Though any attempt to excuse or palliate Hume’s erroneous views and
opinions in regard to religion――the dissemination of which he is said
to have regretted――would be little less than high treason against
Christianity and civilization, his example, in other respects, is
of infinite value. His career was characterized by resolution,
independence, and self-command, at a time when these qualities were
not much in fashion; and his life is a lasting protest against the
idea, that the habits of a literary man are necessarily lax in respect
to pecuniary affairs. Moreover, he must be acknowledged as prince
among the historians of England. He still retains his ascendency after
the lapse of an eventful century; and his great work is looked to as
the natural source of information on the subject of which it treats.
The intelligent reader is animated by feelings of admiration after
perusing its inimitable pages; while the less informed goes to it for
guidance and instruction. Yet much of this mighty memorial of his great
intellect was composed in the face of a reception so galling to a proud
spirit, and so discouraging to a heart panting for fame, that most men
would, under the circumstances, have thrown down the pen in blank
dismay; but Hume, notwithstanding his temporary disgust, had courage
and genius fully equal to the occasion. He felt how glorious was the
prize at stake, and pushed bravely forward to snatch it. And it is,
indeed, impossible too highly to admire the calm, intrepid, unshrinking
perseverance he displayed in thus consummating, in spite of all the
clamor that the earliest volumes elicited, a work which he ere long had
the consolation of knowing the world would not willingly let die. Such,
doubtless, has often been the lot of those who write for immortality!
The pedigree of this illustrious personage, who frankly confessed
to the charm of an ancient name, was such as might satisfy the most
exacting genealogist. Indeed, it is traced in the books of heralds,
through potent barons and mighty earls, to the Saxon conquerors of
Britain; though it does not appear that he was fully aware of a fact,
which, to say the least, would have been reflected on with complacency.
But as the subject is not altogether uninteresting to many, it may be
here adverted to with brevity.
When the Norman Conquest took place, a Northumbrian prince――whose
grandmother was daughter of an English king, and whose brother became,
by marriage with the heiress of the Nevilles, progenitor of those
barons slain on the field of Barnet――was driven to seek refuge on
the north side of the Tweed, where he founded that powerful feudal
connection known as the house of Dunbar, which fell in the fifteenth
century. One of its branches, and the inheritor of much of its power,
was the baronial family of Home, whose chiefs bestowed such lands
as came into their possession on their younger sons. One of these
cadets――the historian’s ancestor――was thus gifted with Tyninghame, a
fertile estate in Lothian; but being, unlike his remote descendant, an
irreclaimable spendthrift, he totally dissipated this paternal grant.
It happened, however, that his son, a youth of promise, was received
into favor by the head of the clan, and planted at the Ninewells, on
the pleasant banks of the Whitadder, where his successors, whose names
no minstrel has sung, vegetated for three hundred years. In fact,
though residing close to the Border, they do not appear to have fought
in the wars which desolated the vicinity, nor even to have speculated
in the precarious trade of cattle-lifting. They seem neither to have
been puissant knights nor “rank reivers;” nor were they in request
when a charter was to be attested, or an eldest son served heir to his
father. But they paid a species of “black mail” to the English captain
of Berwick, received protection, lived in peace, speared salmon, and
cultivated their fruitful lands. In the reign of Queen Anne, one of
these lairds, whose sire’s heart’s blood seems to have stained the
blade of an exasperated sheriff, went in youth to the Scottish capital,
and was in due time called to the bar; but without pursuing the legal
profession further. He was considered a man of attainments, and took to
wife, in 1708, the daughter of Sir David Falconer, Lord President of
the College of Justice. By this lady he had two sons and a daughter, of
whom David Hume was born, at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April, 1711.
