Chapter VII: 1748-1751. æt. 37-40 (2)

That your petitioners verily believe, that not many more have died from amongst them, under the administration of the said James Fraser, than actually die by the course of nature in places where physic is not at all known or practised; which will scarcely be credited in this sceptical and unbelieving age.

That all this harmony and good agreement betwixt your petitioners and the said James Fraser had lately been disturbed, to the great detriment of your petitioners and their once numerous families.

That the said James Fraser, associating himself with ---- Carey, surgeon, and William Guthrey, Esq. and other evil intentioned persons, not having the fear of God before their eyes, had given himself entirely up to the care of Dame PUBLIC, and had utterly neglected your petitioners.

That the lady above mentioned was of a most admirable CONSTITUTION, envied by all who had ever seen her or heard of her; and was only afflicted sometimes with vapours, and sometimes with a looseness or flux, which not being of the bloody kind, those about her were rather pleased with it.

That notwithstanding this, the said James Fraser uses all diligence and art to persuade the said lady that she is in the most desperate case imaginable, and that nothing will recover her but a medicine he has prepared, being a composition of _pulvis pyrius_,[310:1] along with a decoction of northern steel, and an infusion of southern _aqua sacra_ or holy water.

That the medicine, or rather poison, was at first wrapt up under a wafer marked Patriotism, but had since been attempted to be administrated without any cover or disguise.

That a dose of it had secretly been poured down the throat of the said Dame Public, while she was asleep, and had been attended with the most dismal symptoms, visibly heightening her vapours, and increasing her flux, and even producing some symptoms of the bloody kind; and had she not thrown it up with great violence, it had certainly proved fatal to her.

That the said James Fraser and his associates, now finding that the _Catholicon_ does not agree with the constitution of the said Dame, prescribed to her large doses of _Phillipiacum_, _Cottontium_,[310:2] and _Vandeputiana_,[310:3] in order to alter her constitution, and prepare her body for the reception of the said Catholicon.

That he had even been pleased to see Lovitium[310:4] applied to her, though known to be a virulent caustic, and really no better than a _lapis infernalis_.

That while the medicines Goveriacum and Trentuntium[311:1] were very violent, resembling sublimate of _high flown_ mercury, he also much approved of them, but since they were mollified by late operations, and made as innocent as mercurius dulcis, they were become his utter aversion.

That the said James Fraser, through his whole practice on the said Dame Public, entirely rejected all lenitives, soporifics, palliatives, &c. though approved of by the regular and graduate physicians, as Dr. Pelham, Dr. Fox, Dr. Pitt; and that he prescribed nothing but chemical salts and stimulating medicines, in which regimen none but quacks and empirics who had never taken their degrees will agree with him.

That your petitioners remember the story of an Irish servant to a physician, which seems fitted to the present purpose. The doctor bid Teague carry a potion to a patient, and tell him it was the most innocent in the world, and if it did him no good, could do him no harm. The footman obeys, but unluckily transposing a word, said, that if it did him no harm it could do him no good. And your petitioners are much afraid that the catholicon above mentioned is much of the same nature.

May it therefore please your worships to discharge the said
James Fraser from any farther attendance on the said Dame
Public, and to order him to return to the care and inspection
of your petitioners and their families.

The following is entitled, "True letter to Colonel Abercromby, to be first read."

"DEAR COLONEL,--Endeavour to make Fraser believe I am in earnest. If the thing takes, you may easily find somebody to personate Mr. Cockburn; and you may swear to the truth of the whole. To make it more probable, you may say that you suspect too much study has made me crazy; otherwise I had never thought of so foolish a thing.

"If there be any probability of succeeding, an advertisement, like that which is on the following page, may be put into any of the public papers--that is, if you think _que le jeu vaut la chandelle_.

"My compliments to Mrs. Abercromby. I hope some day to regain her good opinion. It shall be the great object of my ambition.

"Tell the Doctor I shall answer him sooner than he did me. He will assist you very well in any cheat or roguery: but do not attempt it, unless you think you can all be masters of your countenance. This is a note, not a letter. Yours sincerely.

