Chapter V: 1745-1747. æt. 34-36 (1)

Hume's Residence with the Marquis of Annandale--His
Predecessor Colonel Forrester--Correspondence with Sir James
Johnstone and Mr. Sharp of Hoddam--Quarrel with Captain
Vincent--Estimate of his Conduct, and Inquiry into the
Circumstances in which he was placed--Appointed Secretary to
General St. Clair--Accompanies the expedition against the
Court of France as Judge-Advocate--Gives an Account of the
Attack on Port L'Orient--A tragic Incident.

Hume's history of his residence with the Marquis of Annandale, is given in the following brief terms, in his "own life." "In 1745, I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me to come and live with him in England: I found, also, that the friends and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it. I lived with him a twelvemonth. My appointments during that time made a considerable accession to my small fortune."

It might have been favourable perhaps to the dignity of his position in the world of letters, that this episode in his history had never been more fully narrated; for a philosopher conducting a litigation for £75 of arrears of salary, is apt to experience that diminution of respect in the eyes of the public, which the prince of Condé discovered that a hero suffered in those of his valet. Since, however, many statements have been given to the world, connected with that part of Hume's life, and many charges and countercharges among the persons connected with it are preserved, it is necessary to give such a brief view of the whole affair, as may enable the reader to estimate the respective merits of the parties in the dispute. A collection of documents on the subject was lately published by a gentleman to whom the literary history of Scotland is indebted for many other services;[171:1] and from his book the following statement is compiled.

The person with whom David Hume was thus connected was the last Marquis of Annandale, on whose death that title became dormant. On the 5th of March, 1748, he was found, on an inquest from the Court of Chancery in England, to be a lunatic, incapable of governing himself and managing his own affairs, and to have been so since 12th December, 1744, a few months anterior to Hume's engagement with him. The correspondence does not give the reader the notion of one reduced to so abject a mental state, but rather that of a man nervously timid and reserved; distrustful of himself and his ability to transact business with other people, but not quite incapable of managing his affairs, though exciteable, and liable to be driven into fits of passion by causes not susceptible of being anticipated. A party to the correspondence, talking of him as in an improved condition, says: "My Lord walked out with me lately two or three miles, received and returned the compliments of the hat of those we met, and without any shyness or reserve: and bears to stand by, and hear me talk with any farmer or countryman. This is a vast change for the better, and the greatest appearance that it will continue."[172:1] He appears to have been haunted by a spirit of literary ambition. Hume says in a letter to Lord Elibank, "I have copied out half a dozen of epigrams, which I hope will give you entertainment. The thought in them is indeed little inferior to that in the celebrated Epigrams of Rousseau; though the versification be not so correct. What a pity! I say this on account both of the author and myself; for I am afraid I must leave him." And on another occasion he alludes at length to a far more extensive literary achievement, a novel, which the excited Marquis had written, and which those about him had found it necessary to print, circulating a few copies, and advertising it in one newspaper to allay any suspicions in the author's mind that a thousand copies had not been printed. Hume says:

"You would certainly be a little surprised and vexed on receiving a printed copy of the novel, which was in hands when you left London. If I did not explain the mystery to you, I believe I told you, that I hoped that affair was entirely over, by my employing Lord Marchmont and Lord Bolingbroke's authority against publishing that novel; though you will readily suppose that neither of these two noble Lords ever perused it. This machine operated for six weeks; but the vanity of the author returned with redoubled force, fortified by suspicions, and increased by the delay. 'Pardie,' dit il, 'je crois que ces messieurs veulent être les seules Seigneurs d'Angleterre qui eussent de l'esprit. Mais je leur montrerai ce que le petit A---- peut faire aussi.' In short, we were obliged to print off thirty copies, to make him believe that we had printed a thousand, and that they were to be dispersed all over the kingdom.

"My Lady Marchioness will also receive a copy, and I am afraid it may give her a good deal of uneasiness, by reason of the story alluded to in the novel, and which she may imagine my Lord is resolved to bring to execution. Be so good, therefore, as to inform her, that I hope this affair is all over. I discovered, about a fortnight ago, that one of the papers sent to that damsel had been sent back by her under cover to his rival, Mr. M'----, and that she had plainly, by that step, sacrificed him to her other lover. This was real matter of fact, and I had the good fortune to convince him of it; so that his pride seems to have got the better of his passion, and he never talks of her at present."

The "novel" appears to have referred to some little event in its author's private history. If there be a copy of it now any where existing, it is to be feared that it wastes its fragrance on the desert air, as the existence of so choice a flower of literature, were it in the possession of any collector, could not fail to have been rumoured through the bibliographical world.