The consideration of a distinguished lineage certainly imparted to
Hume’s heart a calm satisfaction and colored, though in the slightest
degree, his writings; but as he was deficient in sympathy with the
past, it could not infringe on his philosophic mind, perplex his
clear intelligence, or influence his serene judgment. The political
sentiments in which he was nurtured were destined to exercise a much
greater effect on his life and works. His father’s residence was
situated in a district where the lords of the soil were, with rare
exceptions, deeply tinged with Jacobite principles. Their interest and
inclination alike prompted an adherence to the cause of the ancient
line of kings; and at the very time when the future historian first
saw the light, the accession to power of a Tory ministry had conveyed
hope and animation to their breasts. Thus when he began to creep about
and lisp forth inarticulate sounds, complaints of real injuries and
imaginary insults sustained by his relatives since the Revolution
would greet his childish ears, and perhaps enter into his young soul.
In his fourth year, these restless worthies proposed to hold a public
meeting with a view of obtaining a redress of their grievances; but as
the authorities deemed that it might prove a cause of embarrassment
to the newly-established government, it was sternly interdicted,
and precautions were taken to repress any attempt to disobey the
official mandate. David’s fierce clansmen bit their gloves, shook their
heads, and vowed revenge. Several of them risked and lost all in the
insurrection of 1715; his chief and a near kinsman were committed to
the Castle of Edinburgh for their devotion to the house of Stuart;
and amidst scenes of tumult, disorder, and confiscation, the first
few years of Hume’s life passed over. Perhaps, indeed, to his brother
and himself having been minors at the time may be ascribed their not
having assumed the white cockade, and that the acres held for centuries
by their ancestors were not appropriated by some intriguing agent
for forfeited estates, or seized by a factor with few scruples of
conscience and sufficient dexterity in arithmetical mystification.
At an early age――indeed almost in infancy――Hume lost his father; and
his widowed mother, though young and handsome enough to have aspired
with success to a second husband, devoted her whole time and attention
to the rearing and education of her children. David soon began to
manifest an ardent love for his books. As a boy he was particularly
docile, well behaved, and attentive to his studies, without being
remarkable for the display of precocious talents. The family property
had, of course, gone to his elder brother; and as the portion of a
second son was not such as to encourage for a moment the idea of
passing his life without labor, he felt under the necessity of
bringing his abilities into active operation. With this view he was
sent to fit himself for exertion by completing his education at the
university of his native city, where he went through the usual academic
course with comparative credit and success.
His extraordinary ability at this period is beyond all question, for a
letter written to a youthful intimate at the age of sixteen proves that
his marvelous talent was then exhibiting itself. Having been fired with
that enthusiasm for literature which continued to be his ruling passion
and chief delight, he impressed his guardians with a high opinion of
his studious disposition; and they, taking into account his steadiness
of conduct and sobriety of demeanor, arrived at the conclusion, that
the Scottish bar would be a proper sphere for the exercise of that
intellectual industry of which he daily gave signal proofs. His tastes,
however, were rather unsuited to pursuing the profession successfully;
and he states that he was generally engaged in devouring Cicero and
Virgil while he was supposed to be occupied with the more practical
studies of Voet and Vinnius. At eighteen the law appeared utterly
nauseous to him, and his aversion to it as the business of life became
extreme. He pondered and reflected; he could think of no other method
to push his way in the world than as a scholar and philosopher, and
this prospect pleased him infinitely for a season; but his health
giving way under the pressure of severe mental application, a reaction
came, and his ardor quite expired. He abandoned all thoughts of the
law as a profession, and removed to the residence of his brother. The
change of air and scene had a beneficial influence, and the young
philosopher applied to the family doctor to restore his health and
spirits. The latter laughed at his patient’s imaginary ailments; but,
at the same time, accompanied his unwelcome raillery by the extremely
palatable advice to drink a pint of claret a day, and take plenty of
equestrian exercise. Hume attended to the prescription, daily swallowed
