[465:2] Edinburgh Magazine , 1788, p. 340.
[466:1] MS. R.S.E.
[467:1] MS. R.S.E.
[467:2] Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II. until the sea battle of La Hogue, 3 vols. 4to.
[467:3] MS. R.S.E.
[468:1] William Smellie, the respectable printer of the Magazine, seems to have led an uneasy life, between the quarrels and the dissipation of his editor, of which he has left some picturesque memorials. Having come one night to Smellie's house on magazine business in a very advanced stage of intoxication, Stuart was charitably put to bed. Roused in the middle of the night by an immense outcry from the awakened editor, Smellie rushed to the bedroom in his night clothes. Stuart sitting up in bed and glaring around him, immediately associated the respectable printer's presence with the places in which he was himself accustomed to waken, and said,—"Smellie, I never expected to find you in such a place: put on your clothes, and go back to your wife and family, I shall never say a word about this." A journey of six miles, from Edinburgh to Musselburgh, made by Stuart and some of his companions, in which, by reason of the abundance of good cheer on the way, they occupied several days, seems to have been fruitful in adventures. One of the party falling asleep among the ashes of a steam engine, wakened in the night, and found himself in the presence of a great red furnace, surrounded by dusky figures clanging bolts and chains. Associating the exhibition with the course of life he had been running, and its probable reward, he was heard to exclaim, "Good God, is it come to this at last!"—See Kerr's Memoirs of Smellie .
[470:1] D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, ii. 67. The letter, after such exhortations as the following,—"Strike by all means: the wretch will tremble, grow pale, and return with a consciousness of his debility," winds up with the assurance, "When you have an enemy to attack, I shall in return give my best assistance, and aim at him a mortal blow, and rush forward to his overthrow, though the flames of hell should start up to oppose me."
[470:2] The proof, with Hume's corrections, is in the possession of John Christison, Esq., who has kindly allowed me to make this use of it. The last paragraph is a manuscript addition made in correcting the proof. The substance of Hume's praise was probably given to Henry in some other form; for a portion of the analytical part of the review is printed in a memoir of Henry, in The Gentleman's Magazine , (vol. lxxi. p. 907,) as written by "one of the most eminent historians of the present age, whose history of the same period possesses the highest reputation."
[471:1] Madame Geoffrin, in writing to Hume, notices Franklin's imperfect acquaintance with the French language; this must have been one of the difficulties which his matchless perseverance conquered.