The Marquis had previously been attended by a succession of hired companions, of whom one was a man of considerable distinction, Colonel James Forrester,[174:1] a person who, in the Scottish society of the age, seems to have united some of the qualities of a Chesterfield to a like proportion of those of a Beau Fielding. He was the author of "The Polite Philosopher;" a lively little essay, sometimes published along with Chesterfield's "Advice," in which the author is so much at ease with his reader, that he discourses in prose or poetry as his own humour dictates. Johnson said, with reference to the man and the book, that "he was himself the great polite he drew;" and if it did not happen that his coxcombry excited the poor invalid's irritable nerves to distraction, he was probably an infinitely more suitable man for the office of companion to the Marquis of Annandale, than David Hume.

The overtures to Hume were made by the Marquis himself; who was, according to an expression used by Sir James Johnstone, when writing to Hume, "charmed with something contained in his Essays." The place of residence of the Marquis was Weldhall, near St. Alban's, in Hertfordshire. Hume had to go to London to make the anticipatory arrangements, and he commenced his companionship on 1st April, 1745. The insurrection, headed by Prince Charles Edward in Scotland, commenced four months afterwards; and there is perhaps nothing more curious in the whole dispute than the indifference with which this matter, fraught with so much importance to his countrymen, is spoken of by Hume; while there could not probably be a better answer to those who afterwards insinuated that he was a Jacobite, than an account of the manner in which his thoughts were occupied during that struggle. He occasionally complains that he is prevented from personally discussing, with the individuals interested, the matters he is writing about, on account of "the present unhappy troubles;" and the following portion of a letter to Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, the brother of the Marquis's stepfather, written immediately after he had left his attendance on the Marquis, is the only occasion in which he appears to show the least sympathy in the conflict or its results.

"_Portsmouth, June 6, 1746._

"DEAR SIR,--I have always sympathized very cordially with you, whenever I met with any of the names, wherein you was interested, in any of the public papers; but I hope that one of the persons is now safe by his escape, and the other protected by her sex and innocence.[176:1] We live not now in a time, when public crimes are supposed to cancel all private ties, or when the duties of relation, even though executed beyond the usual bounds, will render the persons criminal. I am willing, therefore, to flatter myself, that your anxiety must now be in a great measure over, and that a more happy conclusion of so calamitous an affair could not be expected, either for private individuals or for the public. Some little time ago, we had here a conversation with regard to L----, and other persons in her condition, when General St. Clair said, that he heard, from some of the ministers, that the intentions of the menaces, or even of the intended prosecutions (if they went so far,) were not to proceed to execution; but only to teach our countrywomen (many of whom had gone beyond all bounds) that their sex was no absolute protection to them, and that they were equally exposed to the law with the other sex. However, I doubt not but your friend has no occasion for their clemency, whatever may be the case with the other ladies in the same situation, who had particularly valued themselves upon their activity and courage."

It is now necessary to enter on a subject, which one feels a natural inclination to postpone, as long as the order of events will afford any excuse for looking at other things: the treatment Hume experienced in this his self-adopted slavery. He had to deal with a capricious unreasonable employer; to that he would, in the circumstances, philosophically reconcile himself. He states in one of his letters, that he lived with him "in a more equal way of complaisance and good humour than could well have been expected. Some little disgusts and humours could not be prevented, and never were proposed to be of any consequence." But he had another and a far more unpleasant person to deal with, in a certain Philip Vincent, a captain in the navy,[178:1] a relation of the Dowager-marchioness of Annandale. For some months matters appear to have gone smoothly with all concerned. The following letter to one of his esteemed friends, shows that Hume was consoling himself for the probable dissipation of his hopes of a professorship, by reflecting on his good fortune in being connected with so amiable and excellent a man as Captain Vincent:--

HUME _to_ MATTHEW SHARP _of Hoddam_.[178:2]

"MY DEAR SIR,--I am informed that such a popular clamour has been raised against me in Edinburgh, on account of scepticism, heterodoxy, and other hard names, which confound the ignorant, that my friends find some difficulty, in working out the point of my professorship, which once appeared so easy. Did I need a testimonial for my orthodoxy, I should certainly appeal to you; for you know that I always imitated Job's friends, and defended the cause of Providence when [you] attacked it, on account of the headachs you felt after a deba[uch.] But, as a more particular explication of that particular seems superfluous, I shall only apply to you for a renewal of your good offices with your nephew, Lord Tinwal,[179:1] whose interest with Yetts and Allan may be of service to me. There is no time to lose; so that I must beg you to be speedy in writing to him, or speaking to him on that head. A word to the wise. Even that is not necessary to a friend, such as I have always esteemed and found you to be.

"I live here very comfortably with the Marquis of Annandale, who, I suppose you have heard, sent me a letter of invitation, along with a bill of one hundred pounds, about two months ago. Every thing is much better than I expected, from the accounts I heard after I came to London; for the secrecy with which I stole away from Edinburgh, and which I thought necessary for preserving my interest there, kept me entirely ignorant of his situation.