a proper quantity of the grateful beverage, and rode some ten or twelve
miles on horseback. Though caring little for rural pleasures, pursuits,
or recreations, he seems to have really enjoyed himself at this period:
he soon gathered strength from his exercise in the open air; and,
from being a tall, lean, and raw-boned lad, he passed to the other
extreme――his complexion became ruddy and his countenance cheerful. His
pursuits seem to have been diversified. He studied Latin, English,
French, and Italian. He read books of morality, and was captivated
with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy; and he
listened, not without gratification, to stories about the fortunes
of their race from some knightly clansman or old freeholder. The
traditionary lore and local associations were apparently, it must be
confessed, quite lost upon him: he was without local ambition; and
the scenes of his boyhood, when he has occasion to mention them, are
alluded to with the same cold dignity with which he writes of places
which he had never seen. His intellect was so severely original, that
it disdained to draw one particle of inspiration from buildings and
battle-plains which have since been invested with so pleasing a charm,
and made the subject of glowing verse. There is no sign of his having
viewed Norham Castle, Flodden Field, and Halidon Hill, or ridden
through “the rich Merse,” and perambulated the ancient capital of the
eastern marshes, or gazed on the “desolate grandeur” of Home, with
romantic enthusiasm, poetic perception, or provincial pride. While
accumulating information in regard to distant countries with industry
and rapidity, he altogether neglected or scorned the precious metals
which lay in his way; and while contemplating the perfections of Roman
poets, he had not a thought to spare to the Border ballad-makers, whose
verses Scott toiled to preserve and restore. He had therefore small
temptation to linger amidst the fields, meadows, and woods through
which he had roamed in his thoughtful childhood. He felt, indeed,
that such an expenditure of time was by no means in harmony with his
circumstances; and, believing that business and diversion would give
him peace of mind and relief from anxiety, he resolved to betake
himself to a more active life, and entered on a course, of all others,
at variance with his natural bent toward studious retirement and
philosophic reflection――that of commerce. In doing so, he confessed
that he could never wholly give up his pretensions in learning but with
his latest breath. He merely laid them aside for the time, with a view
of resuming them to greater advantage. In reality, he was actuated by
an ardent and consuming passion to achieve literary fame and found
a philosophical reputation when he formed his determination――a most
inauspicious frame of mind, assuredly, with which to enter upon the
harsh duties of mercantile existence!
About the beginning of March, 1734, Hume started for Bristol. He
visited London in his way, and then traveled onward. He had obtained
introductions to several leading merchants in the place; and on
reaching his destination established himself in the counting-house of
one of them, in the hope of forgetting the past, preparing for the
future, and enriching himself by commerce. But the petty cares, the
perpetual bustle, and the perennial annoyances of such a career, were
found, as might have been anticipated, utterly intolerable to a person
to whom legal studies had appeared irksome and unattractive; and, after
a few months’ trial, he relinquished his new situation, with all its
coarse, uncongenial duties, and those prospects of remuneration which
are so seldom realized.
Hume had already, according to his own statement, collected materials
for many volumes. He, therefore, passed over to France, with the
view of prosecuting his studies in some rural retreat. No doubt he
could have done so at the time-honored mansion of his fathers, but
circumstances had occurred since he left which rendered it impossible
to return there with any feeling of comfort; so he made a short stay
in Paris, and then repaired to Rheims, in the north of France, where
he spent some months in literary retirement. “I there,” he writes,
“laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued.
I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of
fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every
object as contemptible except the improvement of my talents in
literature.”
Having formed this wise and prudent determination, he removed to La
Flèche, in Anjou, where he prepared his “Treatise on Human Nature;”
and then he returned to London, to superintend the publication, and
endure the suspense. Being issued in 1738, the work, to use his own
expression, fell still-born from the press; though when subsequently
published in separate essays, it was a little more successful.
