Hume had now attained the age of forty, and, though there certainly exists evidence which makes one suspect that he had not always proved that rare impenetrability to female blandishments for which his biographers have given him credit, there was, at this time of life, small chance of his being betrayed into a matrimonial alliance. His brother, therefore, aroused himself to the duty of transmitting the name, and continuing the succession, and, in 1751, wedded the daughter of a neighboring family. This country gentleman was a person of retired habits; he had a strong aversion to every thing savoring, or even having the appearance, of vanity; and he was so extremely prudent in his actions, that, with the exception of his marriage, he never took any step without having previously calculated the consequences to his satisfaction. When the latter momentous event occurred, the philosopher felt a natural longing to have a tenement of his own. His mother, whom he describes as a woman of singular merit, and whom he had in her lifetime treated with much filial kindness and affection, had been in her grave for years; and he proposed “to take up house in Berwickshire” with his sister; but duly weighing and deliberately considering the matter, he came to the conclusion that a town was “the true scene for a man of letters;” and, removing to Edinburgh, he exercised so much frugality in disposing of his slender income that he was enabled to live in comfort and contentment. Yet he was not, by any means, parsimonious, and ever was ready, on fitting occasions, to prove his generosity by charitable and beneficent actions.
The year 1752 was an important one in Hume’s life. He was then appointed Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, after a severe and spirited contest, in which, besides the junior members of the bar, his chief allies were the ladies of “modern Athens,” who made strenuous efforts and exerted their utmost fascinations in his behalf. When the triumph was achieved he found himself in a most advantageous position in regard to an excellent and well-stocked library, which fortunately suggested to his brain the scheme of furnishing the world with a classical history of England, then a serious desideratum in national literature. “Being frightened,” he states in his autobiography, “with the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced with the House of Stuart, an epoch where I thought the misrepresentation of faction began chiefly to take place.”
When the first volume, recording the events in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was issued, in 1754, the effects of the author’s earlier training were sufficiently apparent to kindle the wrath of one party without flattering the prejudices of the other. Accordingly, it was assailed by one cry of reproach and disapprobation; the sale was quite inconsiderable, and almost the only token of encouragement worth having came from the Primates of England and Ireland, who advised him to take heart, and proceed in his undertaking. But, whatever may be thought of Hume’s historic leanings and political sympathies, it must be admitted that he acted courageously, conscientiously, and without fishing for the favor of those who had in their hands all the patronage and disposal of such places and rewards as he could have aspired to. He followed what appeared to him the true and just course, notwithstanding the storms to which he felt he would on that account be exposed; and his genius, more potent than had been the swords of his insurgent kinsmen, threw a wall of defense around the memory of the exiled race which, with all its defects, succeeding writers, whatever their ability and energy, have never been skillful and vigorous enough to scale or break down. Nevertheless, the reception of his work inspired him with feelings of such dislike for the British public, that he resolved upon leaving the country, renouncing his name, and passing the remainder of his days on the Continent; but a French war luckily put an end to his scheme of self-expatriation, and he determined to persevere with his laborious and ungrateful task. In 1756 his second volume appeared, and proved not less obnoxious than the first; but by that he had, as he says, “grown callous against the impressions of public folly.” It was fortunate, in any case, that he did not succumb till the tyranny was overpast. His victory was secure, slowly as it might approach.
He had already published the “Natural History of Religion,” which was severely censured; and when the author had arrived at his fiftieth year, his matchless and magnificent “History of England” was completed in six volumes. His easy, elegant, and interesting style ere long rendered the work highly popular. Hume was by universal consent, placed on a lofty pedestal of fame; and, though its reception had originally been so disheartening, the sum obtained for the copyright, and for his former productions, together with his economical habits, had made him not only independent but, as he considered it, opulent. He, therefore, looked forward to passing the remainder of his days in peace, and in his native land, congratulating himself on having never, in his struggle for fortune, courted the smiles of any great man, or treated the humble with discourtesy. He was, though plain and careless in manner, eminently qualified, by his frank and social humor, to enjoy the company of his chosen friends, with whom, in spite of their wide differences of opinion on the most serious subjects, he was ever on terms of affectionate intercourse and uninterrupted friendship. Nevertheless, within two years, he consented to forego his cherished plans, at the earnest and repeated solicitations of Lord Hertford, who was going as Embassador to Paris. Thither Hume accompanied that nobleman, and was shortly after appointed Secretary of Embassy. In 1765, when Lord Hertford departed to undertake the government of Ireland, the historian remained in the French capital as Chargé d’Affaires, and performed the functions pertaining to the office in a manner highly creditable to his clearness of judgment, his talent for business, and capacity for state affairs. In the gay and fashionable circles of Paris his fame, station, and agreeable bearing, secured him so hearty a welcome that ladies and princes, wits and philosophers, vied in their attentions. It was there that, in an evil hour, he consented, in a spirit of excessive amiability, to take under his wing the frantic and erratic Rousseau, whose connection afterward involved him in much trouble, and caused him infinite annoyance.
Hume returned to this country in 1766, and was, the next year appointed Under-secretary of State for the department presided over by Marshal Conway, an office which he retained for more than twelve months. His annual income, the fruits of real industry, now amounted to a thousand pounds a year; and, taking a house in the new town of Edinburgh, he settled to spend his remaining days among his old and most attached friends. For some time his peaceful existence was uninterrupted, but in 1766 his health became so precarious that he was under the necessity of undertaking a journey to Bath, when he was attended by his friend and remote relative, John Home, the author of “Douglas,” with whom he had many a jocular debate about the correct orthography of their name, and the comparative merits of port and claret. The illustrious historian was fond of relieving his sinking spirits by a playful jest at the expense of his clansman’s warlike propensities, and did not omit so favorable an opportunity as that presented by the poet’s pistols being handed, with much ceremony, into the traveling-carriage:
“You shall have your humor, John,” he said, “and shoot as many highwaymen as you like; for,” he added, with as much melancholy, perhaps, as a philosopher could well feel, “there’s too little life left in me to be worth fighting about.”
It appears that the martial predilections alluded to were shortly afterward gratified by a commission in the “Buccleuch Fencibles,” though on this occasion they were not in requisition; unless, indeed, to inspire the young soul of Walter Scott, who was then exercising his precocious imagination at Bath, where he made the acquaintance of the bard, soldier, and divine, whose fame his pen, more than fifty years later, did something to extend and perpetuate. If the eye of the great historian, from which the world and all its vanities were fast vanishing, lighted on that lame boy, vigilantly guarded by a sarcastic and high-spirited female, how little could he have supposed that there was the being destined to invest with the charms of romance and the glow of chivalry that old royal cause, which he had employed all his wisdom and all his intellect to restore to public favor and render permanently attractive!