"My lord never was in so good a way [before.] He has a regular family, honest servants, and every thing is managed genteelly and with economy. He has intrusted all his English affairs to a mighty honest friendly man, Captain Vincent, who is cousin-german to the Marchioness. And as my lord has now taken so strong a turn to solitude and repose, as he formerly had to company and agitation, 'tis to be hoped that his good parts and excellent dispositions may at last, being accompanied with more health and tranquillity, render him a comfort to his friends, if not an ornament to his country. As you live in the neighbourhood of the Marchioness, it may give her a pleasure to hear these particulars. I am,[180:1] &c.

"_Weldehall, near St. Albans_,

"_April 25, 1745._"

On the other hand, we find Captain Vincent, when he speaks of Hume, saying, "I think it very happy that he is with my lord, and still more so if he is constantly to remain with him, which I do not foresee but that he may; and I must do him the justice to say, that after having had time enough to weigh the temper, situation, and circumstances of the person he has to deal with, he very candidly owned that it was what he could cheerfully abide with." And again in August, "Mr. Hume is almost wholly taken up with our friend personally, so that he can scarce have the resource of amusement, or even of business, which is somewhat hard upon a man of erudition and letters, whom indeed I think very deserving and good natured; and whilst he can be his companion, there could not be a better made choice of." The captain, in other letters, speaks of Hume as "a very worthy and knowing man," and as "My friend Mr. Hume;" and seems at one time to have wished that an annuity of £100 a-year should be settled upon him, without reference to his continuance in his office, and in addition to the salary he might receive while he did so. But the dawn was soon afterwards overcast.

Hume, in the first place, disliked some of Captain Vincent's proposed arrangements, as to the disposal of the person of the Marquis, and seems to have soon suspected him of wishing to carry through designs which would materially affect the interest of some of the Marquis's relations. It is probable that a feeling of friendliness, or of duty, may have prompted him to interfere. It may be so, and he may in reality have done good; but the impression produced by the correspondence is, regret that Hume did not at once retire in lofty scorn from the scene of these paltry cabals.

Captain Vincent held a commission from the Marquis to "hire and dismiss servants," and perform other like functions. It was in virtue of this authority that he dealt with Hume; and he seems at first to have thought, that in the person of the philosopher he had met with a sort of superior and valuable member of the fraternity of upper-servants. Though Hume had then written the works on which a large portion of his European reputation was afterwards built, this man seems to have regarded his literary abilities as merely an enhancement of the qualities which suited him for his servile office. Looking upon himself as a member of the family, he appears to have had much the same disposition to admit that Hume's literary distinction put them on a par with each other, as he might have had to admit that the display of an unexpected degree of musical talent in the servants' hall would qualify one of its frequenters to be hail-fellow well met with him in the dining-room. Whether Hume was right or wrong in the suspicions he entertained of Vincent, the conduct of Vincent to Hume was brutal, and that on his own showing.

One of Hume's views, as to the proper treatment of the Marquis, was, that the isolation of Weldhall was unsuitable to his condition: that he should be in a a more cheerful residence, and one in other respects more suitable; and the dispute appears to have been for some time suspended on this peg. On the 31st October, Hume writes:--

"What is the mighty matter in dispute? Only about hiring a few carts to remove the family to another house, in order to quit this; which, for very good reasons, is infinitely disagreeable to your friend, very dangerous, will be uninhabitable for cold during the winter season, and costs £300 to £400 a-year, at least, to the family, more than is requisite." And afterwards he says of Vincent:--"He said, when he was here, that we shall live in this house till the lease was out, in spite of all opposition."

In the letter from which the preceding passage is taken, he says to Sir James Johnstone,--

"I must begin by complaining of you for having yoked me here with a man of the Captain's character, without giving me the least hint concerning it, if it was known to you, as, indeed, it is no secret to the world. You seemed satisfied with his conduct, and even praised him to me; which I am fully persuaded was the effect of your caution, not your conviction. However, I, who was altogether a stranger, entered into the family with so gross a prepossession. I found a man who took an infinite deal of pains for another, with the utmost professions both of disinterestedness and friendship to him and me; and I readily concluded that such a one must be either one of the best, or one of the worst of men. I can easily excuse myself for having judged at first on the favourable side; and must confess that, when light first began to break in upon me, I resisted it as I would a temptation of the devil. I thought it, however, proper to keep my eyes open for farther observation; till the strangest and most palpable facts, which I shall inform you of at meeting, put the matter out of all doubt to me.

"There is nothing he would be fonder of than to sow dissension betwixt my Lady and you, whom he hates and fears. He flatters, and caresses, and praises, and hates me also; and would be glad to chase me away, as doing me the honour, and, I hope, the justice of thinking me a person very unfit for his purposes. As he wants all manner of pretext from my conduct and behaviour, he has broken his word."