"P.S. Read Fraser the letter, but do not put it into his hands; he will tear it. Show him first my other letter to you."

* * * * *

"ADVERTISEMENT.--Speedily will be published, price 1s. A letter to a certain turbulent Patriot in Westminster, from a friend in the country.

----_Et_ spargere voces
In vulgum ambiguas, et quærere conscius arma.--_Virgil._"

The following is the letter which, in pursuance of the arrangements for completing this complicated joke, Colonel Abercromby was to read to Fraser. Its tone of mock heroic will at once be detected, and indeed, when the spilling of the last drop of blood, "or of ink," is with so much simplicity made an alternative, it may be presumed that James Fraser was a very obtuse being, if he believed these protestations to be serious.

"DEAR SIR,--This will be delivered you by Mr. William Cockburn, a friend of mine, who travels to London for the first time. I have taken the opportunity to send up by him a manuscript, which I intend to have printed. I have ordered him first to read it to you; but not to trust it out of his hands. You can scarce be surprised that I treat Mr. Fraser so roughly in it. No man, who loves his country, can be a friend to that gentleman, considering his late as well as former behaviour. For if I be rightly informed, his conduct shows no more the spirit of submission and tranquillity than that of prudence and discretion; and if he goes on at this rate, you yourself will be obliged to renounce all connexion and friendship with him.

"I have been ill of late; and am very low at present from the loss of blood which they have drawn from me. My friends would hinder me from reading; but my books and my pen are my only comfort and occupation; and while I am master of a drop of blood or of ink, I will joyfully spill it in the cause of my country. I am, Dear Sir,

"Your most obedient humble servant."

"_Ninewells, Feb. 16th, 1751._"

In the following letter to Dr. Clephane, we find that the practical joke on James Fraser, which seems to have given a good deal of employment to the wits of a great philosopher, a learned physician, and a gallant colonel, is still a matter which Hume has very much at heart; while at the same time he seems to have been amusing himself with some other jocular effusions. The letter presents us with his first commemoration of the poetical genius of his friend, John Home, though it gives no forecast of the zeal with which he subsequently advocated his countryman's claims to originality and high genius. The dramatic critic will probably feel an interest in the light thrown on Hume's appreciation of Shakspere by the manner in which his name is connected with that of Racine.

HUME _to_ DR. CLEPHANE.

"_Ninewells, near Berwick, 18th February, 1751._

"DEAR DOCTOR,--I will not pay you so bad a compliment as to say I was not angry with you for neglecting me so long; that would be to suppose I was indifferent whether I had any share in your memory or friendship. However, since there is nothing in it but the old vice of indolence,

Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

Ed io anche sóno Pittore, as Correggio said; I am therefore resolved to forgive you, and to keep myself in a proper disposition for saying the Lord's prayer, whenever I shall find space enough for it.

"I must own I could not but think you excusable, even before you disarmed me by your submission and penitence; 'tis so common an artifice for provincials to hook on a correspondence with a Londoner, under pretext of friendship and regard, that a jealousy on that head is very pardonable in the latter. But I ought not to lie under that general suspicion; for the fashionable songs I cannot sing; the present or the expectant ministers I have no interest in; the old good books I have not yet all read or pondered sufficiently; and the current stories and _bon mots_, I would not repeat if I knew them. You see, therefore, that if I were not concerned about Dr. Clephane, I never should desire to hear from him, and consequently that a line of his would be equally acceptable whether it comes from London or Crookhaven.

"I have executed your desire and the Colonel's as well as I could, but have not, I believe, succeeded so well as last year: the subject, indeed, was exhausted, and the patient may justly, I fear, be esteemed incurable. I leave you to manage the matter as you best can: but I beg of you to conduct it, so as not to make a quarrel betwixt Fraser and me; he is an honest, good-humoured, friendly, pleasant fellow, (though, it must be confessed, a little turbulent and impetuous,) and I should be sorry to disoblige him. The Colonel would be heartily bit, if by this or any other means Fraser should be cured of his politics and patriotism; all his friends would lose a great deal of diversion, and certainly would not like him near so well, if he were more cool and reasonable, and moderate, and prudent. But these are vices he is in no manner of danger of. Is it likely that reason will prevail against nature, habit, company, education, and prejudice? I leave you to judge.

