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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 117.-8 AUGUST, 1846.

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vols. 8vo. 1846.

cealment or palliation of errors and false doctrines. while the public eye must not be insulted by their defence; these were the difficulties and dangers that must have been apparent to any one contemplating the task. On the other hand, we can fancy few things more likely to excite the ambition of a young man of letters living in Edinburgh, than the offer of access to a large and hitherto unused store of materials for the biography of David Hume. His life has many points of interest, from the society in which he mixed as well as the peculiarities of his personal character; and his writings are in themselves too remarkable, and have exercised too great an influence on the opinions of mankind, not to be worthy of the most careful and critical study.

though in general unaffected, and occasionally vigorous, is blemished not seldom by verbosity and clumsiness; but he has the merit of diligence, and carries conviction of his honesty and candor, and we must say, he has performed the most delicate part of his task with a more complete avoidance of offence than we could have thought possible.

WHEN in a recent number (Quart. Rev., March, 1844)* we adverted to the light that might be derived from the literary character of Hume from the collection of his correspondence in the hands of the Edinburgh Royal Society, and to the difficulty which would probably be found in making sufficient extracts without offending public feeling, we were not aware that the work was then actually in progress, and that an editor had been courageous enough to set himself to the task of On the whole Mr. Burton has, we think, compiling a Life of Hume from these authentic acquitted himself very creditably. We do not materials. It would have been satisfactory for always agree with him in his views of moral, those who want to have the whole truth, if the social, and political questions; his local prejudices editor could have said that all the correspondence must now and then provoke a smile; his diction, was placed at his disposal; but as the matter stands, we must be contented with Mr. Burton's assurance that there is no passage which he felt any inclination to print as being likely to afford interest to the reader, of which the use has been denied him." (Advertisement, p. 11.) We cannot attribute any but good intentions to the Royal Society, or its committee, but we doubt the expediency of such half trust. If they were satisfied of Mr. Burton's sense and delicacy, and that he was quite above converting the relics of the dead into instruments for serving unfair purposes of any sort, there should have been no "denial of the use" of any materials which might tend to illustrate his subject. By acting as they have done, these gentlemen have not only made themselves responsible for the perfect propriety of everything which is here printed, but they have left a sus picion of something remaining behind which appeared to them objectionable, but which might throw light on questions that have been mooted and are still interesting. We will not dwell on this matter. After all, the suppressions may be David Hume was born at Edinburgh on the trifling-of coarse expressions or personalities 26th of April, 1711." He was the second son of which, however, might have been safely trusted to a good gentleman's family, though much too poor the discretion of an editor. But, in reference to a to afford anything like a provision for a second son. report formerly noticed in this Review, on which He perhaps had in him to the last something of Lord Brougham commented in his sketch of Hume, the usual pedigree-vanity of the northern gentiland to which Mr. Burton also alludes in his pre-lâtre; but he inherited also the best patrimony of face, we cannot but remark that Hume's letters to Scotch younger children, careful frugality and a Dr. Robertson, which were partially used by Dugald Stewart in his life of Robertson, and which proud determination of independence. Whether mainly from the circumstances of the country at must at that time have formed part of the corre- that time, which opened few channels for enterspondence in the possession of Baron Hume, are not now in the collection submitted to Mr. Bur-prise and the occupation of youth, or from his ton's examination; nor has this editor found there natural disposition, his talents were not devoted to or elsewhere a single scrap of Robertson's letters any active pursuit or profession. In the multitude of his letters and recollections Hume never mento Hume (vol. ii., p. 48.)

We have said that the editor of a life of Hume had a difficult task-difficult in what was to be brought forward, and doubly difficult in what was to be passed over. To reconcile the natural partiality of a biographer for his subject, with the honesty of a true and faithful historian; to avoid all con*Living Age, No. 3.