That these statements are not those of a secret foe emitting calumnies in the dark, is made clear by the concluding terms of the letter, in which the writer, instead of asking his correspondent to keep its contents secret--a very common clause when people, thrown much in each other's way, write about each other's conduct to third parties--says, "I wish you would bring this letter south with you, that, if you will allow it, I may show it to him,"--that is, to Vincent.

The excitement communicated to Hume's nerves on this occasion, is shown by the following short letter to Sir James, so much at variance with the usual character of his writings:--

"God forgive you, dear Sir, God forgive you, for neither coming to us, nor writing to us. The unaccountable, and, I may say, the inhuman treatment we meet with here, throws your friend into rage and fury, and me into the greatest melancholy. My only comfort is when I think of your arrival; but still I know not when I can propose to myself that satisfaction. I flatter myself you have received two short letters I wrote within this month; though the uncertainty of the post gives me apprehension. I must again entreat you to favour me with a short line, to let me know the time you can propose to be with us; for, if it be near, I shall wait with patience and with pleasure; if distant, I shall write you at length, that you and my Lady Marchioness may judge of our circumstances and situation.--I am, Dear Sir, yours, with great sincerity, D. H."

Unfortunately, the precise objects which the parties respectively desired to accomplish cannot be distinctly ascertained, as the letters generally refer to explanations which it will be necessary for the parties to make when they meet, because the troubled character of the times made private letters liable to be opened and inspected. Hume at the same time, being in the midst of a considerable retinue of servants under the control and management of his enemy, was in dread that spies were set on his motions. Thus he says to Sir James Johnstone,--

"I did write you the very first occasion after I came out thither. But I find my letters have great difficulty to reach you; for which reason I shall put this into the post-house myself, to prevent such practices as I suspect are used in this family. I have some reason also to think that spies are placed upon my most indifferent actions. I told you that I had had more conversation with one of the servants than was natural, and for what reason. Perhaps this fellow had the same privilege granted him as other spies, to rail against his employer, in order to draw in an unguarded man to be still more unguarded. But such practices, if real, (for I am not altogether certain,) can only turn to the confusion of those who use them. Where there is no arbitrary power, innocence must be safe; and if there be arbitrary power in this family, 'tis long since I knew I could not remain in it. What a scene is this for a man nourished in philosophy and polite letters to enter into, all of a sudden, and unprepared! But I can laugh, whatever happens; and the newness of such practices rather diverts me. At first they caused indignation and hatred; and even (though I am ashamed to confess it) melancholy and sorrow."

What a scene indeed!

The chief incidental light that can be thrown on the nature of the suspicions which Hume entertained of Vincent, is derived from the position of the person to whom the greater part of these letters were addressed--Sir James Johnstone, who has already been alluded to as a connexion of the Annandale family. His brother, Colonel John Johnstone, had married the Marchioness-dowager, the mother of the Marquis, and by her had three children. She was an heiress; and though the Scottish estates, following an entail, were destined to pass to another family, her own property would be inherited by the children of her second marriage, on the death of the Marquis. The accumulated rents of his estates, being movable property, would also be the subject of succession, different from that of the entail; and therefore the management of this property, during his imbecility, was a matter of much moment to some of his connexions. The public had ample opportunity of knowing the extent of these accumulated funds. They rose to the sum of £415,000, and were the subject of long litigation both in England and Scotland. The "Annandale cases" had a material effect in settling in Britain the important principle which had been previously adopted over the greater part of Europe, that the movable or personal estate of a deceased person must be distributed according to the law of the country where he had his domicile or permanent residence at the time of his death.

It is pretty evident that Vincent had certain family projects in view in connexion with the management of the estate, and that Hume wished to defeat them. Before the outbreak of the quarrel, the latter had written to Sir James:

"I shall endeavour to give you my opinion, which I am certain would be yours, were you to pass a day amongst us. I am sorry, therefore, to inform you, that nothing now remains but to take care of your friend's person, in the most decent and convenient manner; and, with regard to his fortune, to be attentive that the great superplus, which will remain after providing for these purposes, should be employed by my Lady and your nephews, as the true proprietors, for their honour and advantage."

Having written a civil letter to Vincent, stating that he desired the intervention of Sir James Johnstone, and that he believed, in the mean time, that the Marquis was satisfied with the engagement, and did not wish him to be dismissed, he thus hints to Sir James his suspicions of Vincent's views.

"I must own it was with excessive reluctance I wrote so softening and obliging a letter to this man; but as I knew that such a method of proceeding was conformable to your intentions, I thought it my duty to comply. However, I easily saw it would all be vain, and would only fortify him in his arrogance. Do you think that _the absolute possession of so ample a fortune_, to which this is the first requisite step, is a prize to be resigned for a few fair words or flattering professions? He deals too much in that bait himself ever to be caught with it by others.

