HUME.

GREATLY distinguished as the people of Great Britain had ever been for their achievements in all the other walks of literature and science, it is certain that there never had appeared among them any historian of eminence before the middle of the eighteenth century. The country of Bacon, of Newton, of Locke, of Napierthe country of Milton, of Shakspeare, and Buchanan -of Dryden, Swift, Bolingbroke-had as yet nothing more to produce as the rival of ancient historical fame than the crude and partial annals of Buchanan, great only as a poet, and the far more classical and less prejudiced political Memoirs rather than 'History' of Clarendon. While Italy had her Davila and Guicciardini, and France her Thuanus (Du Thou), this island was nearly unknown for any native annals, and a Frenchman (Rapin de Thoyras) had provided the only History of England' which any one could find readable, nor in reading that could he affect to find pleasure. It was reserved for two natives of Scotland to remove such an unhappy peculiarity, and to place our fame in this important walk of literature upon a level with our eminence in all its other departments. Mr. Hume first entered the field; and though his is by no means the work on which the historical merit of the country mainly rests (for he had neither the impartiality nor the patience of the historical office), yet he is decidedly to be praised as having been the first to enter the field with the talents of a fine writer, and the habits of a philosophic inquirer. David Hume was born at Edinburgh, in April,

1711. He was the younger son of Mr. Hume of Ninewells, in the county of Berwick, and related to Earl Hume's, or Home's, family; his mother was the daughter of Sir David Falconer, Lord President, and niece of Lord Halkerston, one of the Judges of the Court of Session. His father dying soon after his birth, his guardians intended him for the bar; but he tells us that while "he was supposed to be poring over Voet and Vinning, he was secretly devouring the pages of Cicero and Virgil." He neglected Greek in his early years, and had to make up for this deficiency, with some labour, in after life.

The fortune of his father, to which his eldest brother Joseph succeeded, was inconsiderable; and his own portion being necessarily very small, it was deemed expedient, as he refused to be a lawyer, that he should exert himself in some other way to provide for his support. He was therefore sent to a mercantile house at Bristol, in 1734; but he found the drudgery of this employment intolerable, and he retired to Rheims, in the north of France, determined, while he prosecuted his favourite studies, to supply, by rigorous economy and a life of abstinence, the want of fortune. From Rheims he removed to La Flèche, in Anjou, and there wrote his Treatise on Human Nature.' It was published in 1737, and fell, as he says, still-born from the press. He afterwards distributed it into separate Essays,' which, with additions, he published in 1742, and it had more success.

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After his first publication he retired to his brother's house, and lived so happily there among his books that he afterwards says, in a letter to Dr. Robertson, that he should never have left it, had not his brother's marriage made a change in the family. Although he appears to have felt much more and much earlier than Robertson the love of literary fame, his first work having been published when he was only 26, while the History of Scotland' only appeared in the

author's 38th year, yet manifestly the same love of literary pursuits for their own sake, the desire of knowledge, the indulgence of a speculative turn, and meditating on the events of past times and on the systems of former inquirers, appears to have been the mainspring of both their movements; and Hume was happy in being allowed to gratify these strong propensities of his nature.

The last Marquess of Annandale was a person of weak intellect. Though neither insane nor idiotic, he required the company of a friend, as his imbecility excluded him from society, and he was not ill enough to require the care of a keeper. Mr. Hume, in 1745, accepted this situation, as a large salary was very naturally given to induce him. But after a year's residence, finding, as we see from the late publication of some querulous letters very little like his ordinary correspondence, that he could no longer submit to such a life, he left this occupation, and was fortunate enough to receive an invitation immediately after of a very different kind. It was to attend, as private secretary, General St. Clair (a relation of Lord Loughborough, and great-uncle of the late Lord Rosslyn), whose family has always been honourably distinguished by their love of literary society. The General was appointed to command an expedition, at first destined for the conquest of Canada, but afterwards very unwisely, and with no result any more than any rational design, diverted to the folly of making an incursion on the coast of France. The following year, 1747, he accompanied the General on his embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. This mission was of a military nature, and the philosopher tells us that he was not only Secretary, but Aide-de-camp, with two military men-Captain, afterwards General, Grant, and Sir Henry Erskine, afterwards a General officer also, and nephew of the Ambassador. These two years, 1746 and 1747, formed the only interruption ever

given to his studies; but they appear to have satisfied him in one important particular; for, "not only," he says, "I passed this period of time agreeably and in good company, but my appointments with frugality had made me reach a fortune which I called independent, though most of my friends were incited to smile when I said so; in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds."

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While he was at Turin, his 'Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding' was published in London. It was the Treatise on Human Nature' presented in a new form, and was not much more successful than its predecessor; but he nevertheless began to perceive symptoms of his books coming into notice; "for," says he, "I found, by Dr. Warburton's railing, that they are beginning to be esteemed in good company." Returning to Scotland, he again resided with his brother, and wrote his 'Political Discourses,' which were published in 1752, and immediately excited much attention. "The work was," he says, "well received both at home and abroad." But he published, the same year, the Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,' which "came," he says, "unnoticed and unobserved into the world:" though he adds, that "in his own opinion it is incomparably the best of all his writings, historical, philosophical, or literary." It is plain, then, that neither in their original forms of treatises, forms three times varied, nor when broken down into separate essays, did his metaphysical and theological speculations succeed so far as even to obtain any attention. This is the more surprising, that beside the great ingenuity and novelty of some theories which they contain, they are tinged throughout with an excessive scepticism upon all subjects of a religious nature, and upon some with an openly professed unbelief, which might have been expected to excite indignation, and so rescue the writings from neglect. The Essays, Moral and Metaphysical,' are

the form in which we now read these speculations, and a life of Hume which should not speak of their merits would be imperfect, as they certainly have long obtained the full share of celebrity which was at first denied them.

To refuse these well-known Essays the praise of great subtilty, much clever argument, some successful sarcasm, and very considerable originality, is impossible; but a love of singularity, an aversion to agree with other men, and particularly with the bulk of the people, prevails very manifestly throughout the work; and we may recollect that it is the author's earliest production, the Treatise on Human Nature,' which formed the basis of the whole, having been written before his six-and-twentieth year, at an age when the distinction of differing with the world, the boldness of attacking opinions held sacred by mankind at large, is apt to have most charms for vain and ambitious minds.

Accordingly, he finds all wrong in the opinions which men generally entertain, whether upon moral, metaphysical, or theological subjects, and he pushes his theories to an extreme point in almost every instance. Thus, that we only know the connection between events by their succession one to another in point of time, and that what we term causation, the relation of cause and effect, is really only the constant precedence of one event, act, or thing to another, is now admitted by all reasoners; and we owe to Mr. Hume the discovery, it may be well called, of this important truth. But he will not stop here: he must deny that there can be such a thing as one act, or event, or thing, causing another: he must hold that there can be no such thing as causation, no such thing as power; he must discard from our belief those ideas which all men in all ages have held so distinctly, and so universally, as to have given them names. specific appellations, in all languages. He denies all connection, all influcnce, all power, and holds it impossible