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As a collection of Hume's papers this book is extremely valuable. It is true that they do not tell us much more of his life, that is, of the events of his life, than we knew before. Yet a biographical sketch written even by the subject of it himself, and penned with all the simplicity and grace which Hume has thrown into his "own life," affords but meagre food for study and reflection, when compared with a collection like this of his letters and journals, and scrap-books, setting forth the dreams and aspirations of the boy, the opinions and feelings, the loves and hatreds, the views of life, the successes and disappointments all in the fresh colors and of the size

of the man,

and importance that nearness gives.

tions a school or a teacher of his youth, nor dwells at all upon the time which most men love to look back upon as that which gives a color to their after-life. He gives us to understand only that he was a grave, bookish boy, and that when he had run through the paltry course of academical education which Edinburgh then afforded, he took to philosophize and build castles after his own

device. At sixteen, he writes to a friend a letter | he had ever really admired a picture or a statue.” which his biographer thinks a very remarkable (vol. ii., p. 134.)

one:

"Just now I am entirely confined to myself and library for diversion. Since we parted— ea sola voluptas,

Solamenque mali

And indeed to me they are not a small one: for I
take no more of them than I please; for I hate
task-reading, and I diversify them at pleasure-
sometimes a philosopher, sometimes a poet-
which change is not unpleasant nor disserviceable
neither; for what will more surely engrave upon
my mind a Tusculan disputation of Cicero's De
Agritudine Lenienda, than an Eclogue or Geor-
gick of Virgil's? The philosopher's wise man and
the poet's husbandman agree in peace of mind, in
a liberty and independency on fortune, and con-
tempt of riches, power, and glory. Everything
is placid and quiet in both nothing perturbed or
disordered

At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita-
Speluncæ, vivique laci; at frigida Tempe,
Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub arbore somnos
Non absint.

Hume himself tells us he "was seized very early with a passion for literature, which was the ruling passion of his life and a great source of his enjoyments;" but it was not a mere taste for literature in the abstract. He very early set his affections on literary distinction; his craving was"What shall I do to be forever known,

And make the age to come mine own?" Like a mightier spirit, he assuredly felt "that inward prompting that by labor and intense study, joined with the strong propensity of nature, he might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die." He devoted himself very seriously to study, and at an age when other men are just girding themselves to the fight of life, he was meditating lucubrations in philosophy with which he should one day found a school, and astonish the world. With such a settled scheme in prospect, he successively threw aside the study of the law, to which no doubt his relations had destined him, and the mercantile profession, with a view to which he spent a few months of 1734 (ann. ætat. 23) at Bristol.

His visit to Bristol marks the era of an undated "These lines will, in my opinion, come nothing letter to a physician, whom the editor conjectures short of the instruction of the finest sentence in to have been the eccentric Dr. Cheyne; and it is Cicero and is more to me, as Virgil's life is more to the draft of this letter preserved by Hume that the subject of my ambition, being what I can we owe the very curious proof that, with all his apprehend to be more within my power. For the natural coolness of temperament and acquired perfectly wise man, that outbraves fortune, is composure of mind, the young skeptic had by no surely greater than the husbandman who slips by means escaped utterly the maladies which overher; and, indeed, this pastoral and Saturnian hap-working the brain usually inflicts on the general piness I have in a great measure come at just now. physical system :I live like a king, pretty much by myself, neither "You must know then that, from my earliest full of action nor perturbation-molles somnos. infancy, I found always a strong inclination to This state, however, I can foresee is not to be books and letters. As our college education in relied on. My peace of mind is not sufficiently Scotland, extending little further than the lanconfirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of guages, ends commonly when we are about fourfortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is teen or fifteen years of age, I was after that left to to be found only in study and contemplation-this my own choice in my reading, and found it incline can alone teach us to look down on human acci-me almost equally to books of reasoning and phidents."-vol. i., p. 14.

losophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Now we do not say that this is a piece of mére Every one who is acquainted either with the phiaffectation, though its being found in draft savors losophers or critics, knows that there is nothing somewhat of a school exercise; for what boy yet established in either of these two sciences, and keeps copies of his real confidential letters to his that they contain little more than endless disputes, schoolfellows? We allow it may have been a even in the most fundamental articles. Upon good deal what at the time was passing in the lad's examination of these, I found a certain boldness mind; and those day-dreams of poetry and even of temper growing in me, which was not inclined early attempts at stoicism are not so rare among to submit to any authority in these subjects, but youths of secluded habits and misdirected educa- led me to seek out some new medium by which tion as Mr. Burton supposes. Undoubtedly they truth might be established. After much study are not for good; and with a less vigorous nature and reflection on this, at last, when I was about of mind or of body, the indigence would have eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened produced upon Hume its accustomed penalty. up to me a new scene of thought, which transBut he wanted some of the stuff that goes to the ported me beyond measure, and made me, with an composition of a visionary. From his youth up-ardor natural to young men, throw up every other wards he was devoid alike of passion and imagination, and it needed little effort to give him that control of himself which it was his first object to oin. His biographer, with all his pains, cannot satisfy himself that he ever felt the least access of love, and all the perturbations of his mind seem to have been never much removed from that equability which he perhaps fancied he had by laudable efforts schooled himself into. He seems to have had no sympathy with rural pursuits and pleasures. His Arcadian longings never passed beyond the study of the Eclogues. "It does not appear from any incident in his life or allusion in his letters that

pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some months; till at last, about the beginning of September, 1729, all my ardor seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no longer raise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such excessive pleasure. I felt no uneasiness or want of spirits, when I laid aside my book; and therefore never imagined there was any bodily distemper in the case, but

that my coldness proceeded from a laziness of tem- being entirely hypothetical, and depending more per, which must be overcome by redoubling my upon invention than experience; every one conapplication. In this condition I remained for nine sulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and months, very uneasy to myself, as you may well of happiness, without regarding human nature, imagine, but without growing any worse, which upon which every moral conclusion must depend. was a miracle. There was another particular, This, therefore, I resolved to make my principal which contributed, more than anything, to waste study, and the source from which I would derive my spirits and bring on me this distemper, which every truth in criticism as well as morality. I was, that having read many books of morality, believe it is a certain fact, that most of the philossuch as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, and being ophers who have gone before us have been oversmit with their beautiful representations of virtue thrown by the greatness of their genius, and that and philosophy, I undertook the improvement of little more is required to make a man succeed in my temper and will, along with my reason and this study, than to throw off all prejudices either understanding. I was continually fortifying my-for his own opinions or for those of others. At self with reflections against death, and poverty, least this is all I have to depend on for the truth and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of my reasonings, which I have multiplied to such of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, a degree, that within these three years, I find I when joined with an active life, because the occa- have scribbled many a quire of paper, in which sion being presented along with the reflection, there is nothing contained but my own inventions, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep This, with the reading most of the celebrated impression; but in solitude they serve to little books in Latin, French, and English, and acquirother purpose than to waste the spirits, the force ing the Italian, you may think a sufficient business of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wast-for one in perfect health, and so it would, had it ing itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its been done to any purpose; but my disease was a aim. This, however, I did not learn but by expe- cruel encumbrance on me. I found that I was not rience, and till I had already ruined my health, able to follow out any train of thought, by one though I was not sensible of it. continued stretch of view, but by repeated inter"I now began to take some indulgence to my-ruptions, and by refreshing my eye from time to self; studied moderately, and only when I found time upon other objects. Yet with this inconvemy spirits at their highest pitch, leaving off before nience I have collected the rude materials for I was weary, and trifling away the rest of my many volumes; but in reducing these to words, time in the best manner I could. In this way, I when one must bring the idea he comprehended in lived with satisfaction enough; and on my return gross, nearer to him, so as to contemplate its to town next winter found my spirits very much minutest parts, and keep it steadily in his eye, so recruited, so that, though they sank under me in as to copy these parts in order-this I found the higher flights of genius, yet I was able to impracticable for me, nor were my spirits equal to make considerable progress in my former designs. so severe an employment. Here lay my greatest I was very regular in my diet and way of life from calamity. I had no hopes of delivering my opinthe beginning, and all that winter made it a con-ions with such elegance and neatness as to draw stant rule to ride twice, or thrice a week, and to me the attention of the world, and I would walk every day. For these reasons, I expected, rather live and die in obscurity than produce them when I returned to the country, and could renew maimed and imperfect. my exercise with less interruption, that I would "Such a miserable disappointment I scarce ever perfectly recover. But in this I was much mis-remember to have heard of. The small distance taken; for next summer, about May, 1731, there betwixt me and perfect health makes me the more grew upon me a very ravenous appetite, and as uneasy in my present situation. It is a weakness quick a digestion, which I at first took for a good rather than a lowness of spirits which troubles me, symptom, and was very much surprised to find it and there seems to be as great a difference betwixt bring back a palpitation of heart, which I had felt my distemper and common vapors, as betwixt very little of before. This appetite, however, had vapors and madness. I have noticed in the wrian effect very unusual, which was to nourish metings of the French mystics, and in those of our extremely; so that in six weeks' time, I passed from the one extreme to the other; and being before tall, lean, and raw-boned, became on a sudden the most sturdy, robust, healthful-like fellow you have seen, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance. In excuse for my riding, and care of my health, I always said that I was afraid of consumption, which was readily believed by my looks, but now everybody congratulated me upon my thorough recovery.