"I think this is the last opportunity that will ever offer of retrieving the family and yourself (as far as you are concerned with the family,) from falling into absolute slavery to so odious a master. If, in the beginning, and while he is watched by jealous eyes, he can attempt such things, what will he not do when he has fixed his authority, and has no longer any inspector over him?

"'Tis lucky, therefore, that this, as it seems the last, is so good an opportunity. Nothing was ever so barefaced as his conduct. To quarrel with me, merely because I civilly supported a most reasonable project; to threaten me with his vengeance, if I opened my lips to you concerning your friend's affairs; to execute that threat, without a pretext, or without consulting you; these steps give us such advantages over him as must not be neglected.

"I hope you will not take it amiss, if I say, that your conduct, with regard to your friend, and to those who have at different times been about him, has all along been too gentle and cautious. I had considerably shaken the authority of this man (though I had no authority myself,) merely by my firmness and resolution. He now assumes more, when he observes your precautions.

"But, as I do not believe that, though your firmness may daunt him, it will ever engage him to loose hold of so fine a prize, it will be requisite to think of more effectual remedies. Happily there is time enough both to contrive and to execute. For, though he makes me the offer of present payment, (which I hope you observed,) in order to engage me to leave you presently, he shall not get rid of me so easily."

Hume appears, with a marvellous degree of self-restraint--marvellous in a man of independent spirit--to have felt that it was his duty not to be driven from his post by the insults of Vincent. He says to Sir James Johnstone, when apparently wearied out, "I fancy he must prevail at last; and I shall take care not to be a bone of contention betwixt you, unless you think I am the most advantageous piece of ground on which you can resist him." His opinion, that the interests of the other relations were concerned in his resisting Vincent's designs, is confirmed by the following letter, also addressed to Sir James Johnstone:--

"He [Vincent] desired you should intermeddle as little as possible in these affairs; adding, that he intended, by keeping my Lord's person and his English affairs in his own hands, to free my Lady from all slavery to you.

"Ever since, no entreaties, no threatenings have been spared to make me keep silence to you; to which my constant answer was, that I thought not that consistent with my duty. I told him freely, that I would lay all the foregoing reasons before you, when you came to London, and hoped you would prevail with him to alter his opinion. If not, we should all write, if you thought proper, to my Lady Marchioness, in order to have her determination. The endeavouring, then, to make me keep silence to you, was also to keep my Lady in the dark about such material points, since I could not have access to let her know the situation of our affairs, by any other means.

"He offered to let me leave your friend in the beginning of winter, if I pleased, provided I would make no opposition to his plan,--that is, would not inform you; for I was not capable of making any other opposition. He added, he would allow me my salary for the whole year, and that he would himself supply my place, leave his house in London, and live with your friend. Can all this pains be taken, merely for the difference betwixt one house and another?

"An evening or two before his departure from Weldehall, he offered me the continuance of the same friendship, which had always subsisted betwixt us, if I would promise not to open my lips to you about this matter.

"The morning of his departure, he burst out all of a sudden, when the subject was not talked of, into threatenings, and told me, that, if I ever entered upon this subject with you, I should repent it. He went out of the house presently, and these were almost his last words."

The circumstance of these "threatenings" is amply confirmed by a letter of Vincent himself, addressed to the Marchioness; an admirable specimen of the outpouring of a vulgar and insolent mind:--

"I will venture to say I have the knack of parrying and managing him, but that Mr. Hume, who is so extraordinarily well paid, only for his company, and lodged and lives, that, if it was at his own expense, he could not do it for £200 a-year, should be gloomy and inconsolable for want of society, and show, for this good while past, little or no sign of content or gratitude to me for all I have done, and the best intentions to serve him, and principally promoted his being in this station, and repeatedly offered to come out frequently during the winter and stay two or three days at a time, whilst he should be in town. I shall do so, but nowise in consideration to him, but out of tenderness and regard to our friend. Mr. Hume is a scholar, and I believe an honest man; but one of his best friends at Edinburgh at first wrote me, he had conversed more with books than the world, or any of the elegant part of it, chiefly owing to the narrowness of his fortune. He does not in this case seem to know his own interest, though I have long perceived it is what he mostly has a peculiar eye to. Hereafter I shall consider him no more than if I had never known him. Our friend in reality does not desire he should stay with him. I don't see his policy in offering to oppose my pleasure, and think it very wrong in him to mention his appealing to Sir James Johnstone. I dare say your ladyship thinks as I do, that it is unbecoming for me to be in a subservient state, in such a case, to any body. I am very zealously disposed to be accountable to you; both regard, civility, justice, long friendship and acquaintance, as well as near relationship, are all the motives in the world for it; and I hoped my being concerned would produce all possible good effects in your having constant, true, and satisfactory accounts, as well as that, in due time, those advantages in your own affairs might be accruing, which you are so justly entitled to, and which I have before declared to be one of the main ends to be accomplished, and which I believe you think I could effect better than another. It is not one of the most pleasing circumstances that, in the situation of our friend, it is an inlet to strangers, taken in by accident, to be too much acquainted with private family affairs. I certainly desire that Sir James and I should be in good correspondence, and I believe he is satisfied of that; but this man, taking it into his head to thwart my methods, and all to gratify his own desire of being near town in the winter forsooth, after the offer I have made of giving him relief sometimes, and as nothing will satisfy some dispositions, I shall, at the end of the year, close all accounts, in which there will be done what was never done before, a complete state of the receipt and the expense, and then very willingly desire to be excused from having any farther concern. Most certainly I would do every thing in my power to serve and oblige you; but if you desire the continuance of my care, please to write to Sir James to signify occasionally to Mr. Hume that the management is left to me, and not to a stranger, who, if he is not satisfied, is at his liberty to remove from such attendance."

