afforded by the impetuous, brilliant, imaginative Burke and the "douce," tranquil, sober-minded Scotchman of whom we are now to speak. Both were great writers and original thinkers, but Burke was fitted for a life of action and ambition, and was in his element while engaged in the bustle of political controversy, and in taking part in the great conflicts waged in Parliament, while Hume, had the Fates so willed it, would have been quite content to pass the life of the ideal philosopher, devoting himself to the society of his books and his friends, and letting the turmoil of the outside world pass unheeded. He was born, the younger son of a good Scotch family, at Edinburgh in April 1711. According to his own account, which is corroborated by what we know otherwise, he passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, "which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoy. ment." With all his love of study and desire for literary distinction, Hume was by no means what would be called a brilliant youth: he seemed more likely to pass his time in reading and in vague day-dreaming than to rise in the world. "Oor Davie's a fine good-humoured crater," his mother is reported to have said of him, "but uncommon wake-minded." As, however, his fortune was very small, it was necessary that he should exert himself in some way or other to provide for his support. Accordingly, to use his own words, "My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an unsurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring." Law having failed, commerce was next tried, but it proved a still more unsuitable occupation for the young philosopher, who in 1734, "letting fortune and the world go by," retired to France, there to prosecute his studies, resolving to make a very rigid frugality supply his deficiency of fortune. In France he resided for three years, first at Rheims, and afterwards at La Fleche, in

Anjou, and there he composed his first work, his "Treatise of Human Nature." It was published in 1738. and, greatly to the author's vexation, fell "still-born from the press." This work was followed in 1742 by a volume of essays which had more success; then came in 1748 the "Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding," a revised and much altered edition of the "Treatise of Human Nature;" then, in 1752, his "Political Discourses," and his "Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals," which he himself considered incomparably the best of all his works. Lastly, to conclude the list of his philosophical writings, there appeared in 1779, three years after his death, his "Dialogues on Natural Religion." We have here to do with Hume as a man of letters, not as a philosopher, and may therefore pass over his philosophical writings, the sceptical views of which are so well known, with the remark that they are written in a style always perspicuous, and often rising into elegance.

While engaged on the above philosophical works, Hume improved his slender fortune by engaging in more remunerative pursuits. He passed a most wretched but not unprofitable year as guardian to the Marquis of Annandale, a partially idiotic, partially insane young nobleman, and he was for two years secretary to General St. Clair, whom he accompanied on an expedition, "which was at first meant for Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France," and with whom, in 1747, he went on an embassy to the courts of Venice and Turin. "These two years," he writes, "were almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during the course of my life. I passed them agreably and in good company; and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune which I called independent, though most of my friends. were inclined to smile when I said so; in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds."

In 1752 Hume was appointed to succeed Ruddiman, the illustrious Latin scholar, as librarian of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. The salary attached to the post was small, but his duties were not onerous, and he had full command of a

Hume's "History of England."

265 large and excellent collection of books. The opportunities for literary research thus afforded him caused him again to think of a scheme he had formerly projected of writing a History of England. Till this time England had been singularly destitute of historians of any high order of merit. Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," indeed, is, from its grave and weighty style, a work of great literary value; but it scarcely even pretends to impartiality, and may be more fitly designated "Political Memoirs" than a history; while the Rymers, the Echards, and the Cartes, who had aspired to relate the history of their country, were destitute alike of genius, of discrimination, and of accurate research. Frightened at the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, Hume commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart, an epoch when he thought the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place. "I was," he goes on to say, "I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian who had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford." Dr. Johnson used sometimes to regret that his works were not enough attacked, as controversy about them attracted public attention, and promoted their sale; but Hume had not even this consolation to compensate for the storm of detraction with which his work was assailed, for within a year after its publication only forty-five copies of it were sold. With his usual calm stoicism, he was not daunted by the want of popular appreciation, but quietly went on with his task. In 1756 appeared the second volume; three years after the History of the Tudors" followed; and in 1761 the work was

66

completed by the publication of two volumes containing an inadequate, and, even for the time, an unscholarly account of the early period of English history. The work gradually stole into popularity, and several years before the author's death had come to be reckoned the standard History of England, a position which it maintained till within comparatively late years. Nor was its proud position undeserved. As an historian, Hume possessed some highly estimable qualities. His style is lucid and excellent, his narrative flows on in a calm, equable course, his reflections are generally judicious and sometimes profound, and his sense of proportion is admirable. Few writers have excelled him in the art of giving to each event its fit place and its proper degree of length. But these excellences are counterbalanced by grave faul s. In common with all the historians of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Gibbon, he forgot that truth was the first requisite in an historian, and aimed rather to lay before his readers a polished and philosophic narrative than the results of patient accuracy and original research, in this respect affording a notable contrast to the latest school of historians, who sometimes in their anxious care to avoid the Charybdis of inaccuracy appear to make shipwreck on the Scylla of pedantry. Moreover, his spirit of political partisanship was unworthy of so great a philosopher. Like Dr. Johnson, he always took care "that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it." Still, with all its defects, his History is a great work; and if later writers have superseded it as an historical authority, it is yet worth reading as in many respects a model of style. We should not omit to mention that Hume was the first to mix with his account of public affairs chapters on the condition of the people and on the state of literature.

From his tranquil, studious life in Edinburgh, Hume was, in 1763, drawn by an invitation from Lord Hertford to attend him on his embassy to Paris. He was soon appointed secretary to the embassy, and passed three years very pleasantly in the glittering capital, where his fame had preceded him. "Le bon David," as he was fondly called, found himself

Hume's Character.

267

surrounded by an admiring crowd of male and female adorers, who were never tired of admiring the stout old philosopher. On his return from Paris, he was appointed, in 1767, Under Secretary of State for the Northern department, a position which he retained for two years. In 1769 he returned to Edinburgh, having amassed a fortune sufficient to yield him an annual revenue of over £1000. There he passed the remaining six years of his life, engaged in his favourite studies, and exercising a bounteous hospitality to his large circle of friends. On August 25, 1776, he died as he had lived, with tranquillity and cheerfulness.

Hume's personal appearance was not prepossessing. Lord Charlemont, describing him during his residence at Turin, says: "The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skilful pretend to discover the smallest traces of the faculties of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility, his eyes vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher." Of his character he has himself, in the brief narrative which he calls "My Own Life," given a sufficiently correct description. He was, he says, "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 fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments."

There can be no better evidence of Hume's amiability of disposition and freedom from petty jealousy than the friendly terms on which he lived with a large circle of literary acquaintances, and the heartfelt applause which he bestowed upon Robertson and Gibbon, his rivals in the field of historical composition. When Robertson's "History of Scotland appeared, he was one of the loudest in its commendation, declaring to Robertson (with, as his whole conduct showed,