probability, expect to have the felicity of attending you thither.[251:1]
Hume had the happiness of Madame de Boufflers sincerely at heart; and we find him, on 24th June, 1765, thus writing to his brother:—
"I had great hopes, all the winter, of seeing the Countess in a station suitable to her merit, and of paying my respects to her as part of the royal family. Several accidents have disappointed us; and the various turns of this affair have more agitated me than almost any event in which I was ever engaged."
The following correspondence exhibits a feature in Hume's character, which to many readers will be new, and perhaps unpleasing. It shows that he was by no means exempt from the passion of anger, and that when under its influence he was liable to be harsh and unreasonable. The general notion formed of his character is, that he passed through life unmoved and immovable, a placid mass of breathing flesh, on which the ordinary impulses which rouse the human passions into life might expend themselves in vain. We have seen that very early in life he had undertaken the task of bringing his passions and propensities under the yoke, and directing all his physical and mental energies to the accomplishment of his early and never fading vision of literary renown. From many indications which petty incidents in his life afford, it would appear that the ardour of his nature, if thus regulated, was not eradicated; and one cannot, in a general survey of his course and character, reject the conclusion, that his early resolution not to enter the lists as a controversial writer, mentioned in the following letter, was suggested by a profound self-knowledge, and a
consciousness of his inability to preserve his temper as a controversialist.
The person against whom all the wrath of the following letter is directed, is the respectable author of the "Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Evidence produced by the Earls Murray and Morton against Mary Queen of Scots." That, assailed as he often was by attacks so much more vehement and unscrupulous, Hume should have taken so deep umbrage at this piece of free historical criticism, is a problem not easily to be explained. It is not a little remarkable that the bitterest remark on any contemporary contained in his published works, is a note to his History, in which he has abbreviated the purport of the letter.[252:1]
Hume to Lord Elibank.[252:2]
"My Lord,—As I am told that Dr. Robertson has wrote a few remarks, which he communicated to your lordship, as our common answer about the affair
of Queen Mary, and has endeavoured to show you that it was contempt and not inability, which kept him from making a public reply; I thought it would not be amiss for me to imitate his example; and I did not indeed know a properer person, nor a more equal judge than your lordship, to whom I could submit the cause. For if, on the one hand, your lordship's regard to the memory of that princess might give you a bias to that side, I know, that the ancient and constant friendship, with which your lordship has always honoured me, both in public and private, would give you a strong bias on my side; and there was a good chance for your remaining neutral and impartial between these motives.
"I shall confine my apology to the account which I have given of the conference at Hampton court, as this is indeed the chief point, in which the answerer has thought proper to find fault with me.