This illustration of character would be incomplete without a passage in a subsequent letter, in which, after Hume had ceased to attend on the Marquis, Vincent characterizes the sort of person who would be a desirable successor.

"If any proper person is about him again whilst I am concerned, terms for their behaviour must be specified, and as they wax fat and are encouraged, they must be discreet enough and reasonable in their nature, so as not to kick. Such deportment would engage any good offices of mine, in favour of a worthy man, fit for the purpose, which, I confess, is very hard to find, and possibly my Lord will not care to have any body put upon him by way of terms of continuance."

That the iron of this bondage entered into his soul, is apparent in many passages of Hume's letters. He regretted that he had left independence in a humble home, for dependence in a lordly mansion: he regretted that he had been led to meddle with intrigues, in which a vulgar selfish man, who knew the world, was far more than a match for a profound philosopher. How wise it had been for him had he never deserted the humble prospects of an independent life, the following complaints, addressed to Lord Elibank, testify:--

"Meanwhile, I own to you, that my heart rebels against this unworthy treatment; and nothing but the prospect of depending entirely on you, and being independent of him, could make me submit to it. I have fifty resolutions about it. My loss, in ever hearkening to his treacherous professions, has been very great; but, as it is now irreparable, I must make the best of a bad bargain. I am proud to say that, as I am no plotter myself, I never suspect others to be such, till it be too late; and, having always lived independent, and in such a manner as that it never was any one's interest to profess false friendship to me, I am not sufficiently on my guard in this particular. . . . . My way of living is more melancholy than ever was submitted to by any human creature, who ever had any hopes or pretensions to any thing better; and if to confinement, solitude, and bad company, be also added these marks of disregard, . . . . I shall say nothing, but only that books, study, leisure, frugality, and independence, are a great deal better."

The filling up of the cup of his slights and injuries, and the termination of his servitude, is thus described by Hume; and one reads it with a feeling of relief, as an event long protracted, and for the occurrence of which the reader of the narrative is impatient. He says, writing to Sir James Johnstone, on 17th April, 1746,--

"You'll be surprised, perhaps, that I date my letters no longer from Weldehall; this happened from an accident, if our inconstancies and uncertainties can be called such.

"You may remember in what humour you saw your friend a day or two before you left us. He became gay and good-humoured afterwards, but more moderately than usual. After that, he returned to his former disposition. These revolutions, we have observed, are like the hot and cold fits of an ague: and, like them too, in proportion as the one is gentle, the other is violent. But the misfortune is, that this prejudice continued even after he seemed, in other respects, entirely recovered. So that, having tried all ways to bring him to good humour, by talking with him, absenting myself for some days, &c., I have at last been obliged yesterday to leave him. He is determined, he says, to live altogether alone; and I fancy, indeed, it must come to that. As far as I can judge, this caprice came from nobody, and no cause, except physical ones. The wonder only is, that it was so long a-coming."

There is a stroke of generosity in his thus attributing the impulse to physical causes, and not only abstaining from an accusation of his enemy, but expressly exempting him from all blame. The readers of the correspondence have not probably all seconded the charitable exemption; and the exulting tones in which Vincent speaks of the dismissal, foster the suspicion that he had paved the way for it. He says, on the 19th April,--

"This day was a fortnight, my Lord told Mr. Hume to be gone, and that in terms which I shall not repeat; the Monday following, the same directions were renewed in a very peremptory manner, attended with such expressions of resentment, that I advised Hume to go away the next day, which he did, the 8th; and on the 15th I went out thither, and had told my Lord before, that, if he could be reconciled to have him return, I was very willing to contribute towards it, which proposal was not in the least agreed to. . . . . Hume has not for many months stomached depending in any respect upon my decision, who was originally the cause of his being received at all, and had very great difficulty, long since and at different times, to get my Lord to bear him. He has mistaken the point; for there is nothing irritates his Lordship so much, as the thought of any one showing some tokens of authority, and looking on what he says as caprice, and of no consequence; and I really believe it is some such notion as this, which has produced so thorough an aversion."

