankruptcy, is one more proof how fallible may be the judgment of even the first historian and the first economist of his age. His no less confident expectations about the war with our American colonies were however speedily justified by the event. From the outset he saw that conquest was impossible". It will be seen that a few months. after his death some of these letters were shown to George III 10. may wonder whether the king's obstinacy was for a moment shaken, when he read the lines in which his highly-pensioned Tory historian proved that only 'the oppressive arm of arbitrary power' could crush the rebels 11. How much it were to be wished that he had seen also that other letter where Hume tells how he had found the First Lord of the Admiralty, with some loose associates, fishing for trout with incredible satisfaction, at a time when the fate of the British Empire was in dependence, and in dependence on him 12

We

If these Letters exhibit, as they too often do, Hume's 2 Post, pp. 114, 151, 247, 248, 255.

1 Post, pp. 86-92.

3 Post, pp. 50-58.

5 Post, pp. 113, 134, 185, 289.

1 Post, pp. 49, 58–63.

• 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).

distempered, discontented thoughts,' his moral cowardice, his vanity, and his unmanly complaints of the neglect of the world, they show at the same time the noble industry of the scholar. If from a love of 'ignoble ease' he suppressed Essays and Dialogues', yet it was not into 'peaceful sloth' that he sank. He more than once quotes 'a saying of Rousseau's, that one half of a man's life is too little to write a book and the other half to correct it?' In truth, he never wearied of the attempt to bring his works as near to perfection as possible, and it was from his death-bed that his last corrections were sent 3.

Hume's spelling I have retained, for it is interesting both in its peculiarities and its blunders. That he had his own views about orthography is shown hereafter 4.

His brief Autobiography, which I have reprinted, will be a convenient introduction to the study of his Letters.

In the letters from Adam Smith, one of which is new 5, and from Hume's brother and nephew, some account is given of the publication of the manuscripts which he left behind him.

I should treat the memory of an eminent man of letters with injustice did I not express my great obligations to Dr. Burton's Life of David Hume. I have also to thank Sir James Fitzjames Stephen for his permission to print an interesting letter on post-office franks; Dr. Andrews for information about the Ohio Scheme; Mr. James Gordon, M.A., the learned Librarian of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and Mr. G. K. Fortescue, of the British Museum, who has helped me in many difficulties which from time to time I encountered in editing these Letters.

G. B. H.

Post, p. 27.

2 Post, p. 200. 5 Post, p. 351. ↑ Post, p. 163.

1 Post, pp. 230, 233, 330-2, 346. 3 Post, p. 342.

• Post, p. 189.