Having thus, at the age of twenty-seven, embarked and made an
inauspicious voyage on the uncertain sea of literature, Hume, without
even waiting to know the fate of his work――for which a publisher had
given the sum of fifty pounds――turned his face northward; and, perhaps,
with some slight regret that he had relinquished the profession of the
law, and deserted the merchant’s desk, sought the agreeable seclusion
of his family’s fair domain, which he found his brother laudably
occupied in improving and enhancing in value. Among its old trees,
pleasantly shading the gentle acclivity whence burst the nine fountains
which gave a name to the place, and with which the argent lion on his
ancestral shield was charged, Hume experienced so much satisfactory
enjoyment in “retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,” that, though
the ideas and tastes of his relatives could not have harmonized very
readily or easily with his own, he would, in all probability, had
other matters been equal, have chosen to pass his life there. But the
ambition for literary fame continued strongly to animate and influence
him; and his time was chiefly spent in grave reading, deep meditation,
in restoring his knowledge of the Greek language, and in corresponding,
among others, with his friend Henry Home, afterward celebrated as Lord
Kames.
Such was his position, when the last Marquis of Annandale, a Scottish
nobleman, whose eccentricity took the form of lunacy, having read some
of the hapless essays, was so charmed with something he saw in them,
that he conceived a passionate wish to obtain the services of the
learned author as his tutor. Hume was induced, by the temptation of an
ample salary, to accept the office of companion to this weak-minded
man, and had his temper severely tested in consequence. After holding
the luckless and invidious post for a year, during which the marquis
seems to have written a novel, relating to some events and love
affairs in his own life, Hume’s patience and placidity gave way, and,
throwing up the situation, he became candidate for the Professorship of
Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, which, although powerfully supported,
he was unable to obtain, on account of his well-known sentiments on
religious subjects.
Matters, however, ere long, began to assume a pleasanter aspect. An
honorable appointment, as private secretary to General St. Clair, uncle
of Lord-chancellor Loughborough, was almost immediately bestowed on
him, as if by way of solace for his depressing defeat. The General had
originally been destined for an important expedition to Canada, which
somehow ended――or, rather was metamorphosed――into an incursion on the
coast of France. On returning, Hume retreated to country quarters, and
wrote a defense of the expedition, which has since been printed; and
shortly afterward he accompanied General St. Clair on an embassy to the
courts of Turin and Vienna, in the double capacity of secretary and
aid-de-camp, wearing the uniform of an officer. His time, while in this
position, was passed agreeably, in good company, and with considerable
profit in a pecuniary point of view.
Meantime his “Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” being
the substance of his former work in a new shape, was published in
London, but with scarcely greater success than the original; any
interest it excited being merely of a temporary character. However,
his natural cheerfulness bore him up against his repeated literary
disappointments; and he returned to Scotland to delight his kinsfolk
and acquaintances with narrations of his adventures in lands beyond the
sea, and to digest the frustration of his hopes as well as he could.
Still resolute of purpose, he wrote, during a two-years’ retirement,
his “Political Discourses,” which were given to the world in 1752,
and excited interest and attention both at home and abroad. Indeed,
though in some measure overshadowed by the celebrated work which his
friend Adam Smith produced fourteen years later, they unfold and
enforce those views of economical science which are now recognized and
adopted, for better or for worse, by all English statesmen. Moreover,
they have, in the highest degree, the merit of originality; and their
style is so admirable, that they can be perused by general readers
at once with profit and pleasure. At the same time he composed his
“Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,” which, notwithstanding
his own high estimate of its comparative merits, was little noticed
or regarded. The former emanations of his great intellect were now
beginning to attract observation, and he was gratified by finding
that answers antagonistic to the views they maintained were gradually
appearing; but he discreetly formed the resolution of not being drawn
into controversy by such effusions, and inflexibly kept his purpose in
this respect.