*

fanatics here, that when they give a history of the situation of their souls, they mention a coldness and desertion of the spirit, which frequently returns; and some of them, at the beginning, have been tormented with it many years. As this kind of devotion depends entirely on the force of passion, and consequently of the animal spirits, I have often thought that their case and mine were pretty parallel, and that their rapturous admirations might discompose the fabric of the nerves and brain, as much as profound reflections, and that warmth or enthusiasm which is inseparable from them.

"Thus I have given you a full account of the condition of my body; and without staying to ask pardon, as I ought to do, for so tedious a story, shall explain to you how my mind stood all this "However this may be, I have not come out of time, which on every occasion, especially in this the cloud so well as they commonly tell us they distemper, have a very near connexion together. have done, or rather began to despair of ever Having now time and leisure to cool my inflamed recovering. To keep myself from being melanimagination, I began to consider seriously how I choly on so dismal a prospect, my only security should proceed in my philosophical inquiries. I was in peevish reflections on the vanity of the found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us world and of all human glory; which, however by antiquity labored under the same inconvenience just sentiments they may be esteemed, I have that has been found in their natural philosophy, of found can never be sincere, except in those who

said book, not exceeding one thousand copies thereof.' The author, in return, receives 501., and twelve bound copies of the book. The transaction is on the whole creditable to the discernment and liberality of Mr. Noone. It may be questioned, whether, in this age, when knowledge has spread so much wider, and money is so much less valuable, it would be easy to find a bookseller, who, on the ground of its internal merits, would give 501. for an edition of a new metaphysical work, by an unknown and young author, born and brought up in a remote part of the empire. These articles refer to the first and second of the three volumes of the Treatise of Human Nature; and they were accordingly published in January, 1739. They include Book I. Of the Understanding,' and 'Book II. Of the Passions.'"-Vol. i., p. 65.

are possessed of them. Being sensible that all my philosophy would never make me contented in my present situation, I began to rouse up myself; and being encouraged by instances of recovery from worse degrees of this distemper, as well as by the assurances of my physicians, I began to think of something more effectual than I had hitherto tried. I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion; and that my whole time was spent betwixt the bad, with little or no share of the good. For this reason I resolved to seek out a more active life; and though I could not quit my pretensions in learning but with my last breath, to lay them aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them. Upon examination, I found my choice confined to two kinds of life, that of a travelling governor, and that of a merchant. The first, besides that it is in Hume was twenty-seven-self-educated, or edusome respects an idle life, was, I found, unfit for cated by books alone; brought up in solitude; me; and that because from a sedentary and re-reasoning much with himself; careless of the pretired way of living, from a bashful temper, and judices of others; full of courage; confident of his from a narrow fortune, I had been little accustomed powers; with the whole feelings of his nature to general companies, and had not confidence and concentrated in a passion for literary fame. He knowledge enough of the world to push my for- felt no compunctious visitings at the thought of tune, or to be serviceable in that way. I therefore abolishing a creed and establishing a paradox, but fixed my choice upon a merchant; and having got received his fifty pounds, and hoped to startle the recommendation to a considerable trader in Bristol, world and to become a man of mark. We do not I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution say he wrote contrary to his opinions; but to throw to forget myself, and everything that is past-to upon the world a book of crude unweighed philosengage myself, as far as is possible, in that course ophy, tampering in such perilous matter, is but of life-and to toss about the world, from one pole little less criminal. Hume lived to see something to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me. of this, and to regret his juvenile performance. "As I am come to London in my way to Bris-He was anxious that it should be forgotten, and tol, I have resolved, if possible to get your advice, though I should take this absurd method of procuring it. All the physicians I have consulted, though very able, could never enter into my distemper; because not being persons of great learning beyond their own profession, they were unacquainted with these motions of the mind. Your fame pointed you out as the properest person to resolve my doubts, and I was determined to have Upon this book, which contains the whole cssomebody's opinion, which I could rest upon in all sence of Hume's philosophy, announced with the the varieties of fears and hopes incident to so lin-rashness of youth, and all the dogmatism with gering a distemper."-p. 31.

