We pass on, however, without much delay from this branch of our task of criticism. The light-armed troops of wit and humour, powerful as they are at times to scatter the pompous columns of sanctimonious pretence, are seldom a perfectly safe auxiliary to the cause of sincere religion. They are Swiss, "who fight for any God or man." Wit has no time and no solicitude to make distinctions; and those who most enjoy its sallies are usually just as little inclined to do so. Hence it is constantly made to do a work its authors never intended; and Tartuffe and Hudibras are formed into standing arsenals of artillery against sincere profession no less than false. While the very connexion of ludicrous associations with even corruptions and spurious imitations of religion cannot be easily severed from religion in its purity and truth; the very language of hypocrisy and sincerity must, from the nature of the case, be the same; and the ridicule that is blended with that phraseology in its false, will adhere to it in its upright use. Men are uncon sciously betrayed to pass the shifting barrier that divides them. The warfare against hypocrisy becomes thus too often a discipline for the warfare against sincere belief; the laughter which derides superstition saps the bulwarks that defend against infidelity. Like the dragon fight of the knight in Schiller, the assailants are trained upon the false to attack the true. We are not sorry to see our man of pun and poesy safe out of this dangerous region. For Hood's gift as a poet of pure fancy-a dreamer in the visionary world of flowers and fairies, or in that ideal elder world of Greek mythological heroism near akin to it, the reader may be referred to those ethereal imaginings, "The Two Swans," "The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," "Lycus, the Centaur," "Hero and Leander" for Hood, too, has versified that immemorial tale. This brings us to his love verses, which have much of the delicate beauty of the early English school. The lines Withers. The following, too, have much feeling in their prettiness :— ་ T༠ "Still glides the gentle streamlet on, "Serene or ruffled by the storm, "The hue each fleeting globule wears, "So, love, however time may flow, Fresh hours pursuing those that flee, One constant image still shall show My tide of life is true to thee." Thomas Hood was the son of a bookseller-of the Mr. Hood whose name was usually entwined in bibliopolic matrimony with Verner-the firm of "Verner and Hood." He began as a probationer in the world of commerce, a clerk in a counting-house; and doubtless even then at times "penn'd a stanza when he should engross." His doom, however, was not to resemble that of his friend Charles Lamb in the continued drudgery of the desk; the young scribe's cheek began to pale, and his pulse to quicken; and he was sent for change of air to Scotland-to Dundee, where some relatives of his father's resided. At a later period, on his return to London, he was apprenticed to an engraver, where he learned the cunning of those droll etchings with which he was afterwards accustomed to adorn his publications. This too mechanic art did not long detain him from his early and abiding bent; and he became connected with the London Magazine, a periodical of high repute in those days through all the borders of Cockaigne. The public are familiar with his subsequent literary labours his "Comic Annuals," his "Whimsicalities," his "Up the Rhine" (that volume of irresistible humour), his "Tylney Hall," a fiction of the standard three-volume dimensions, and written with much power. The present volumes are, however, I never quaff'd of Hippocrene's stream, C. E. T. HUME'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE.* SECOND ARTICLE, THE life of Hume was one of much social enjoyment. When his pecuniary affairs had a little improved, he became a singularly happy man. "I was," says he, "ever more disposed to see the favourable than the unfavourable side of things-a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess than to be born to ten thousand a-year.' In our March number, we mentioned that within two years of his being appointed keeper of the Advocates' Library, he published the first volume of his "History of the House of Stuart ;" and in 1756, the second volume containing "The History of England, from the Death of Charles I. to the Revolution." We then endeavoured to show the origin of what we regard as some of the heresies in Hume's political creed, and we have little doubt, that had Hume commenced his studies with any earlier period of English history, he could not, with the same plausibility, have vindicated his notion of all power in the people being usurpations on the prerogative. The "History of the House of Stuart," was followed by that of "Tudor”—and the earlier part of the "History of England" was that which was last given to the public. It is in every respect the worst. The clamour against the "House of Tudor" was as great as that against his first volume. "The reign of Elizabeth," he says, "was particularly obnoxious." The volumes which relate the Anglo-Saxon story, and the fortunes of England, till the accession of Henry the Seventh, "met with tolerable, and but tolerable success.' The last volume was published in 1761-six years from the publication of the first. In