"Dear Sir,—I am very glad that you are in so good a way, and that you think so soon of making a new edition. I am running over both the ancient history and the Tudors, and shall send you them up by the wagon as soon as they are corrected. Please tell Mr. Strahan, to keep carefully this copy I send up, as well as that which I left of the Stuarts; for if you intend to print an octavo edition next summer, it will be better to do it from these copies which are corrected, than from the new edition, where there will necessarily be some errors of the press.
"I give you full authority to contradict the report, that I am writing or intend to write an ecclesiastical history; I have no such intention; and I believe never shall. I am beginning to love peace very much, and resolve to be more cautious than formerly in creating myself enemies. But in contradicting this report,
you will be so good as not to impeach Mr. Mallet's veracity; for 'tis certain I said to Lord Chesterfield (from whom Mr. Mallet first had it) that I had entertained such a thought; but my saying so proceeded less from any serious purpose, than from a view of trying how far such an idea would be relished by his lordship.
"I have not laid aside thoughts of continuing my History to the period after the Revolution. It is not amiss to be idle a little time; but it is probable I shall tire of that kind of life: and if I then find that the public desires to see more of me, and that the great will not shut up their papers from me, I shall set to work in earnest.
"I never thought that Lord Kames' Elements would be a popular book; but I hoped, that, as you engage for no copy money, it would certainly defray the charge of paper and print; and on that footing alone I recommended it to you. I find the author's expectations raised up to a vast pitch, and indeed there are some parts of the work ingenious and curious; but it is too abtruse and crabbed ever to take with the public. As to the advice you desire me to give him, it is certainly very salutary; but I fancy neither I nor any other of his friends will ever venture to mention it. The admonitions, which come from you, are commonly the most effectual; and if this book do not sell, I think it were not amiss, that you tell him the plain truth without disguise or circumlocution. I find the booksellers here have sold off all their share of my Essays, and are desirous of another edition, which, however, I told them, I believed you was not ready for. I desire to be informed two or three months before you put it to the press: because
I intend to make some considerable alterations on some parts of them.
"I hope Mrs. Millar intends to pay us a visit next summer, and that you will be of the party. Please make my most sincere respects to her. I am, dear Sir," &c.[132:1]
Hume to Andrew Millar.
"8th April, 1762.
"I shall answer your story of Charles Townsend very fully, by another story of the same gentleman. Three years ago, when I was in London, I was told by a friend, that Mr. Townsend said, that my History of the Stuarts (the only one then published,) was full of gross blunders in the facts: he had consulted all the authentic documents, particularly the journals of the House of Commons, and found it so. When I made light of this information, as knowing somewhat of Mr. Townsend's hasty manner of speaking, my friend said, that I ought not so much to neglect the matter; because Mr. Townsend had told him that Mr. Dyson, clerk to the House of Commons, a man of knowledge and solidity, had made to him the same observation. I was a little surprised and alarmed at this; and I went to Mr. Elliot, whom I desired to speak to Mr. Dyson, and to tell him that there was nothing in the world I desired so much as to be informed of my errors, and that he would oblige me extremely by pointing out those mistakes. Mr. Dyson replied, that he had never in his life spoke of the matter to Mr. Townsend; and that though he differed from me in my reasonings and views of the