What the answer to this letter was, we do not learn, nor even whether it was ever sent. Hume soon fled from Bristol and its ledgers. He had recovered his health-and then spent three years in France, acquiring the language, conversing with the Jesuits of La Flêche, studying the miracles of the Abbé Paris, and composing his "Treatise of Human Nature.' "After passing three years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737."

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complained of the injustice of judging him by its contents (p. 98.) At the time, however, he was only disappointed that it produced so little sensation. "It fell," he says, "still-born from the press;" but yet he published an additional volume three years afterwards, and was soon called upon for a second edition. It was an unreasonable philosopher who could hope for more success.

which he afterwards reproached others, we shall not dwell. We think his biographer is mistaken in calling it "the solitary labor of one mind." It may be so as regards its elaboration and style; but Hume has himself told us of his previous reading. and it would not be difficult to trace his system to its source in those studies. With regard to the principles evolved in the "Treatise," the book is now found only on the shelf of the metaphysician and scholar; and we shall not, we hope, be misunderstood when we venture to regard it as a mere His first transaction with a bookseller is charac-metaphysical exercitation, a speculation probably teristic. Among the MSS. to which Mr. Burton has had access is one bearing the following title: "Articles of agreement, made, concluded, and agreed upon the 26th day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight, and in the twelfth year of the reign of our sovereign lord King George the Second,between David Hume of Lancaster Court of the one part, and John Noone of Cheapside, London, bookseller, of the other part."

By this very precise document, it is provided that the said David Hume shall and will permit and suffer the said John Noone to have, hold, and enjoy, the sole property, benefit, and advantage of printing and publishing the first edition of the

not intended and certainly not at all calculated to affect human life or conduct. It is in truth 3 pretty, philosophical puzzle-a clever, dexterous argumentation for what every one feels to be untrue, and the completest proof of which could never alter the conduct upon any cognate or dependant subject. He essays to prove by an examination of the mind that nothing is known, and in a curions circle to demonstrate that nothing has been or can be demonstrated. Such an universal skepticism scarcely can merit serious discussion. However dangerous for shallow dogmatists who took the first propositions, and would not work out the necessary corollary, it is not very apt to mislead sane thinkers, when the facts of revelation and the

veyed them to his elder brother, on that gentleman obtaining a pardon and a statutory removal of the disabilities of the attainder."-(p. 210.)

doctrines of religion are placed on the same foun- | furnished other instances. "He was the second dation of belief with the knowledge we obtain from son of Henry Lord St. Clair. His elder brother, the highest human testimony or our own experi- being engaged in the rebellion of 1715, was atence, and with the conclusions of mathematical tainted by act of parliament. The father left the science. The idealist, when he has most success- family estates to General St. Clair, who with a fully argued that we have no proof of the exist-generous devotion to the hereditary principle, conence of matter, does not the less trust his house on the solid foundation of the earth. The wildest Humeist did not really doubt that Cæsar once lived in Rome-that the sun will rise to-morrow— that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the opposite sides. In all these matters man is satisfied to act upon the knowledge arising from testimony, experience, and mathematical demonstration; and he need not wonder or complain that he has no higher or clearer knowledge of the truths of religion than the highest that his mind is capable of.

The criticism of Hume's "Treatise" in the Review called "The History of the Works of the Learned," is such a mixture of censure and sarcasm, with a prognostication of future fame, that it has been thought to be the joint contribution of two authors. The anecdote of Hume's violent rage on occasion of it, and his attacking the unlucky publisher sword in hand, was not printed till after his death ("London Rev.," v., p. 200.) Mr. Burton disbelieves it, and has brought sufficient reasons for his discredit of so improbable a story. -(p. 111.)

