AN

ACCOUNT

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

DAVID HUME, Esq.

DAVID HUME, the fecond fon of Joseph Hume, Efq. was born at Edinburgh on the 26th of April, O. S. 1711. His ancestors, for feveral generations, had been proprietors of a small eftate called Ninewells, lying on the river Whitwater, about five miles to the east of Dunfe, in the county of Berwick; and this estate is still enjoyed by their posterity. At a fhort distance from Ninewells, ftands the manfion-house of Kames, which belonged to the late Henry Home, who, under the title of Lord Kames, officially affumed by him as a lord of feffion, or judge of the fupreme court of juftice in Scotland, is fo well known in the republic of letters, as a philofopher, a lawyer,

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a lawyer, and a man of tafte. His lordship was the contemporary and intimate friend of our hiftorian.

The family name of Hume's mother was Falconer. She was the daughter of Sir David Falconer, who was appointed a lord of feffion, by the title of Lord Newton, on the 11th of June 1676, and fix years afterwards raised to the chair of prefident of that court. Sir David died in 1685, and was fucceeded in his office by Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath. The title of Lord Halkerston devolved by fucceffion on his eldest fon; and it may also be mentioned, that Mr. Hume's father claimed his defcent from the noble family of Home: a circumftance which derives its importance folely from the family pride, or, more properly fpeaking, from the vanity of our author, who, during the whole courfe of his life, valued himself not a little on this double connection with nobility.

It is a common practice with biographers to push their researches, with much avidity and perfeverance, into the earlier periods of the lives of those whofe tranfactions they relate. This induftry may, perhaps, be occafionally rewarded by the discovery of fome fortuitous incident worthy of

The family of Ninewells feem, from our author's last will and teftament, to have spelt the name Home instead of Hume: but as David was remarkably pertinacious in writing his name Hume, his relations have fince followed his example.

being

being commemorated; but it is beneath the dignity of maturer age to record the frivolities of childhood. The juvenile years of Hume were not marked by any thing which can attract our notice. His father died while our hiftorian was an infant, and left the care of him, his elder brother Jofeph, and fifter Catharine, to their mother, who, although ftill in the bloom of life, devoted herself to the education of her children with a laudable affiduity.

Under this maternal fuperintendence, aided by the instruction which a country school could afford, Hume spent his firft years. If he had, on attaining manhood, cultivated poetry with fuccefs, inftead of attaching himself to the feverer studies of the philofophical hiftorian, a credulous biographer, yielding to the furmifes of fancy, would have traced a final caufe to the fequeftered fcene of our author's youthful days; for the pleasures of Arcadia were not unknown to the country furrounding Ninewells, notwithstanding the fterility to which it had been condemned according to the fate of thofe tracts of land which border hostile states. The valley and the mountain's fide ftill refounded with the notes of the fhepherd's pipe: every ftreamlet was immortalized in our national fongs; and every height and every heath had been the scene of battle between the armies of the two rival kingdoms, or of the more fanguinary exploits of the lawlefs marauders.

After the preparatory rudiments of a school education, Hume was removed to the college of Edinburgh; but our gleanings refpecting his earlier years are particularly scanty *. From the early appearance of his inclination to letters, his friends were induced to form an opinion, that the law would be an eligible profeffion for him. We are uncertain whether he ferved an apprenticeship with an attorney, or confined himself to the profecution of his ftudies at the law claffes in the university; but, indefatigable as his industry was, even to the very clofe of his life, in all matters connected with literature, his dislike to the law as a vocation, or civil employment, daily increased. He himself tells us, that he felt an infuperable averfion from every thing, except the pursuits of philofophy and general learning; and while, fays he, " my friends fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which (whom) I was fecretly devouring t."

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The law is, perhaps, the only profeffion which affords to those who closely apply to it a kind of

In the hope of being enabled to fill up any chafm in this narrative, I applied to a near relation of Mr. Hume, and was told, that if the work was to advance his fame, and a copy of the manufcript furnished to the family, the information wanted would, perhaps, be fupplied. With fuch conditions 1 refufed compliance, chufing rather to remain fatisfied with the little I had otherwife obtained, than to fetter my fentiments, and fubject myself to fo laborious a task, in return for what was probably of little importance.

+ See My Own Life, prefixed to the later editions of the Hiftory of England.

certainty

certainty of acquiring wealth. Yet it may be eafily conceived, why a young mind, uninfluenced by pecuniary confiderations, fhould ardently feek to escape from the tirefome drudgery of perufing fpecial cafes and precedents, to pursuits of a lefs difagreeable nature. It will not, however, be fo readily granted, that the Juftinian code, the fource of all that is valuable in the ancient, polity of European nations, fhould be contemned, in behalf of any poetry which ever emanated from Rome. Among men of letters a fashion has long prevailed of decrying the writings of civilians, the usual magnitude of whofe works is certainly not calculated to render them inviting. This fcorn they inconfiderately endeavour to extend to the Corpus Juris itself, the influence of which in promoting the advancement of civilization does not seem to have been fairly appreciated. To the pages of that immortal collection, mankind were chiefly indebted for thofe delicate and logical diftinctions of right and wrong, and thofe invaluable maxims of distributive justice, which ame liorated the condition of the inferior ranks in fociety, and oppofed a barrier to the baneful effects of feudal inftitutions, during the barbarifm and violence of the middle ages.

It is probable, that the mere circumftance of directing his attention, although in a fuperficial degree, to the Roman code and the municipal laws of his own country, gave a flight bias to his studies, which, being feconded by favourable events, fugB 3 gefted,