There are two different views that may be taken of Hume's motives for not having at once resigned his appointment, at the very commencement of the train of indignities to which he was subjected. Whoever anticipates that a man who had tutored his mind by the rules of philosophy, and who lived an upright and independent life, may be actuated by some better views than those of mere pecuniary aggrandizement, will give him credit for having believed it to be his duty to watch over certain interests of the Annandale family at the sacrifice of his own feelings. Those who, strongly disapproving of his opinions as a philosopher, believe them to be therefore the dictate of a corrupted mind, will probably search for base and selfish motives; and will have little difficulty in identifying them with a pure love of gain, sufficiently strong to absorb all gentlemanly feeling and all spirit of independence. The favourable and charitable view admits of no direct demonstration on which an opponent could not be able to throw doubt; and, the circumstances being stated, each reader is left to form his own opinion.

There is one thing that Hume never attempts to conceal--his feeling that the situation was in a pecuniary point of view advantageous to him, and his consequent desire to preserve it for his own sake, so long as he could do so with honour. That it should be so is one of those inconsistencies often exhibited in fine geniuses, which ordinary men of the world find it difficult to appreciate. It frequently proceeds from this circumstance, that, not being acquainted with the ordinary beaten tracks towards wealth and independence, which other men so easily find; yet desiring the latter, although perhaps they care not for the former endowment, they lay hold with avidity on any guide that is likely to lead them, by however devious and unpleasant a path, to the desired object. Men whose minds are much occupied with abstract subjects, if they be poor and desire to be free of unpleasant obligations, are thus apt to grasp at trifling rights with a pertinacity which has the air of selfishness. They feel a timidness of their own ability to make way in a bustling active world; and, conscious that it would be vain to compete with hard-headed acute men of business in the enlargement of their fortune, treat with an undue importance any comparatively trifling claims and advantages; while the sagacious world, which sees before it so many more advantageous paths to the objects of men's secondary ambition, ridicules their much ado about nothing. It was Hume's first and chief desire to be independent. That if he had enjoyed a choice of means, to be the hired companion of the Marquis of Annandale would have been among the last on which he would have fixed, will easily be believed. But this occupation was the only method of gaining a livelihood that offered itself at the time; it was an honest one, and the disagreeable circumstances attending the means were overlooked in the desirableness of the end.

It is necessary, also, along with the account of Hume's efforts to gain a humble livelihood, to keep in mind the state of society in Scotland at that time. The union with England had introduced new habits of living, which made the means of the smaller aristocracy insufficient for the support of their younger children. On the other hand, England was jealous of Scottish rivalry in foreign trade: neither agriculture nor manufactures had made any considerable progress in Scotland; while Indian enterprise was in its infancy, and Scottish adventurers in the East had not yet found a Pactolus in the Ganges. At that period the gentleman-merchant, manufacturer, or money dealer; the civil engineer, architect, editor, or artist, were nearly unknown in Scotland. The only form in which a man poor and well born could retain the rank of a gentleman, if he did not follow one of the learned professions, was by obtaining a commission in the army, or a government civil appointment.[196:1]

Here ended the channels to subsistence along with gentility, and he who had none of these paths open to him, and had resolved to make an independent livelihood by his own talents or labour, had at once, as the German nobles frequently do in the present day, to abandon his rank, and become a shopkeeper or small farmer, probably with the intention of returning to the bosom of his former social circle when he had realized an independence, but more commonly ending his days with the consciousness that he was, in the words of Henry Hunt, "the first of a race of gentlemen who had become a tradesman." Any lawyer who pays attention to the statistics of the Scottish decisions in mercantile cases, during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, will have noticed how frequently it occurs that the younger sons of some good family are mentioned as fulfilling the humblest duties of village tradesmen.[197:1] The practice is now comparatively unknown. The well educated gentleman's son, if he be brought up to commerce, connects himself with those more liberal departments of it, in which he may reap the advantage of his education and training. To the practice which distinguished the period of depression above alluded to, aided perhaps by the spirit of clanship, we may owe the existence of so many aristocratic names among the humbler tradesmen in Scotland. In England the nomenclature of a city directory will as surely indicate the court and the tradesmen end of the town, as the Norman name used to indicate nobility and the Saxon vassalage. We do not find Edward Plantagenet keeping an oyster shop, or Henry Seymour cobbling shoes; but it would not be difficult to exemplify these humble occupations, in the regal names of a Robert Bruce or a James Stuart. In his essay on "The Parties of Great Britain," published in 1741, Hume alludes to the absence of a middle class in Scotland, where he says there are only "two ranks of men," "gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor: without any considerable number of the middling rank of men, which abounds more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other quarter of the world."[198:1]

