Mr. Wilson told me of his machines, which seem very ingenious, and deserve much encouragement. I shall soon see them.
I am very well acquainted with Bourke, who was much taken with your book. He got your direction from me, with a view of writing to you, and thanking you for your present; for I made it pass in your name. I wonder he has not done it: he is now in Ireland. I am not acquainted with Jenyns; but he spoke very highly of the book to Oswald, who is his brother in the board of trade. Millar showed me, a few days ago, a letter from Lord Fitzmaurice; where he tells him, that he has carried over a few copies to the Hague, for presents. Mr. York was very much taken with it, as well as several others who had read it.
I am told that you are preparing a new edition, and propose to make some additions and alterations, in order to obviate objections. I shall use the freedom to propose one;
which, if it appears to be of any weight, you may have in your eye. I wish you had more particularly and fully proved that all kinds of sympathy are necessarily agreeable. This is the hinge of your system, and yet you only mention the matter cursorily, in p. 20. Now, it would appear that there is a disagreeable sympathy, as well as an agreeable. And, indeed, as the sympathetic passion is a reflex image of the principal, it must partake of its qualities, and be painful where that is so. Indeed, when we converse with a man with whom we can entirely sympathize, that is, where there is a warm and intimate friendship, the cordial openness of such a commerce overpowers the pain of a disagreeable sympathy, and renders the whole movement agreeable. But, in ordinary cases, this cannot have place. An ill-humoured fellow; a man tired and disgusted with every thing, always ennuié, sickly, complaining, embarrassed; such a one throws an evident damp on company, which I suppose would be accounted for by sympathy, and yet is disagreeable.
It is always thought a difficult problem to account for the pleasure received from the tears, and grief, and sympathy of tragedy, which would not be the case if all sympathy was agreeable. An hospital would be a more entertaining place than a ball. I am afraid that, in p. 99, and 111, this proposition has escaped you, or, rather, is interwoven with your reasonings in that place. You say expressly, "It is painful to go along with grief, and we always enter into it with reluctance." It will probably be requisite for you to modify or explain this sentiment, and reconcile it to your system.
My dear Mr. Smith, you must not be so much engrossed with your own book as never to mention mine. The Whigs, I am told, are anew in a rage against me, though they know not how to vent themselves; for they are constrained to allow all my facts. You have, probably, seen Hurd's abuse of me. He is of the Warburtonian school; and, consequently, very insolent and very scurrilous; but I shall never reply a word to him. If my past writings do not sufficiently prove me to be no Jacobite, ten volumes in folio never would.
I signed, yesterday, an agreement with Mr. Millar; where I mention that I proposed to write the History of England,
from the beginning till the accession of Henry VII.; and he engages to give me £1400 for the copy. This is the first previous agreement ever I made with a bookseller.[61:1] I shall execute this work at leisure, without fatiguing myself by such ardent application as I have hitherto employed. It is chiefly as a resource against idleness that I shall undertake this work; for, as to money, I have enough; and as to reputation, what I have wrote already will be sufficient, if it be good; if not, it is not likely I shall now write better. I found it impracticable (at least fancied so) to write the History since the Revolution. I am in doubt whether I shall stay here and execute the work; or return to Scotland, and only come up here to consult the manuscripts. I have several inducements on both sides. Scotland suits my fortune best, and is the seat of my principal friendships; but it is too narrow a place for me; and it mortifies me that I sometimes hurt my friends. Pray write me your judgment soon. Are the bigots much in arms on account of this last volume? Robertson's book has great merit; but it was visible that he profited here by the animosity against me. I suppose the case was the same with you. I am, dear Smith, yours sincerely.[61:2]
In 1758 and 1759, much alarm was caused throughout Britain by a threatened invasion from France. Hume seems to have "improved" this state of matters, in the following letters, imparting wild and exaggerated news. His writing in such a tone, at such a juncture, is an example of his entertaining the same contempt for panics as for popular feeling in other forms. There is no address on the first of the letters. The second would reach its destination nearly at the same time with the account of Rodney's destruction of the flat-bottomed boats intended for the invasion.