After the preparatory rudiments of a school education, Hume was removed to the college of Edinburgh; but our gleanings respecting his earlier years are particularly fcanty. 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 served 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 close of his life, in all matters connected with literature, his diflike 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 philosophy 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."

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 chasm 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 refused 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 easily conceived, why a young mind, uninfluenced by pecuniary confiderations, should ardently seek to escape from the tirefome drudgery of perufing fpecial cafes and precedents, to purfuits of a lefs Cifagreeable 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 ufual magnitude of whofe works is certainly not calculated to render them inviting. This fcorn they inconfiderately endeavour to extend to the Corpus Juris itfelf, 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 diftributive juftice, which ameliorated the condition of the inferior ranks in fociety, and opposed a barrier to the baneful effects of feudal institutions, during the barbarism and violence of the middle ages.

It is probable, that the mere circumflance 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 ftudies, which, being feconded by favourable events, suggefted,

B 3

gefted, at a future period, the project of compiling his History: a task which he undertook, not from a wish to detail battles, and exhibit a tedious fucceffion of political broils, but for the more dignified purpose of tracing the progrefs of legislation and civility.

As Hume was a younger brother, his patrimony, according to the cuftom of his country, was very flender; and this, combined with his difinclination to the bufinefs of a lawyer, and the reprefentations of his friends, induced him to repair to Bristol in 1734, with a defign to engage in the commercial line. He carried with him letters of recommendation to feveral eminent merchants of that city; but from his confirmed love of literature, or fome other cause now unknown, he found himself, in a few months, totally unequal to the buftle incident to his new fituation. He therefore abandoned it, and went to France,

His motive for this journey, as he himself informs us, was to profecute his ftudies in a rural retreat; but that was an object which he might have attained more readily and completely by continuing in his own country. It is believed, that he did not chufe to return to Ninewells, as his relations muft, by this time, have regarded him as young man, whofe habits of indolence were repulfive to all their exertions in his behalf. The cheapness of living in France fuited the fmallness of the fortune he inherited; and this feems to have been,

if not the inducement, at least the excuse for his retiring into that country. Hume was, at an early period, fenfible of the inadequacy of his income to fupport the eafy enjoyments of a literary life; and he, at the fame time, formed a refolution to remedy this misfortune, as far as he was able. After mentioning his journey to France, he adds, in the biographical sketch formerly alluded to,"I there laid that plan of life, which I have steadily " and fuccessfully purfued. I refolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of for"tune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, "and to regard every object as contemptible, ex"cept the improvement of my talents in literature."

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On his arrival in France, he established his refidence at Rheims, but foon afterwards removed to La Fleche in Anjou. During his abode there, he completed his Treatife on Human Nature, the plan of which he had formed while at the University of Edinburgh; and after spending three years in these agreeable labours, and acquiring an intimate knowledge of the French language, he returned to London in 1737. In the end of the following year he printed and published, in octavo, the two first volumes of his work under the title of A TREATISE OF (ON) HUMAN NATURE: being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects *.

The

*This work bears the year 1739 in the imprint. It may be neceffary to apprife the reader, that bookfellers generally fet B4 down

The first volume of this performance treats of the Understanding, and the fecond of the Paffions. From a diffidence in his own abilities, or from a wish to hear the opinion of the public before he acknowledged himself to be the author of the work, it was published without his name. The third volume, which comprises the fubject of Morals, did not appear until the year 1740. It was fold by a different bookfeller; a circumftance owing probably to the difcouraging reception of the two firft. Annexed to the laft volume is AN APPENDIX, wherein fome paffages of the foregoing volumes are illustrated and explained.

Mr. Hume, it has been stated, formed the plan of his Treatife, while he was at college; and although, from the very imperfect manner in which it was executed, a fevere critic might be inclined to condemn the prefumption of a stripling in thus venturing to enter the lifts with a formidable body of metaphyficians, whofe elaborate works were the matured productions of advanced life, it must be confeffed, that the boldness of the undertaking was worthy of the future reputation of the author. That a lad of only twenty-feven years of age fhould fail in accomplishing a task, which had baffled the labours of fo many philofophers, eminent for their erudition and fagacity, cannot excite furprise. It

down the enfuing year in the title-pages of all books ready for fale in or after the month of November. Hence a work actually printed during that month in the year 1738, will bear, in the imprint, the date of 1739.

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