Chapter XIV: 1765-1766. Æt. 54-55 (3)

[306:2] Madame de Boufflers seems to have early apprehended mischief from Walpole's letter. In the letter referred to, she says, "Je voudrois savoir si une lettre du Roy de Prusse qui court Paris est vraie ou fausse. On dit qu'elle est pleine d'ironie." She then proceeds to describe the letter. Hume in answer says, "I suppose, that by this time you have learned it was Horace Walpole who wrote the Prussian letter you mentioned to me. It is a strange inclination we have to be wits, preferably to every thing else. He is a very worthy man; he esteems and even admires Rousseau; yet he could not forbear, for the sake of a very indifferent joke, the turning him into ridicule, and saying harsh things against him. I am a little angry with him; and I hear you are a great deal: but the matter ought to be treated only as a piece of levity."--_Private Correspondence_, p. 130.

[307:1] Private Correspondence, p. 125-128.

[308:1] Private Correspondence, p. 131-132.

[309:1] The mark of interrogation is in the MS.

[309:2] Writing to the Marquise de Barbantane, he makes the following addition to this anecdote:--

"When the hour came, he told me, that he had changed his resolution, and would not go: 'for--what shall I do with Sultan?' That is the name of his dog. 'You must leave him behind,' said I. 'But the first person,' replied he, 'who opens the door, Sultan will run into the streets in search of me, and will be lost.' 'You must then,' said I, 'lock him up in your room, and put the key in your pocket.' This was accordingly done: but as we went down stairs, the dog howled and made a noise; his master turned back, and said he had not resolution to leave him in that condition; but I caught him in my arms and told him, that Mrs. Garrick had dismissed another company in order to make room for him; that the King and Queen were expecting to see him; and without a better reason than Sultan's impatience, it would be ridiculous to disappoint them. Partly by these reasons, and partly by force, I engaged him to proceed."--_Private Correspondence_, p. 144.

[310:1] MS. R.S.E.

[310:2] The word appears not to be used in its modern popular sense, but as meaning a person full of caprice.

[310:3] MS. R.S.E.

[311:1] In his narrative of the controversy, Hume says, "I wrote immediately to my friend Mr. John Stewart of Buckingham Street, that I had an affair to communicate to him, of so secret and delicate a nature, that I should not venture even to commit it to paper, but that he might learn the particulars of Mr. Elliot. . . . . Mr. Stewart was to look out for some honest and discreet farmer in his neighbourhood, who might be willing to lodge and board M. Rousseau and his gouvernante. . . . . It was not long before Mr. Stewart wrote me word he had found a situation, which he conceived might be agreeable," &c.

In confirmation of this narrative, there is the following letter in the MSS. R.S.E. Mr. Stewart is probably the "Jack Stewart," frequently alluded to in Hume's letters.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Mr. Elliot told me the affair you recommended
to him. Since his arrival I have tried every farmer in our
side of the country, and can find no proper place. Some have
not room, some hate foreigners, some don't chuse boarders, and
the major part of all are such beings as he could not live
with in any comfortable manner. There is an old Frenchman who
has been here since a child, and has a sort of a garden farm
at Fulham. To him I proposed the thing without mentioning
names, and to oblige me he will take such a boarder: but still
I could wish to find a place where he would be more agreeably
situated, for this man keeps only a single maid, eats very
plain, and his house is as dirty as a Frenchman's in France.
The farmer himself is about sixty years old, unmarried, a
cheerful honest creature, of a very obliging disposition.
Consider whether this will suit your purpose, or if I should
try in other counties. Adieu, my worthy good sir. Believe me
eternally, your devoted servant,

"J. STEWART."

[312:1] Blair had written on 24th February,--

"I received both your letters; and am exceedingly indebted to you for the many curious and entertaining anecdotes you gave me concerning Rousseau. They bestowed upon me somewhat of the same importance which you say your connexion with Rousseau himself bestowed upon you in Paris, by having so much information to give my friends from you concerning so extraordinary a personage. Your accounts pleased me the more, that they coincided very much with the idea I had always formed of the man--amiable but whimsical. Strong sensibilities joined with an oddly arranged understanding. He is a proof of what I always thought to be a possible mixture in human nature, one being a sceptic from the turn of their mind, and yet an enthusiast from the turn of their heart; for this I take to be his real character--a man floating betwixt doubts and feelings--betwixt scepticism and enthusiasm: leaning more to the latter than the former; his understanding strangely tinctured by both." He desires Hume to ask Rousseau, whether the principal scenes in his "Héloise" were not founded on real events.--MS. R.S.E.

[315:1] This anecdote is told in substantially the same manner to Madame de Boufflers, to whom its spirit would be doubtless far less incomprehensible than to Dr. Blair.--_See Private Correspondence_, p. 150.

[317:1] _Literary Gazette_, 1822, p. 731, corrected from original, MS. R.S.E.

[318:1] MS. R.S.E. Blair writes on 12th June:--

"Poor Jardine--I knew you would join with us in dropping very cordial tears over his memory. What pleasant hours have I passed with you and him. We have lost a most agreeable companion, as it was possible for any man to be, and a very useful man to us here, in all public affairs. I thought of you at the very first as one who would sensibly feel the blank he will make in our society, when you come again to join it. But when are you to come?"--MS. R.S.E.