Page images
PDF
EPUB

DAVID HUME.

THE celebrated David Hume, whose character is so deservedly high in the literary world, and whose works, both as a philosopher and as an historian, are so wonderfully replete with genius and entertainment, was, when I was at Turin, secretary to Sir John Sinclair, plenipotentiary from the court of Great Britain to his Sardinian majesty. He had then lately published those philosophical essays which have done so much mischief to mankind, by contributing to loosen the sacred bonds by which alone man can be restrained from rushing to his own destruction, and which are so intimately necessary to our nature, that a propensity to be bound by them, was apparently instilled into the human mind, by the allwise Creator as a balance against those passions which, though perhaps necessary as incitements to activity, must, without such control, inevitably have hurried us to our ruin. The world, however, unconscious of its danger, had greedily swallowed the bait; the essays were received with applause, read with delight, and their admired author was already, by public opinion, placed at the head of the dangerous school of sceptic philosophy.

With this extraordinary man I was intimately acquainted. He had kindly distinguished me from among a number of young men, who were then at the academy, and appeared so warmly attached to me, that it was apparent he not only intended to honour me with his friendship, bu

[blocks in formation]

to bestow on me what was, in his opinion, the first of all favours and benefits, by making me his convert and disciple.

Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume. The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skilful in that science pretend to discover the smallest trace of the faculties of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes were vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman, than of a refined philosopher. His speech, in English, was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable; so that wisdom, most certainly, never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb. Though now near fifty years old, he was healthy and strong; but his health and strength, far from being advantageous to his figure, instead of manly comeliness, had only the appearance of rusticity. His wearing a uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. Sinclair was a lieutenant-general, and was sent to the courts of Vienna and Turin, as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Austrians and Piedmontese. It was, therefore, thought necessary that his secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet.

Having thus given an account of his exterior, it is but fair that I should state my good opinion of his character. Of all the philosophers of his sect, none, I believe, ever joined more real benevolence to its mischievous principles than my friend Hume. His love to mankind was universal and vehement; and there was no service he would not cheerfully have done to his fellow creatures, excepting only that of suffering them to save their souls in their own way. He was tender-hearted, friendly, and charitable in the extreme, as will appear from a fact which I have from good authority. When a member of the university of Edinburgh, and in great want of money, having little or no paternal fortune, and the collegiate stipend being very inconsiderable, he had procured, through the interest of some friend, an office in the university, which was worth about forty pounds a year. On the day when he had received this good news, and just when he had got into his possession the patent or grant entitling him to his office, he was visited by his friend Blacklock, the poet, who is much better known by his poverty and blindness than by his genius. This poor man began a long descant on his misery, bewailing his want of sight, his large family of children, and his utter inability to provide for them, or even to procure them the necessaries of life. Hume, unable to bear his complaints, and destitute of money to assist him, ran instantly to his desk, took out the grant, and presented it to his miserable friend, who received it with exultation, and whose name was soon after, by Hume's interest, inserted instead of his

own.

After such a relation it is needless that I should say any more of his genuine philanthropy and generous beneficence; but the difficulty will now occur how a man endowed with such qualities could possibly consent to become the agent of so much mischief, as undoubtedly has been done to mankind by his writings; and this difficulty can only be solved by having some recourse to that universal passion which has, I fear, a much more general influence over all our actions than we are willing to confess. Pride, or vanity, joined to a sceptical turn of mind, and to an education which, though learned, rather sipped knowledge than drank it, was probably the ultimate cause of this singular phenomenon; and the desire of being placed at the head of a sect, whose tenets controverted and contradicted all received opinions, was too strong to be resisted by a man whose genius enabled him to find plausible arguments sufficient to persuade both himself and many others that his own opinions were true. A philosophical knight-errant, religion was the dragon he had vowed to vanquish, and he was careless or thoughtless of the consequences which might ensue from the achievement of the adventure to which he had pledged himself. He once professed himself the admirer of a young, most beautiful and accomplished lady at Turin, who only laughed at his passion. One day he addressed her in the usual commonplace strain, that he was abimé, anéanti.-" Oh! pour anéanti,” replied the lady, "ce n'est en effect qu' une opération très naturelle de votre système." **** In London, where he often did me the honour

to communicate the manuscripts of his additional essays, before their publication, I have sometimes, in the course of our intimacy, asked him whether he thought that, if his opinions were universally to take place, mankind would not be rendered more unhappy than they now were; and whether he did not suppose that the curb of religion was necessary to human nature? "The objections," answered he, " are not without weight; but error never can produce good, and truth ought to take place of all considerations." He never failed in the midst of any controversy to give its due praise to every thing tolerable that was either said or written against him. One day that he visited me in London, he came into my room laughing, and apparently well pleased. "What has put you into this good humour, Hume?" said I." Why, man," replied he, " I have just now had the best thing said to me I ever heard. I was complaining in a company, where I spent the morning, that I was very ill treated by the world, and that the censures passed upon me were hard and unreasonable. That I had written many volumes, throughout the whole of which there were but a few pages that contained any reprehensible matter; and yet, for those few pages, I was abused and torn to pieces."-"You put me in mind," said an honest fellow in the company, whose name I did not know, "of an acquaintance of mine, a notary public, who, having been condemned to be hanged for forgery, lamented the hardship of his case, that, after having written many thousand inoffensive sheets, he should be hanged for one line,"

« PreviousContinue »