the interval between the publication of the first and second volumes, appeared his "Natural History of Religion." The book was a failure but Hume's disappointment was, he says, lessened by the gratifying circumstance that it was answered by Hurd. In 1762, we find Hume speaking to his friends of the large sums given him for the copyright of the successive portions of his history; and he mentions the comfort of having set up a chaise. "I was become not only independent, but opulent. I retired to my native country, determined never to set foot out of it, and retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them." The plans of a literary man are as likely to be disturbed as those of any other, and Hume, though without solicitation on his part, was destined to be indebted to the great. In 1763, the Earl of Hertford, with whom Hume was not in the slightest degree acquainted, was sent as ambassador to Paris, and invited Hume to accompany him, holding out the expectation which was eventually realised, of Hume becoming secretary to the embassy. Hume declined the offer at first, but on its being repeated, suffered himself to be prevailed on. In 1765, Lord Hertford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Hume, was left for some months "chargé d'affaires." Hume's reception in Parisian society is mentioned by him with extravagant delight. His reputation had preceded him, and his entire freedom from affectation or pretence of any kind completed the charm. His works too were known by translationswere probably more read than in England-and certainly with greater sympathy. The admiration with which Hume had been regarded on the continent for some years, was, some short time before, pleasantly manifested to *The Life and Correspondence of David Hume, from the papers bequeathed by his nephew, Baron Hume, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and other original By John Hill Burton, Esquire, Advocate. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1846. sources. him by a correspondence with Madame de Boufflers, which was commenced by that lady, on reading his " History of the House of Stuart." The biographer of Hume guards us against confounding this lady, whose name was Hippolite de Saujon, Comtesse de Boufflers Rouvel, with the Marquise de. Boufflers Rémencourt, mother of the Count de Boufflers. Among the distinguishing circumstances one was, that Hume's correspondent was mistress of the Prince de Conti, while the other ornamented the court of Stanislaus Augustus, in the same recognized relation. On the dissolute state of society, which the fact of ladies in such relations being leaders of fashion, and received every where, implies, there can be but one opinion in these countries; but Mr. Burton well observes, that in judging of the individual, the feelings of the society in which life is passed, must be our standard. "There is," says he, "a great difference between those who act up to the standard of a low social system, and those who do the same acts in breach of a higher one. A Mahometan, with his harem in Constantinople, is inferior in his tone of morality to an English gentleman of good domestic conduct; but he is infinitely superior to an Englishman with his harem in Piccadilly.' Between Hume and this lady a correspondence commenced in 1761. Her first letter is amusing. "not "I am a woman," she says, old; and in spite of the frivolity and dissipation in which we all live here, there is scarcely a good book in any language that I have not read either in the original or in translations; and I assure you, monsieur, with a sincerity which you cannot suspect or distrust, that I have never met with any book which, in my judgment, combines so many perfections as yours." quaintance whatever with Hume; nor does it appear that they had one friend in common. A woman of genius can do any thing; and in the postscript to this first letter she invites him to Paris. Hume's replies to these letters are those of a man greatly gratified; but the correspondence soon languishes, and would probably have died away after the first expression of mutual admiration, if it were not that she became interested for Rousseau, and wrote to Hume about him at the same period that he was pressed on Hume's notice by another friend-the exiled Earl Marischal of Scotland, who was banished for the rebellion of 1715, and was then governor of Neufchatel. In 1715, he must have been a mere boy; and when he wrote to Hume, he had become a foreigner to such an extent as to find a difficulty in writing English. He was a singularly good-natured man, and he thought to have served both Hume and Rousseau by promoting the unfortunate acquaintance which was probably the most vexatious circumstance in all Hume's life. But to dwell on Rousseau now would be to anticipate. Hume arrived in France on the 14th of October, 1763. It is scarce surprising that he was received with great distinction. Of English literature, the French at the time absolutely knew nothing, except through the representations of Voltaire. Shakspeare, judged of by their canons of criticism, was a barbarian of some genius, considering his age and country. Milton was something, but not much better. In the literature of England, however, there was much of promise. The only admirable things that had been done