Newcastle, Wednesday, 24th April.
Mr. Hume not quite so well in the morning—says, that he had set out merely to please his friends; that he would go on to please them; that Ferguson and Andrew Stuart, (about whom we had been talking,) were answerable for shortening his life one week a-piece; for, says he, you will allow Xenophon to be good authority; and he lays it down, that suppose a man is dying, nobody has a right to kill him. He set out in this vein, and continued all the stage in his cheerful and talking humour. It was a fine day, and we went on to Durham—from that to Darlington, where we passed the night.
In the evening Mr. Hume thinks himself more easy and
light, than he has been any time for three months. In the course of our conversation we touched upon the national affairs. He still maintains, that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain; and laments that the two most civilized nations, the English and French, should be on the decline; and the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals of Germany and Russia, should be rising in power and renown. The French king, he says, has ruined the state by recalling the parliaments. Mr. Hume thinks that there is only one man in France fit to be minister, (the Archbishop of Toulouse,) of the family of Brienne. He told me some curious anecdotes with regard to this prelate; that he composed and corrected without writing; that Mr. Hume had heard him repeat an elegant oration of an hour and a quarter in length, which he had never written. Mr. Hume, talking with the Princess Beauvais about French policy, said that he knew but one man in France capable of restoring its greatness; the lady said she knew one too, and wished to hear if it was the same. They accordingly named each their man, and it was this prelate.[497:1]
Thursday, 25th.
Left Darlington about nine o'clock, and came to Northallerton. The same delightful weather. A shower fell that laid the dust, and made our journey to Boroughbridge more pleasant. Mr. Hume continues very easy, and has a tolerable appetite; tastes nothing liquid but water, and sups upon an egg. He assured me, that he never possessed his faculties more perfectly; that he never was more sensible of the beauties of any classic author than he was at present, nor loved more to read. When I am not in the room with him he reads continually. The post-boys can scarcely be persuaded to drive only five miles an hour, and their horses are of the same way of thinking! The other travellers, as they pass, look into the chaise, and laugh at our slow pace. This evening the post-boy from Northallerton, who had
required a good deal of threatening to make him drive as slow as we desired, had no sooner taken his departure to go home, than he set off at full speed. "Pour se dédommager," said David.
Friday, 26th, Boroughbridge.
Mr. Hume this morning not quite so well. He observes, and I see it, that he has a good day and a bad one. His illness is an internal hemorrhage, which has been wasting him for a long time. He is so thin that he chooses to have a cushion under him when he sits upon an ordinary chair. He told me to-day, that if Louis XV. had died in the time of the regency, the whole French nation were determined to bring back the King of Spain to be King of France,—so zealous were they for preserving the line of succession. This evening Mr. Hume not quite so well, and goes to bed at a more early hour than he used to do.
Ferrybridge, Sunday, 28th.