"But since I am in the humour of displaying my wit, I must tell you that lately, at an idle hour, I wrote a sheet called the Bellman's Petition: wherein (if I be not partial, which I certainly am,) there was some good pleasantry and satire. The Printers in Edinburgh refused to print it, (a good sign, you'll say, of _my_ prudence and discretion.) Mr. Mure, the member, has a copy of it; ask it of him if you meet with him, or bid the Colonel, who sees him every day at the house, ask it, and if you like it read it to the General, and then return it. I will not boast, for I have no manner of vanity; but when I think of the present dulness of London, I cannot forbear exclaiming,

Rome n'est pas dans Rome,
C'est par tout où je suis.

A namesake of mine has wrote a Tragedy, which he expects to come on this winter.[316:1] I have not seen it, but some people commend it much. 'Tis very likely to meet with success, and not to deserve it, for the author tells me, he is a great admirer of Shakspere, and never read Racine.

"When I take a second perusal of your letter, I find you resemble the Papists, who deal much in penitence, but neglect extremely _les bonnes oeuvres_. I asked you a question with regard to the plans of ancient buildings in Dr. Mead's collection.[316:2] Pray, are they authentic enough to be cited in a discourse of erudition and reasoning? have they never been published in any collection? and what are the proper terms in which I ought to cite them? I know you are a great proficient in the _virtu_, and consequently can resolve my doubts. This word I suppose you pretend to speak with an (e), which I own is an improvement: but admitting your orthography, you must naturally have a desire of doing a good-natured action, and instructing the ignorant.

"It appears to me that apothecaries bear the same relation to physicians, that priests do to philosophers; the ignorance of the former makes them positive, and dogmatical, and assuming, and enterprising, and pretending, and consequently much more taking with the people. Follow my example--let us not trouble ourselves about the matter; let the one stuff the beasts' guts with antimony, and the other their heads with divinity, what is that to us? according to the Greek proverb, they are no more, but as ες την αμιδα ενουρουντες.

"You may tell me, indeed, that I mistake the matter quite; that it is not your kindness for the people, which makes you concerned, but something else. In short, that if self-interest were not in the case, they might take clysters, and physic, and ipecacuanha, till they were tired of them. Now, dear Doctor, this mercenary way of thinking I never could have suspected you of, and am heartily ashamed to find you of such a temper.

"If you answer this any time within the twelve months 'tis sufficient, and I promise not to answer you next at less than six months' interval; and so, as the Germans say, je me recomante a fos ponnes craces. Yours, &c."

The "Bellman's Petition," more than once alluded to in Hume's letters, is a little jeu d'esprit, to which he seems to have attributed far more than its due importance. The clergy and schoolmasters of Scotland were then appealing to the legislature for an increase of their incomes; and in this production, Hume, in a sort of parody on the representation of these reverend and learned bodies, shows that bell-ringers have the same, or even greater claims on the liberality of the public. It is perhaps a little too like the original, of which it professes to be a parody; and though it has some wit, is deficient in the bitter ridicule, which Swift would have thrown into such an effort. The following are some passages:--

"That as your petitioners serve in the quality of grave-diggers, the great use and necessity of their order, in every well regulated commonwealth, has never yet been called in question by any reasoner; an advantage they possess above their brethren the reverend clergy.

"That their usefulness is as extensive as it is great, for even those who neglect religion or despise learning, must yet, some time or other, stand in need of the good offices of this grave and venerable order.

"That it seems impossible the landed gentry can oppose the interest of your petitioners; since, by securing so perfectly as they have hitherto done, the persons of the fathers and elder brothers of the foresaid gentry, your petitioners, next after the physicians, are the persons in the world, to whom the present proprietors of land are the most beholden.

"That, as your petitioners are but half ecclesiastics, it may be expected they will not be altogether unreasonable nor exorbitant in their demands.