were by Addison, whose drama of Cato atoned, by its studious regularity, for the insults offered by Shakspeare to all true taste, and whose Campaign was, in spite of its subject, recognized as a great national epic. This was likely to do, and it did Addison's rank in society was one of catch the fat philosopher. She then the reasons why his literary claims tells him what she thinks of Cromwell were freely admitted; and this same and Charles, and civil and religious li- feeling now operated favourably for berty; and again she returns to David Hume. That a great philosopher Hume every thing from whose pen should have been born in Edinburgh, shows him to be the perfect philosopher an obscure town, the name of which and statesman, an historian full of no one in Paris could pronounce or genius, an enlightened politician, and spell, was itself little short of a miraa genuine patriot. This letter was cle. That such a man should, in their written at a time when she had no ac- own walk, be able to take the lead of the Voltaires and Diderots, enhanced the wonder; and that he should appear in the best society as an equal, and not resting on any doubtful claims of literary merit-claims which might be as capriciously denied as admitted— was one of those things that could not often occur, and its occurrence was therefore the more readily greeted. Previous even to Hume's arrival in France, he had received several letters describing the actual adoration with which he seemed to be regarded by that strange people. Lord Elibank writes to him (May 11, 1763): "No author ever yet attained to that degree of reputation in his own lifetime that you are now in possession of at Paris." In a letter from Andrew Stuart to Sir William Johnstone (16th December, 1762), he says :— "Tell Hume he is so much worshipped here, that he must be void of all passions, if he does not immediately take post for Paris. In most houses where I am acquainted here, one of the first questions is, do you know Monsieur Hume, whom we all admire so much? I dined yesterday at Helvetius's, where this same Monsieur Hume interrupted our conversation very much." In a letter to Smith, Hume himself describes the honours he had received: "MY DEAR three days at Paris, and two at Fontainbleau, and have every where met with the most extraordinary honours, which the most exorbitant vanity could wish or desire. The compliments of dukes and marischals of France, and foreign ambassadors, go for nothing with me at present. I retain a relish for no kind of flattery but that which comes from the ladies. All the courtiers, who stood around when I was introduced to Madame de Pompadour, assured me that she was never heard to say so much to any man; and her brother, to whom she introduced me, But I forget already that I am to scorn all the civilities of men. However, even Madame Pompadour's civilities were, if possible, exceeded by those of the Duchesse de Choiseul, the wife of the favourite and prime minister, and one of the ladies of the most distinguished merit in France. Not contented with the many obliging SMITH-I have been * Some words obliterated. things she said to me on my first introduction, she sent to call me from the other end of the room, in order to repeat them, and to enter into a short conversation with me; and not contented with that, she sent the Danish ambassador after me, to assure me that what she said was not from politeness, but that she seriously desired to be in friendship and correspondence with me. There is not a courtier in France who would not have been transported with joy to have had the half of these obliging things said to him by either of these great ladies. But what may appear more extraordinary, both of them, as far as I could conjecture, have read with some care all my writings that have been translated into French-that is, almost all my writings. The king said nothing particular to me when I was introduced to him; and (can you imagine it?) I was become so silly as to be a little mortified by it, till they told me that he never says any thing to any body the first time he sees them. The Dauphin, as I am told from all hands, declares himself on every occasion very strongly in my favour; and many people assure me that I have reason to be proud of his judgment, even were he an individual. I have scarce seen any of the geniuses of Paris, who, I think, have in general great merit, as men of letters. But every body is forward to tell me the high panegyrics I receive from them; and you may believe that -t approbation which has procured me all these civilities from the courtiers. "I know you are ready to ask me, my dear friend, if all this does not make me very happy. No, I feel little or no difference. As this is the first letter I write to my friends at home, I have amused myself (and I hope I have amused you) by giving you a very abridged account of these transactions. But can I ever forget that it is the very same species that would scarce show me common civilities a few years ago at Edinburgh, who now receive me with such applauses at Paris ?" Hume's income was considerably increased by a pension procured for him by the interest of Lord Hertford; and the hope of becoming secretary to the embassy added to his comforts, as it gave the near expectation of a thousand a year additional, and— |