on them. It is clear, in short, that he had not been successful in frightening his friends from requesting him to perform offices of kindness and courtesy, or from trusting that he would perform them. The following passage, in Blair's letter, is evidence of the popularity of the Literary classes of the unversity of Edinburgh, during the middle of last century.

My class was, last season, in such reputation that I gave a second course in summer, at the desire of a body of the medical students. I am just about to open for this winter— with what success I cannot tell; for I tremble for it every season. Against next season I intend to print a synopsis of my lectures. In the medical school, a revolution is at a crisis, which is important to us. Dr. Rutherford wants to demit in favour of Frank Hume; a measure pushed by Lord Milton, Baron Mure, and John Home; the coalition of three formidable powers: but which we college people dread as boding us no good; and are much more inclined to another scheme, of placing Cullen in Rutherford's chair, and bringing Dr. Black, from Glasgow, into the chair of chemistry, which would greatly promote the reputation of our college, and which has all the popularity on its side at pre

sent.

How unimportant these things seem to you now? I hear much, from time to time, of your continuing, nay, increasing celebrity and fame. You are just the high mode, they tell us-the very delice of all the good company at Paris.

In a letter to Millar, chiefly in reference to some English law books, which Hume had engaged to obtain for a French lawyer, he recurs to the Memoirs of King James. He seems to have indolently adopted the notion that there were few chances of his having an opportunity of making additions to his History of the Stuarts. He did live, however, to see more than one new edition of it: but the references in them to the treasure he had discovered at Paris, are extremely meagre.

Another letter immediately follows, in which we find that his anticipations of new editions are already outrun by the demands: and we find in his, as in many other cases, where permanent fame has been reached, that the excitement of expectant authorship has declined long before its visions are realized; and that their fulfilment comes at last on minds sobered down to indifference.

HUME to ANDREW MILLAR.

"Paris, 18th March, 1764. "I have lived such a life of dissipation as not to be able to think of any serious occupation. But I begin to tire of that course of life. I have, however, run over King James's Memoirs, and have picked up some curious passages, which it is needless to speak of till we have occasion for a new edition, which I suppose is very distant."

"Paris, 18th April, 1764.

"DEAR SIR,-All the discoveries I made in King James's Memoirs, make against himself and his brother; and he is surely a good enough witness on that side but I believe him also a man of veracity, and I should have put trust in any matter of fact that he told from his own knowledge. But this it is needless for us to talk any more about; since, I suppose, you have got copies enough of my History, already printed, to last for your lifetime and mine. lifetime and mine. I shall certainly never think of adding another line to it. much your friend to think of it. I beg my sincere compliments to Mrs. Millar. I saw a few days ago Mrs. Mallet, who seems to be going upon a strange project, of living alone, in a hermitage, in the midst of the forest of Fontainbleau. I pass my

I am too

time very agreeably here; though.somewhat too much dissipated for one of my years and humour."1

"Paris, 23d April, 1764.

"I was very much surprised with what you tell me, that you had made a new edition in quarto, of my History of the Tudors, and might probably do the same with that of the Stuarts. I imagined that the octavo edition would for a long time supersede the necessity of any quarto edition; and I wonder that of the ancient history did not first become requisite. You were in the wrong to make any edition without informing me; because I left in Scotland a copy very fully corrected, with a few alterations, which ought to have been followed. I shall write to my sister to send it you, and I desire you may follow it in all future editions, if there be any such. I shall send you from here the alterations, which my perusal of King James's Memoirs has occasioned; they are not many, but some of them, one in particular, is of importance. I have some scruple of inserting it, on your account, till the sale of the other editions be pretty considerably advanced. You have not yet informed me how many you may have upon hand. suppose a very considerable number. Father Gordon of the Scots College, who has an exact memory of King James's Memoirs, was so kind as to peruse anew my History during the Commonwealth, and the reigns of the two brothers; and he marked all the passages of fact, where they differed from the Memoirs. They were surprisingly few; which gave me some satisfaction; because as I told you, I take that prince's authority for a plain fact to be very good.

1 MS. R.S.E.

I

"I never see Mr. Wilkes here but at chapel, where he is a most regular, and devout, and edifying, and pious attendant; I take him to be entirely regenerate. He told me last Sunday, that you had given him a copy of my Dissertations, with the two which I had suppressed;1 and that he, foreseeing danger, from the sale of his library, had wrote to you to find out that copy, and to tear out the two obnoxious dissertations. Pray how stands that fact? It was imprudent in you to intrust him with that copy: it was very prudent in him to use that precaution. Yet I do not naturally suspect you of imprudence, nor him of prudence. I must hear a little farther before I pronounce.'

Millar, writing on 5th June, gives the following account of his conduct as to the suppressed dissertations.

"I take Mr. Wilkes to be the same man he was,-acting a part. He has forgot the story of the two dissertations. The fact is, upon importunity, I lent to him the only copy I preserved, and for years never could recollect he had it, till his books came to be sold; upon this I went immediately to the gentleman that directed the sale, told him the fact, and reclaimed the two dissertations which were my property. Mr. Coates, who was the person, immediately delivered me the volume; and so soon as I got home, I tore them out and burnt them, that I might not lend them to any for the future. Two days after, Mr. Coates sent me a note for the volume, as Mr. Wilkes had desired it should be sent to him to Paris; I returned the volume, but told him the two dissertations, I had torn out of the volume and burnt, being my property. This is the truth of the matter, and nothing but the truth. It was certainly imprudent for me to lend them to him.

1 See above, p. 14.

2 MS. R.S.E.

The interest taken by Hume, as by all his contemporary fellow-countrymen, in the Douglas cause, has already been noticed. As the inquiry which had taken place in France had not been long concluded, and was the object of discussion in the Court of Session, the adherents of the exiled royal house, and other Scottish families residing in Paris, naturally took such a deep interest in the proceedings, as the following letter explains.

HUME to BARON MURE.

"Paris, 22d June, 1764.

"MY DEAR BARON,-A few days ago I dined with the Duchess of Perth, which was the first time I had seen that venerable old lady, who is really a very sensible woman. Part of our conversation was upon

the Douglas affair.

"That lady, as well as all the company, as well as every body of common sense here, shows her entire conviction of that imposture; and there was present a gentleman, an old friend of yours, a person of very good understanding and of undoubted honour, who laid open to us a scene of such deliberate dishonesty on the part of her grace of Douglas and her partisans, as was somewhat new and surprising. I suppose it is all known to poor Andrew,' whom I heartily love and pity. 'Tis certain, that the imposture is as well known to her grace and her friends, as to any body; and Hay, the Pretender's old secretary, the only man of common honesty among them, confessed to this gentleman, that he has frequently been shocked with their practices, and has run away from them to keep

1 Andrew Stuart, see above, p. 168.