"That the present poverty of your petitioners in this kingdom is a scandal to all religion; it being easy to prove, that a modern bellman is not more richly endowed than a primitive apostle, and consequently possesseth not the twentieth part of the revenues belonging to a presbyterian clergyman.

"That whatever freedom the profane scoffers, and free thinkers of the age, may use with our reverend brethren the clergy, the boldest of them tremble when they think of us; and that a simple reflection on us has reformed more lives than all the sermons in the world.

"That the instrumental music allotted to your petitioners, being the only music of that kind left in our truly reformed churches, is a necessary prelude to the vocal music of the schoolmaster and minister, and is by many esteemed equally significant and melodious.

"That your petitioners trust the honourable house will not despise them on account of the present meanness of their condition; for, having heard a learned man say that the cardinals, who are now princes, were once nothing but the parish curates of Rome, your petitioners, observing the same laudable measures to be now prosecuted, despair not of being, one day, on a level with the nobility and gentry of these realms."

The petition of which this is a specimen, is accompanied by a letter, signed "Zerubabel Macgilchrist, Bellman of Buckhaven;" who kindly says to the members of parliament he addresses, that the brother to whom is allotted "the comfortable task of doing you the last service in our power, shall do it so carefully, that you never shall find reason to complain of him."[319:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[272:1] "By the author of The Essays Moral and Political," 8vo. Printed for Andrew Millar. Hume's complaints about the obscurity of all his books anterior to the "Political Discourses" and the History, seem to be confirmed by the absence of this Edition in places where such books are expected to be found. It is not in The Advocates' or The Signet libraries in Edinburgh, nor is it to be found in the catalogues of the British Museum or Bodleyan. Did I not possess the book, I might have found it difficult to obtain an authenticated copy of the title-page. It is not mentioned in Watt's Bibliotheca; but it will be found correctly set forth in a German bibliographical work, infinitely superior to any we possess in this country, but unfortunately not completed. Adelung's Supplement to Jöchers Allgemeines Gelehrten Lexicon. It appears in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, list of books for April.

[273:1] "A Free Inquiry into the miraculous powers, which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church, from the earliest ages through several successive centuries," by Conyers Middleton, D.D. London, 1748-1749, 4to.

It was encountered by a perfect hurricane of controversial tracts, which fill all the book lists of the time.

[278:1] Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, sect. viii.

[283:1] This matter seems on another occasion to have passed under his own view. In the "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" he makes Philo say, "Strong and almost incontestable proofs may be traced over the whole earth, that every part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely covered with water. And though order were supposed inseparable from matter, and inherent in it, yet may matter be susceptible of many and great revolutions through the endless periods of eternal duration." That even Hume's argument makes allowance for miracles having some time or other existed, and that it can only be urged against this or that individual statement of an unnatural occurrence, is the weapon which Campbell wields with chief effect in his admirable dissertation.

[284:1] "Let us try how his manner of argument on this point can be applied to a particular instance. For this purpose I make the following supposition. I have lived for some years near a ferry. It consists with my knowledge that the passage boat has a thousand times crossed the river, and as many times returned safe. An unknown man, whom I have just now met, tells me in a serious manner that it is lost; and affirms, that he himself, standing on the bank, was a spectator of the scene; that he saw the passengers carried down the stream and the boat overwhelmed. No person, who is influenced in his judgment of things, not by philosophical subtleties, but by common sense, a much surer guide, will hesitate to declare, that in such a testimony I have probable evidence of the fact asserted."--Dissertation on Miracles, 46-47.

[285:1] Perhaps the earliest in date of these is, "An Essay on Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles," by William Adams, M.A. chaplain to the Bishop of Llandaff, 1751.

[285:2] Warburton says to Hurd, on 28th September, 1749,--"I am strongly tempted to have a stroke at Hume in passing. He is the author of a little book called 'Philosophical Essays;' in one part of which he argues against the being of a God, and in another (very needlessly you will say,) against the possibility of miracles. He has crowned the liberty of the press: and yet he has a considerable post under the government. I have a great mind to do justice on his arguments against miracles, which I think might be done in a few words. But does he deserve notice? Is he known among you? Pray answer these questions. For if his own weight keeps him down, I should be sorry to contribute to his advancement to any place but the pillory." Letters from a late Rev. prelate to one of his friends, 1808, p. 11.