The history of the miserable quarrels and intrigues connected with Hume's residence in the Annandale family, is a sad picture, not only of the position of the individual, but of his class,--the poor scholars, the servile drudges for bread. The modern literary labourer--or hack, as he is called by those who deem the word labourer too respectable to be employed on such an occasion--may look from the narrow bounds of his own independent home, with a feeling of sincere though not boastful superiority on David Hume, living in the splendid bondage of a peer's mansion. But in drawing the comparison on which the reflection rests, let him keep in view the state of literature and of society at that period, and ask where lay the hopes of the literary labourer? If he remained in the less conspicuous walks of learned industry, and became a divine or a teacher, there was before him the career of Parson Adams, taking his pot and pipe with the upper servants; or that of the threadbare tutor, subjected to the caprice and insolence of young men, who, if they do not happen to be endowed with a high tone of sentiment, must imbibe from all around them this feeling, that they are as far beyond the parallel of rank of their instructor, as the Brahmin is beyond that of the Pariah; or, thirdly, he might be the hired victim of a semi-maniac, whose few rays of remaining reason are but sufficient to indicate his own immeasurable superiority to the bought attendant of his humours. These were the resources of the man who distrusted the power of his own genius to soar into the higher flights of original literature; the man, who might perhaps be too conscientious, not to say also too timid, to throw the chance of his being able to meet his obligations to society and to perform his social duties, on the chance of his succeeding in the race for literary distinction.

But suppose the race run and gained, and the laurels on the victor's brow,--for what, then, has all been risked, all encountered? True, Hume himself became one of the distinguished few who gained both fame and fortune; but in the ordinary case, if the former were achieved, the latter did not follow; and in seeking the types of literary distinction in his age, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Johnson are the names that rise before us. Was the garden in which these flowers bloomed so genial that we would have others transplanted thither?

Let not, then, the considerate and charitable reader overlook all these palliations of the motives which may have induced a great man to humble himself and bear so much contumely. Let us suppose that he who reads this narrative is an editor of a newspaper, with a salary of say two or three hundred a-year; or that he writes articles for the periodicals, and neither in name nor in reality bound to any one, gets the fair price of his independent labour; or that he is a teacher in an active commercial academy, who, after the harassing labours of the day, can retire to the bosom of his own family, without fearing the frown or desiring the smile of any great man,--let him, if such should be his lot, indulge, in all its luxury, the consciousness of his superior independence and happier fate; but in looking from its elevation to David Hume, a bondman in the house of an insane lord, let compassion rather than contempt tinge his estimate of the illustrious victim's motives, and let him thank the better times, that with all the drudgery of his lot, its disappointed aspirations, and the bitterness of unavailing efforts to raise it to a higher and more justly-respected position in the eye of the world, have yet enabled him to quaff the sweet cup of independence.

Before entirely leaving the subject of Hume's connexion with the Marquis of Annandale, it is necessary to take a view of his conduct regarding a pecuniary dispute which arose out of the transaction. The terms of the agreement were very distinctly set forth by Captain Vincent in the following letter:--

"SIR,--You desire to have a letter from me, expressing all the conditions of the agreement concluded betwixt us, with regard to your living with the Marquis of Annandale. In compliance with so reasonable a request, I hereby acknowledge that, by virtue of powers committed to me by the said Marquis, and with the approbation and consent of his Lordship and Sir James Johnstone, I engaged that my Lord should pay you three hundred pounds sterling a-year, so long as you continued to live with him, beginning from the first of April, one thousand seven hundred and forty-five: also that the said Marquis, or his heirs, should be engaged to pay you, or your heirs, the sum of three hundred pounds, as one year's salary, even though the Marquis should happen to die any time in the first year of your attendance, or should embrace any new scheme or plan of life, which should make him choose that you should not continue to live out the first year with him. Another condition was, that, if you should, on your part, choose to leave the Marquis any time in the first or subsequent years, you should be free to do it; and that the Marquis should be bound to pay you your salary for the time you had attended him, and also the salary for that quarter in which you should leave him, in the same manner as if that quarter should be fully expired.

"These were the conditions of our agreement about the end of February last, on your first coming up to London for the purposes here mentioned, and which I have committed to writing for your satisfaction and security, this first day of September, at Weldehall, four miles south of St. Alban's, in the county of Hertford, and in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-five."

Vincent, in continuation, and for Hume's information, gives him a copy of the agreement, under which one of his predecessors in office, by name Peter Young, had been engaged; an agreement, containing terms rather more favourable to the stipendiary than those of which Hume had consented to accept. And he concludes,--

"You see the latter part of Mr. Young's agreement are more advantageous terms than the latter part of yours; but I have done as much as I thought reasonable and proper for me, and as much as you desired. I make no doubt but, in any contingency, all the Marquis's friends and relations, would be far from reducing your conditions less than that of others in the same case, as, in my opinion, and I dare believe in theirs, your character and conduct would rather entitle you to a preference."