Hume had now attained the age of forty, and, though there certainly
exists evidence which makes one suspect that he had not always proved
that rare impenetrability to female blandishments for which his
biographers have given him credit, there was, at this time of life,
small chance of his being betrayed into a matrimonial alliance. His
brother, therefore, aroused himself to the duty of transmitting the
name, and continuing the succession, and, in 1751, wedded the daughter
of a neighboring family. This country gentleman was a person of retired
habits; he had a strong aversion to every thing savoring, or even
having the appearance, of vanity; and he was so extremely prudent in
his actions, that, with the exception of his marriage, he never took
any step without having previously calculated the consequences to his
satisfaction. When the latter momentous event occurred, the philosopher
felt a natural longing to have a tenement of his own. His mother, whom
he describes as a woman of singular merit, and whom he had in her
lifetime treated with much filial kindness and affection, had been in
her grave for years; and he proposed “to take up house in Berwickshire”
with his sister; but duly weighing and deliberately considering the
matter, he came to the conclusion that a town was “the true scene
for a man of letters;” and, removing to Edinburgh, he exercised so
much frugality in disposing of his slender income that he was enabled
to live in comfort and contentment. Yet he was not, by any means,
parsimonious, and ever was ready, on fitting occasions, to prove his
generosity by charitable and beneficent actions.
The year 1752 was an important one in Hume’s life. He was then
appointed Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, after a severe and
spirited contest, in which, besides the junior members of the bar, his
chief allies were the ladies of “modern Athens,” who made strenuous
efforts and exerted their utmost fascinations in his behalf. When the
triumph was achieved he found himself in a most advantageous position
in regard to an excellent and well-stocked library, which fortunately
suggested to his brain the scheme of furnishing the world with a
classical history of England, then a serious desideratum in national
literature. “Being frightened,” he states in his autobiography, “with
the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen
hundred years, I commenced with the House of Stuart, an epoch where I
thought the misrepresentation of faction began chiefly to take place.”
When the first volume, recording the events in the reigns of James
I. and Charles I., was issued, in 1754, the effects of the author’s
earlier training were sufficiently apparent to kindle the wrath of one
party without flattering the prejudices of the other. Accordingly, it
was assailed by one cry of reproach and disapprobation; the sale was
quite inconsiderable, and almost the only token of encouragement worth
having came from the Primates of England and Ireland, who advised him
to take heart, and proceed in his undertaking. But, whatever may be
thought of Hume’s historic leanings and political sympathies, it must
be admitted that he acted courageously, conscientiously, and without
fishing for the favor of those who had in their hands all the patronage
and disposal of such places and rewards as he could have aspired to. He
followed what appeared to him the true and just course, notwithstanding
the storms to which he felt he would on that account be exposed; and
his genius, more potent than had been the swords of his insurgent
kinsmen, threw a wall of defense around the memory of the exiled race
which, with all its defects, succeeding writers, whatever their ability
and energy, have never been skillful and vigorous enough to scale or
break down. Nevertheless, the reception of his work inspired him with
feelings of such dislike for the British public, that he resolved upon
leaving the country, renouncing his name, and passing the remainder of
his days on the Continent; but a French war luckily put an end to his
scheme of self-expatriation, and he determined to persevere with his
laborious and ungrateful task. In 1756 his second volume appeared, and
proved not less obnoxious than the first; but by that he had, as he
says, “grown callous against the impressions of public folly.” It was
fortunate, in any case, that he did not succumb till the tyranny was
overpast. His victory was secure, slowly as it might approach.
He had already published the “Natural History of Religion,” which was
severely censured; and when the author had arrived at his fiftieth
year, his matchless and magnificent “History of England” was completed
in six volumes. His easy, elegant, and interesting style ere long
rendered the work highly popular. Hume was by universal consent,
placed on a lofty pedestal of fame; and, though its reception had
originally been so disheartening, the sum obtained for the copyright,
and for his former productions, together with his economical habits,
had made him not only independent but, as he considered it, opulent.