[286:1] Sect. iii.

[287:1] Preliminary Dissertation, Note T.

[287:2] "Quandoque remeniscitur aliquis incipiens ab aliqua re, cujus memoratur, a quâ procedit ad alium triplici ratione. Quandoque quidem ratione similitudinis, sicut quando aliquis memoratur de Socrate, et per hoc, occurrit ei Plato, qui est similis ei in sapientia; quandoque vero ratione contrarietatis, sicut si aliquis memoretur Hectoris, et per hoc occurrit ei Achilles. Quandoque vero ratione propinquitatis cujuscunque, sicut cum aliquis memor est patris, et per hoc occurrit ei filius. Et eadem ratio est de quacunque alia propinquitate, vel societatis, vel loci, vel temporis, et propter hoc fit reminiscentia quia motus horum se invicem consequuntur."--_Aquinatis Comment. in Aristot. de Memoria et Remeniscentia_; _edit. Paris_, 1660, p. 64. The scope of Aquinas' remarks have more reference to mnemonics or artificial memory than to association. They explain how a man, remembering what he did yesterday, may pass to the remembrance of what he did the day before, &c.

[288:1] See Dr. Brown's commentary on the history of theories of association, in his thirty-fourth Lecture. Sir William Hamilton, the highest living authority on these subjects, while he thinks that Aristotle has not got justice for the extent to which he has anticipated Hume and others in relation to this matter, does not think there is the slightest ground for the charge of plagiarism, and observes to me that Coleridge's own remarks on association are merely an adaptation from the German of Maas.

[289:1] 8vo, printed for A. Millar. It is in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ list for November.

[289:2] See p. 136.

[290:1] _Babylonii maxime in vinum, et quæ ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi sunt._ Quint. Cur. lib. v. cap. 1.

[290:2] Plut. Symp. lib. i. quæst. 4.

[291:1] From the circumstances to be immediately stated regarding this event, it seems to have taken place while Hume was on his way back from Turin. In a search in _The Scots Magazine_, and other quarters where one might expect to find mention of the decease of a person in the rank of the lady of Ninewells, I have not been able to ascertain the precise date.

[293:1] Quarterly Review, xvi. 279.

[294:1] There is a traditional anecdote, to the effect that Mrs. Hume, expressing her opinion of her son David and his accomplishments, said, "Our Davie's a fine good-natured crater, but uncommon wake-minded." I have heard this adduced as a proof of the philosopher's gentle, passive nature, and the effect it had in stamping an impression of his character on one not capable of appreciating his genius. But the anecdote is not characteristic of either party, and arises out of the common mistake that Hume was all his life tame, phlegmatic, and unimpassioned. However much he had tutored himself to stoicism, and had succeeded in conquering the outward demonstrations of strong feelings, it will be seen in various documents quoted in these volumes, and in the incidents narrated, that he was a man of strong impulses, full of blood and nerve, and that, as in a high-mettled horse, his energies were regulated, not extinguished. No one who had the training of his youth could have escaped observing in him the workings of strong aspirations, and of a hardy resolute temper.

But Mrs. Hume was evidently an accomplished woman, worthy of the sympathy and respect of her distinguished son, and could not have failed to see and to appreciate from its earliest dawnings the originality and power of his intellect. Her portrait, which I have seen, represents a thin but pleasing countenance, expressive of great intellectual acuteness. Some verses, which a lady, who is her direct descendant, authenticates as being in her handwriting, are in the curious collection of autographs and illustrated portraits, in the possession of Mr. W. F. Watson, Prince's Street, Edinburgh. It has been supposed that they are the composition of David Hume himself; but the use of the Scottish language almost amounts to evidence against that supposition: he would as readily have walked the streets of Edinburgh in a kilt. The lines are called "Song.--Air, Mary's Dream," and begin--

What now avails the flowery dream,
That animates my youthful mind,
My Mary's vows are all a whim,
Her plighted troth as light as wind.

