"St. Andrew's Square, 24th Feb., 1773.
"Dear Smith,—There are two late publications here which I advise you to commission. The first is Andrew Stuart's Letters to Lord Mansfield, which they say have met with vast success in London. Andrew has eased his own mind, and no bad effects are to follow. Lord Mansfield is determined, absolutely, to neglect them. The other is Lord Monboddo's treatise
on the Origin and Progress of Language, which is only part of a larger work. It contains all the absurdity and malignity which I expected; but is writ with more ingenuity and in a better style than I looked for."[467:1]
"St. Andrew's Square, 10th April, 1773.
"To-day news arrived in town, that the Ayr Bank had shut up, and, as many people think, for ever. I hear that the Duke of Buccleuch is on the road. The country will be in prodigious distress for money this term. Sir G. Colebroke's bankruptcy is thought to be the immediate cause of this event.
"Have you seen Macpherson's Homer? It is hard to tell whether the attempt or the execution be worse. I hear he is employed by the booksellers to continue my History. But, in my opinion, of all men of parts, he has the most anti-historical head in the universe.
"Have you seen Sir John Dalrymple? It is strange what a rage is against him, on account of the most commendable action in his life. His collection[467:2] is curious; but introduces no new light into the civil, whatever it may into the biographical and anecdotical history of the times.
"Have you seen 'Alonzo?' Very slovenly versification, some pathetic, but too much resembling 'Douglas.'"[467:3]
We have found Gilbert Stuart deferentially courting Hume's notice of his earlier literary efforts. A few years of popularity as an author, and the
command of a periodical work, had in the meantime changed the man's character, by developing all its arrogance, jealousy, conceit, and vindictiveness. He was one of those who indulge in the comfortable consciousness, that any comparison between their own genius and that of any other given person is supremely ludicrous; and as some one said of La Harpe, it might have proved a good speculation to buy him at what he was worth, and sell him at his own estimate of his value. Sick of the praises he heard bestowed on Robertson and the other eminent historians of his age, he thought it his duty to show the world how the lamp of such industrious drudges would grow pale before the lustre of true genius; and thus he favoured the public with some historical efforts, in which the curious reader of the present day, who takes them from forgotten shelves, is somewhat surprised to find how effectually well-turned periods, and a certain audacity of opinion, keep out of view the meagreness of the author's inquiries.