He, therefore, looked forward to passing the remainder of his days in
peace, and in his native land, congratulating himself on having never,
in his struggle for fortune, courted the smiles of any great man, or
treated the humble with discourtesy. He was, though plain and careless
in manner, eminently qualified, by his frank and social humor, to
enjoy the company of his chosen friends, with whom, in spite of their
wide differences of opinion on the most serious subjects, he was ever
on terms of affectionate intercourse and uninterrupted friendship.
Nevertheless, within two years, he consented to forego his cherished
plans, at the earnest and repeated solicitations of Lord Hertford,
who was going as Embassador to Paris. Thither Hume accompanied that
nobleman, and was shortly after appointed Secretary of Embassy. In
1765, when Lord Hertford departed to undertake the government of
Ireland, the historian remained in the French capital as Chargé
d’Affaires, and performed the functions pertaining to the office in a
manner highly creditable to his clearness of judgment, his talent for
business, and capacity for state affairs. In the gay and fashionable
circles of Paris his fame, station, and agreeable bearing, secured him
so hearty a welcome that ladies and princes, wits and philosophers,
vied in their attentions. It was there that, in an evil hour, he
consented, in a spirit of excessive amiability, to take under his wing
the frantic and erratic Rousseau, whose connection afterward involved
him in much trouble, and caused him infinite annoyance.
Hume returned to this country in 1766, and was, the next year appointed
Under-secretary of State for the department presided over by Marshal
Conway, an office which he retained for more than twelve months. His
annual income, the fruits of real industry, now amounted to a thousand
pounds a year; and, taking a house in the new town of Edinburgh, he
settled to spend his remaining days among his old and most attached
friends. For some time his peaceful existence was uninterrupted, but in
1766 his health became so precarious that he was under the necessity of
undertaking a journey to Bath, when he was attended by his friend and
remote relative, John Home, the author of “Douglas,” with whom he had
many a jocular debate about the correct orthography of their name, and
the comparative merits of port and claret. The illustrious historian
was fond of relieving his sinking spirits by a playful jest at the
expense of his clansman’s warlike propensities, and did not omit so
favorable an opportunity as that presented by the poet’s pistols being
handed, with much ceremony, into the traveling-carriage:
“You shall have your humor, John,” he said, “and shoot as many
highwaymen as you like; for,” he added, with as much melancholy,
perhaps, as a philosopher could well feel, “there’s too little life
left in me to be worth fighting about.”
It appears that the martial predilections alluded to were shortly
afterward gratified by a commission in the “Buccleuch Fencibles,”
though on this occasion they were not in requisition; unless, indeed,
to inspire the young soul of Walter Scott, who was then exercising
his precocious imagination at Bath, where he made the acquaintance of
the bard, soldier, and divine, whose fame his pen, more than fifty
years later, did something to extend and perpetuate. If the eye of the
great historian, from which the world and all its vanities were fast
vanishing, lighted on that lame boy, vigilantly guarded by a sarcastic
and high-spirited female, how little could he have supposed that there
was the being destined to invest with the charms of romance and the
glow of chivalry that old royal cause, which he had employed all his
wisdom and all his intellect to restore to public favor and render
permanently attractive!
Meantime the veteran philosopher and historian, deriving little or no
benefit from his visit to Bath, returned to die under his own roof. His
decline was gradual; and, to the last, his most ultimate associates
could not observe any diminution of gayety. He talked familiarly with
them during their calls, and alluded to his approaching dissolution in
a tone of whose levity even Dr. Smith, his most ardent admirer, could
not approve. Whatever twinges of doubt or dread in regard to the future
he might in his last hours experience, were encountered and borne with
the semblance of indifference and tranquillity. He could not, indeed,
feel the blessedness of those who have fought a good fight and kept
the faith; nor could he, like Addison, exclaim with hopeful and serene
resignation, “You see how a Christian can die:” but, five days before
his last, he wrote, “I see death approaching gradually without anxiety
or regret.” On the 25th of August, 1776, he breathed his last; and was
buried in a cemetery on the Calton Hill, where a monument to his memory
has since been erected.