O Mary, dearer than the day
That cheers the nighted wanderer's ee,
Through ance-loved scenes I lonely stray,
But lovely Mary's far frae me.

What now avails the beachen grove,
Or willow in its cloak o' gray,
Those scenes 'twas sacred ance to love,
Now fills my heart in grief and wae.

O Mary, &c.

Perhaps this may be as good an opportunity as any other for the insertion of some lines, carefully preserved in the MSS. R.S.E., which are at least so far to the present purpose, that they give a pleasing idea of the social circle at Ninewells. They are addressed to a lady who had lived to see her grandchildren; which does not appear to have been the case with the mother of the historian, as her eldest son was not married till 1751. A dowager of an elder generation may have lived for some time at Ninewells during David Hume's youth, though he does not mention her: or there may have been some collateral member of the family, to whom the lines may have been addressed; for, in a series of extracts which I have obtained from the Kirk Session Records of Chirnside, I find that a David Home _in_ Ninewells, who cannot have been a lineal ancestor of the philosopher, had a numerous family baptized between 1691 and 1701. The lines are entitled "Miss A. B. to Mrs. H. by her Black Boy;" and however the genealogical questions, we have just been considering, may stand, their intrinsic merit, as embodying a beautiful and humane sentiment, entitle them to notice.--Query, is it to this alone, or to some extrinsic interest attached to Miss A. B. that we are to attribute the careful preservation of the lines by Hume?

Condemn'd in infancy a slave to roam,
Far far from India's shore, my native home,
To serve a Caledonian maid I come--
In me no father does his darling mourn--
No mother weeps me from her bosom torn--
Both grew to dust, they say to earth below;
But who those were, alas, I ne'er shall know.
Lady, to thee her love my mistress sends,
And bids thy grandsons be Ferdnando's friends.
Bids thee suppose, on Afric's distant coast,
One of those lily-coloured favourites lost;
Doom'd in the train of some proud dame to wait,
A slave, as she should will, for use or state.
If to the boy you'd wish her to be kind,
Such grace from you let Ferdinando find.

[296:1] Hom. Il. λ. 515. A medical man is equal in value to many other men. Or, as Pope has it,

A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.

[297:1]

----ubi non et multa supersunt,
Et dominum fallunt, et prosunt furibus.

Hor. epist. i. 6, 45.

[298:1] See this passage nearly verbatim in the "Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations," (Works, edit. 1826, p. 483.) Much light has of course been subsequently thrown on this matter by the investigations in Pompeii, and other places.

[298:2] London was kept in much excitement, during the year 1750, by repeated shocks of earthquake. Horace Walpole says, on 11th March, "In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last, (exactly a month since the first shock,) the earth had a shivering fit between one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dosed again. On a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head: I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses. In an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up, and found people running into the streets; but saw no mischief done. There has been some: two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china ware."--Letters to Sir H. Man, ii. 349.

"Dick Leveson and Mr. Rigby, who had supped and staid late at Bedford House, the other night, knocked at several doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, 'Past four o'clock, and a dreadful earthquake.'"--Ib. 354.

[299:1] "There has been a shower of sermons and exhortations. Secker, the jesuitical Bishop of Oxford, begun the mode. He heard the women were all going out of town to avoid the next shock: and so, for fear of losing his Easter offerings, he set himself to advise them to wait God's good pleasure, in fear and trembling. But, what is more astonishing, Sherlock, [Bishop of London,] who has much better sense, and much less of the popish confessor, has been running a race with him for the old ladies, and has written a Pastoral Letter, of which ten thousand were sold in two days, and fifty thousand have been subscribed for since the two first editions."--Ib. 353.

[300:1] A second edition of the "Essays concerning Human Understanding," was published by Millar in 1751, with the author's name. One of these essays, which, in the first edition, had the title, "Of the Practical Consequences of Natural Religion," but, in the second, received a much less appropriate title, and one likely to make its tenor, as applicable to the reasonings of philosophers anterior to Christianity, be misunderstood. It was called, "Of a Particular Providence, and Future State."

