The ties which, amidst all his triumphs, had hitherto been instrumental in binding the Dean of Carlisle to the world, were about this period weakened by domestic losses. His mother had already gone to her grave; and in 1797 his brother, who had just been appointed to the vicarage of Hull, breathed his last. The latter bereavement touched Milner’s heart to the core; he began to feel less concern with earthly affairs, to exhibit greater earnestness in his professional duties, and to set his affections more steadfastly on things above. His life, indeed, was far from being without its enjoyments and consolations. He looked upon his summer residence at Carlisle as, in some measure, a period of relaxation, associated on terms of intimacy with the families in the vicinity, and derived pleasure from the hospitalities that were practiced, and the company that assembled at the mansions of Lord Lonsdale and the bishop of the diocese. He was prepared to converse with those whom he met on the subjects with which they were most familiar, in a style joyous, jocund, or grandiloquent. “He talked, also, to his chosen and intimate friends,” it has been said, with power, “but not in the same fitful strain. To them, from the abundance of the heart, he spoke on the theme which engages the latest thoughts of all men, the retrospect and the prospect; the mystery within, and the dread presence without; the struggle, and the triumph, and the fearful vengeance; and whatever else is involved in the relations which subsist between mortal man and the eternal source of his existence. To search into those relations, and into the duties, and hopes, and fears flowing from them, was the end which Isaac Milner still proposed to himself, under all his own ever-varying moods.”
Milner, with affectionate devotion to the memory of his deceased brother, repaid the essential obligations which in youth he had incurred, by editing and improving the “Church History,” written to disseminate the theological views he held; and added thereto a biographical sketch of the author. Nor, in the midst of affluence and reputation, did he forget the wants of his more humble relatives; to whose necessities, as to those of the poor of his native place, he ministered with a bountiful hand. In Carlisle, also, he contributed toward the various objects of public charity; he was ever anxious to serve those who, in private, applied to him for assistance; and he subscribed liberally toward the erection of the new churches, which were rendered necessary by the large population of the old Border city.
In 1819, having previously been introduced to Dr. Chalmers, Milner wrote to the magistrates of Edinburgh, urging the claims to the Professorship of Natural Philosophy in their gift, and then vacant, of that eminent Scottish divine, whom he described as “a man of great genius, varied talents, and sound principles, both religious and civil.”
After attaining the age of threescore and ten years, this distinguished man died on the 1st of April, 1820, and was buried in the chapel of that college of which by intellectual industry he had risen to be the head.
[DAVID HUME.]
Though any attempt to excuse or palliate Hume’s erroneous views and opinions in regard to religion—the dissemination of which he is said to have regretted—would be little less than high treason against Christianity and civilization, his example, in other respects, is of infinite value. His career was characterized by resolution, independence, and self-command, at a time when these qualities were not much in fashion; and his life is a lasting protest against the idea, that the habits of a literary man are necessarily lax in respect to pecuniary affairs. Moreover, he must be acknowledged as prince among the historians of England. He still retains his ascendency after the lapse of an eventful century; and his great work is looked to as the natural source of information on the subject of which it treats. The intelligent reader is animated by feelings of admiration after perusing its inimitable pages; while the less informed goes to it for guidance and instruction. Yet much of this mighty memorial of his great intellect was composed in the face of a reception so galling to a proud spirit, and so discouraging to a heart panting for fame, that most men would, under the circumstances, have thrown down the pen in blank dismay; but Hume, notwithstanding his temporary disgust, had courage and genius fully equal to the occasion. He felt how glorious was the prize at stake, and pushed bravely forward to snatch it. And it is, indeed, impossible too highly to admire the calm, intrepid, unshrinking perseverance he displayed in thus consummating, in spite of all the clamor that the earliest volumes elicited, a work which he ere long had the consolation of knowing the world would not willingly let die. Such, doubtless, has often been the lot of those who write for immortality!
The pedigree of this illustrious personage, who frankly confessed to the charm of an ancient name, was such as might satisfy the most exacting genealogist. Indeed, it is traced in the books of heralds, through potent barons and mighty earls, to the Saxon conquerors of Britain; though it does not appear that he was fully aware of a fact, which, to say the least, would have been reflected on with complacency. But as the subject is not altogether uninteresting to many, it may be here adverted to with brevity.
When the Norman Conquest took place, a Northumbrian prince—whose grandmother was daughter of an English king, and whose brother became, by marriage with the heiress of the Nevilles, progenitor of those barons slain on the field of Barnet—was driven to seek refuge on the north side of the Tweed, where he founded that powerful feudal connection known as the house of Dunbar, which fell in the fifteenth century. One of its branches, and the inheritor of much of its power, was the baronial family of Home, whose chiefs bestowed such lands as came into their possession on their younger sons. One of these cadets—the historian’s ancestor—was thus gifted with Tyninghame, a fertile estate in Lothian; but being, unlike his remote descendant, an irreclaimable spendthrift, he totally dissipated this paternal grant. It happened, however, that his son, a youth of promise, was received into favor by the head of the clan, and planted at the Ninewells, on the pleasant banks of the Whitadder, where his successors, whose names no minstrel has sung, vegetated for three hundred years. In fact, though residing close to the Border, they do not appear to have fought in the wars which desolated the vicinity, nor even to have speculated in the precarious trade of cattle-lifting. They seem neither to have been puissant knights nor “rank reivers;” nor were they in request when a charter was to be attested, or an eldest son served heir to his father. But they paid a species of “black mail” to the English captain of Berwick, received protection, lived in peace, speared salmon, and cultivated their fruitful lands. In the reign of Queen Anne, one of these lairds, whose sire’s heart’s blood seems to have stained the blade of an exasperated sheriff, went in youth to the Scottish capital, and was in due time called to the bar; but without pursuing the legal profession further. He was considered a man of attainments, and took to wife, in 1708, the daughter of Sir David Falconer, Lord President of the College of Justice. By this lady he had two sons and a daughter, of whom David Hume was born, at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April, 1711.