Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 2

by John Hill Burton

"I always lived," says James Boswell, in a passage where he has to record some of his great patron's expressions of contempt and dislike, "on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly told him I was not clear that it was right of me to keep company with him; 'but,' said I, 'how much better are you than your books!' He was cheerful, obliging, and instructive. He was charitable to the poor;[441:1] and many an agreeable hour have I passed with him."

The testimony which Adam Smith bore to his character and disposition, in the letter which accompanies his autobiography, though so well known, must not here be omitted.

His temper seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded, not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good nature and good humour; tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and, therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight, even those who were the objects of it. To his friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not, perhaps, any one of all his great and amiable

qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, was, in him, certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime, and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit.

Of any description of his character, his own account of it must form a material feature. The mere circumstance that a man should have thus written about himself, is a noticeable element in his mental history. He says, in his "own life:"

To conclude, historically, with my own character. I am, or rather was, (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments,)—I was, I say, 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 literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men, any wise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed, in my behalf, of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this

funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.

We have here a generous testimony to the tolerant spirit of his age: And yet his history and correspondence show, that he did not always feel himself safe from the influence of political or polemical resentment. He seemed, however, to take a pride in contrasting his own personal reception, by the world, with that of his writings; the one being all courtesy, the other all prejudice and dislike. A late eminent judge remembered meeting him at dinner with Black, Smith, and others, a few months before his death. Smith was speaking of the ingratitude, perversity, and intolerance of human nature. Hume said he differed with him. There was he, who had written on history, on politics, and on morals—some said on divinity; yet, in discussing these exciting topics, he had not made a single enemy; unless, indeed, all the Whigs, and all the Tories, and all the Christians! As, in his playful conversation among his intimate friends, he was inclined to indulge in practical humour, he made the general unpopularity of his opinions a common theme of amusement; picturesquely exaggerating the more offensive features, and exhibiting them as bugbears to frighten the well-meaning. Asking his friend, Clephane, to look for lodgings for him in London, he represents the person who is to inhabit them as "a sober, discreet, virtuous, frugal, regular, quiet, good-natured man—of a bad character." This "bad character," he seems to have occasionally used as a method of gently alarming innocent females. A lady, of strictly evangelical principles, walking home from church, through a crowded part of Edinburgh, was rather surprised by the zealous attention with which he proffered his arm. After they had

passed through the crowd, he gave his reason for being so obsequious—it was, that she might be congratulated, by her friends, on having been seen walking on Sunday with "Hume the Deist." Mackenzie relates the following incident, which shows that he was not, however, always proof against the effect of jocular attacks on his principles by others.

In the same bonhommie, Mr. Hume bore with perfect good nature the pleasantries which humorous deductions from his theoretical scepticisms sometimes produced. Once, I have been told, he was in a small degree ruffled by a witticism of Mr. John Home's, who, though always pleasant, and often lively, seldom produced what might be termed or repeated as wit. The clerk of an eminent banker in Edinburgh, a young man of irreproachable conduct, and much in the confidence of his master, eloped with a considerable sum with which he had been intrusted. The circumstance was mentioned at a dinner where the two Humes, the historian and the poet, and several of their usual friendly circle, were present. David Hume spoke of it as a kind of moral problem, and wondered what could induce a man of such character and habits as this clerk was said to possess, thus to incur, for an inconsiderable sum, the guilt and the infamy of such a transaction. "I can easily account for it," said his friend, John Home, "from the nature of his studies, and the kind of books which he was in the habit of reading." "What were they?" said the philosopher. "Boston's Fourfold State," rejoined the poet, "and Hume's Essays." David was more hurt by the joke than was usual with him; probably from the singular conjunction of the two works, which formed, according to his friend's account, the library of the unfortunate young man.[444:1]