[300:2] Colonel Abercromby. See above, p. 222.

[300:3] Colonel Edmonstoune.

[301:1] Probably "The Bellman's Petition," mentioned p. 317.

[301:2] From the original at Kilravock.

[304:1] Memorials of Oswald, p. 65.

[304:2] Two vols. 8vo, Hamilton and Balfour. The productions of the Scottish press, in the middle period of last century, deserve to be looked back upon with respect; and the excellence of its matter at that time, will go far to balance its present fertility. It was not only as a vehicle of native genius, that it was respectable. Besides the eminent editions of the classics by the Ruddimans and the Foulises, it supplied handsome editions of celebrated foreign works; a sure indication that it was surrounded by a large class of well educated readers.

[306:1] The following placard is, in the circumstances, a master-stroke in its simplicity and ingenuity.

"AUX ELECTEURS TRÈS DIGNES DE WESTMINSTER.

"MESSIEURS,--Vos suffrages et interêts sont desirés pour Le
Très Hon. mi Lord TRENTHAM, un VÉRITABLE Anglois.

"N. B.--L'on prie ses Amis de ses rendre a l'hôtel François
dans le Marché au Foin."

The following acrostic is a specimen of the poetic lucubrations of the Vandeput party:--

"T ruant to thy promis'd trust;
R ebel daring where thou durst,
E ager to promote French strollers,
N one but poltroons are thy pollers.

T ribes of nose-led clerks and placemen,
H ackney voters, (bribes disgrace men,)
A ll forswear, through thick and thin,
M eanness theirs, but thine the sin."

This election gave birth to some incidents apparently trifling, which yet make a material figure in British history, from their connexion with the vindication of the privileges of the House of Commons. The Honourable Alexander Murray, brother of Lord Elibank, a gentleman who will probably be again called up in a future part of these pages, was charged along with Mr. Crowle, an attorney, and another person, with the use of "threatening and affronting expressions," by the high bailiff. They were brought before the bar of the House, and after some discussion and inquiry, Crowle confessed, was submissive, received the usual reprimand on his knees, and wiped them when he rose, saying, it was "the dirtiest house he had ever been in." Murray denied the charge, and resisted the House, "smiled," as Walpole says, "when he was taxed with having called Lord Trentham and the high bailiff, rascals," and, finally, refused to kneel, saying, "Sir, I beg to be excused, I never kneel but to God." Then followed imprisonment, and embarrassing questions about the prisoner's health, which, sinking under his self-inflicted imprisonment, reproached those who could not turn back on the course they had taken; the whole being rendered more complex by the difficulty of finding a guiding rule in the precedents of the House, until parliament was adjourned; and he left Newgate in a triumphant procession, proclaiming the device of "Murray and Liberty."

[307:1] Viz. in a volume of broadsides and other documents, in the possession of James Maidment, Esq. of which the pieces in the preceding note are specimens. To show how such inquiries are beset by tantalizing coincidences, there are two James Frasers mentioned on the Trentham side, one of them having after his name on a printed list of voters, the significant MS. notandum, "Don't pay."

[307:2] P. 223.

[308:1] A gentleman of the same name connected with the Lovat family, was for some time an apothecary in London, where he lived "the life of a genuine London bachelor;" he was a keen Jacobite, and died about 1760. _Note communicated by Captain Fraser, Knockie_, who also mentions another James Fraser, who was commissioner of the navy during the revolutionary war, and settled in London in 1781; but this appears to have been a person of a later generation than Hume's friend.

[310:1] Gunpowder.

[310:2] In allusion, probably, to Sir John Hynd Cotton.

[310:3] In allusion to Sir George Vandeput.

[310:4] In allusion, probably, to Fraser's own family.

[311:1] Earl Gower, and his son Lord Trentham.

[316:1] Probably "Agis," which appears to have been written before "Douglas."

[316:2] See above, p. 298.

[319:1] Printed sheet in the possession of James Maidment, Esq. "The Bellman's Petition," has been reprinted in a curious collection of scraps, called "A Scots Haggis," the editor of which does not however appear to have known that Hume was the author of this piece.