On his return from this expedition, of which he left an account or defence in MS., now printed, Hume returned for a time to Ninewells-the ancient seat of his family-in Berwickshire; and his biographer, seeing no traces of his occupation there, fills the gap with a few scraps from his memorandum book, both of prose and verse. A "character," which, not in his hand, but "corrected here and there by him," is suggested to be his own, has the following touches :

"1. A very good man, the constant purpose of whose life is to do mischief.

"2. Fancies he is disinterested because he substitutes vanity in place of all other passions. "4. Licentious in his pen, cautious in his words, still more so in his actions.

"7. Exempt from vulgar prejudices, full of his own.

"13. An enthusiast without religion, a philosopher who despairs to attain truth." -(p. 226.) If this, with other parts of the same exercise,

estimate of himself, it would indeed be very curious-and no doubt the article about vanity tallies well with an anecdote quoted in our last number from the "Lives of the Lindsays;" but we confess that we cannot but think, if intended for a character of him, it is the work of another; if drawn by himself, it is his estimate of another. The verses we may pass by, with still more unconcern. Most of them are apocryphal, and none of them worth fathering.

The "Essays, Moral and Political," were pub-could really be established as at any time Hume's lished in 1742. "The work," says Hume, "was favorably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former disappointment. I continued with iny mother and brother in the country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth." He soon, however, removed to Edinburgh, and among his first appearances is an endeavor to obtain the professorship of moral philosophy in that university, about Christmas in 1744. His friends had some influence with the town council, who by a strange arrangement are the patrons, (how would the heads of houses" like to sit under the direction and patronage of the mayor and aldermen of Oxford?) but the bailies bethought them of the “avisamentum" of the Presbytery of Edinburgh, and in April, 1745, appointed another to the vacant chair of Ethics.

In 1748 he was again secretary with General St. Clair, in the mission of espionage to Vienna and Turin. He writes to Oswald :

"I have got an invitation from General St. Clair, to attend him in his new employment at the court of Turin, which I hope will prove an agreeable, if not a profitable jaunt for me. I shall have an opportunity of seeing courts and camps; and if I can afterwards be so happy as to attain leisure and other opportunities, this knowledge may even turn to account to me, as a man of letters, which, I

ambition. I have long had an intention, in my riper years, of composing some history; and I question not but some greater experience in the operations of the field, and the intrigues of the cabinet, will be requisite, in order to enable me to speak with judgment upon these subjects. But, notwithstanding of these flattering ideas of futurity, as well as the present charms of variety, I must confess that I left home with infinite regret, where I had treasured up stores of study and plans of thinking for many years. I am sure I shall not he so happy as I should have been had I prosecuted these. But, in certain situations, a man dares not follow his own judgment or refuse such offers as

Passing over Hume's attendance on Lord Annandale, an unhappy nobleman who, among more serious frenzies, had a rage for literature and fancied a literary "keeper"-a chapter in the philos-confess, has always been the sole object of my opher's life which we think has been unnecessarily dwelt upon-and turning with some slight disgust from the bickerings of interested connections and Hume's pertinacious claim of 757. instead of 371. 10s, which he pressed first by the influence of his friends, and then, by threats of law;-we come to an event that had much influence on his future life. In 1746 (ann. ætat. 35) he was invited to act as secretary to General St. Clair, who was going in command of an expedition intended for Canada, but ultimately sent "to seek adventures" on the coast of France, and which resulted in the unhappy and ill-managed attempt at Quiberon Bay. "Such a romantic adventure and such a hurry I have not heard of before. The office is very genteel-tenthese."-(p. 236.) shillings a day, perquisites, and no expenses." He wrote a journal of his tour, in letters to his (p. 208.) The general upon whom Hume attended brother, which are chiefly remarkable for the abis not known for any feats of arms, but has a dis-sence of all taste for the beauty of nature or pleastinction of a different kind, and one of which Scot- ure in the associations of romance. The Rhine land, with all its caution and alleged coldness, has was to him no more than any other river. "I

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