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and discrimination. In real life the novelist was shrewd and practical: he had early exhausted his vein of romance, and was an active man of business. In 1804 the government appointed him to the office of comptroller of taxes for Scotland, which entailed upon him considerable labour and drudgery, but was highly lucrative. In this situation, with a numerous family-Mr Mackenzie had married Miss Penuel Grant, daughter of Sir Ludovic Grant, of Grant-enjoying the society of his friends and his favourite sports of the field, writing occasionally on subjects of taste and literature-for, he said, 'the old stump would still occasionally send forth a few green shoots'-the Man of Feeling lived to the advanced age of eighty-six.

The first novel of Mackenzie is the best of his works, unless we except some of his short contributions to the Mirror and Lounger (as the tale of La Roche), which fully supported his fame. There is no regular story in the Man of Feeling; but the character of Harley, his purity of mind, and his bashfulness, caused by excessive delicacy, interest the reader, though it is very unlike real life. His adventures in London, the talk of club and park frequenters, his visit to bedlam, and his relief of the old soldier, Atkins, and his daughter, are partly formed on the affected sentimental style of the inferior romances, but evince a facility in moral and pathetic painting that was then only surpassed by Richardson. His humour is chaste and natural. The Man of the World has less of the discursive manner of Sterne, but the character of Sir Thomas Sindall-the Lovelace of the novel -seems forced and unnatural. His plots against the family of Annesly, and his attempted seduction of Lucy-shew a deliberate villainy and disregard of public opinion, which, considering his rank and position in the world, appears improbable. His death-bed sensibility and penitence are undoubtedly out of keeping with the rest of his character. The adventures of young Annesly among the Indians are interesting and romantic, and are described with much spirit; his narrative, indeed, is one of the freest and boldest of Mackenzie's sketches. Julia de Roubigné is still more melancholy than the Man of the World. It has no gorgeous descriptions or imaginative splendour to relieve the misery and desolation which overtake a group of innocent beings, whom for their virtues the reader would wish to see happy. It is worthy of remark that in this novel Mackenzie was one of the first to denounce the system of slave-labour in the West Indies.

Negro Servitude.

I have often been tempted to doubt whether there is not an error in the whole plan of negro servitude; and whether whites or creoles born in the West Indies, or perhaps cattle, after the manner of European husbandry, would not do the business better and cheaper than the slaves do. The money which the latter cost at first, the sickness-often owing to despondency of mind-to which they are liable after their arrival, and the proportion that die in consequence of it, make the machine, if it may be so called, of a plantation extremely expensive in its operations. In the list of slaves belonging to a wealthy planter, it would astonish you to see the number unfit for service, pining under disease, a burden on their master. I am only talking as a merchant; but as a man-good Heavens! when I think of the many thousands of my

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Harley sets out on his Journey-The Beggar and his Dog.

He had taken leave of his aunt on the eve of his

intended departure; but the good lady's affection for her nephew interrupted her sleep, and early as it was, next morning when Harley came down-stairs to set out, he found her in the parlour with a tear on her cheek, and her caudle-cup in her hand. She knew enough of physic to prescribe against going abroad of a morning with an empty stomach. She gave her blessing with the draught; her instructions she had delivered the night before. They consisted mostly of negatives; for London, in her idea, was so replete with temptations, that it needed the whole armour of her friendly cautions to repel their attacks.

Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this faithful fellow formerly. Harley's father had taken him up an orphan, and saved him from being cast on the parish; and he had ever since remained in the service of him and of his son.. Harley shook him by the hand as he passed, smiling, as if he had said: 'I will not weep.' He sprung hastily into the chaise that waited for him; Peter folded up the step. My dear master,' said he, shaking the solitary lock that hung on either side of his head, I have been told as how London is a sad place.' He was choked with the thought, and his benediction could not be heard. But add to its energy. it shall be heard, honest Peter! where these tears will

He walked out

In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed breakfasting; but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat a morsel. on the road, and gaining a little height, stood gazing on the quarter he had left. He looked for his wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills; they were lost in the distant clouds! He pencilled them on the clouds, and bade them farewell with a sigh!

He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst which the blue and the russet were the predominant. He had a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn; his knees-though he was no pilgrim-had worn the stuff of his breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which should have covered his feet and ankles. In his face, however, was the plump appearance of good-humour: he walked a good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.

'Our delicacies,' said Harley to himself, are fantastic: they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, while I have lost the most delightful dream in the world from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe.' The beggar had by this time come up, and, pulling off piece of hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too. It was impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both

unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him are not much cheated neither, who give a few halfpence before. The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth bless- for a prospect of happiness, which I have heard some ings without number; and, with a sort of smile on persons say is all a man can arrive at in this world. But his countenance, said to Harley, that if he wanted I must bid you good-day, sir; for I have three miles to his fortune told Harley turned his eye briskly walk before noon, to inform some boarding-school young on the beggar: it was an unpromising look for the ladies whether their husbands are to be peers of the subject of a prediction, and silenced the prophet imme-realm or captains in the army; a question which I diately. I would much rather learn,' said Harley, promised to answer them by that time.' what it is in your power to tell me your trade must be an entertaining one: sit down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself.'

'Master,' replied the beggar, 'I like your frankness much; God knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child; but there is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you call it, my profession: but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth. I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I never laid by, indeed; for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr Harley.' 'So,' said Harley, 'you seem to know me.' 'Ay, there are few. folks in the country that I don't know something of; how should I tell fortunes else?' 'True; but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say, and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade; but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new.'

'What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on 't: but I was brought to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and it went against my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a jail-fever at the time of the assizes being in the county where I lived; for I was always curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an esteem for. In the height of this fever, Mr Harley, the house where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground; I was carried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of my illness in a barn. I got the better of my disease, however, but I was so weak that I spat blood whenever I attempted to work. I had no relation living that I knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week when I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a settlement in any: thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr Harley. I told all my misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a halfpenny as they passed, did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble them with a long story. In short, I found that people do not care to give alms without some security for their money; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draft upon Heaven for those who choose to have their money placed to account there; so I changed my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to prophesy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way: folks will always listen when the tale is their own; and of many who say they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among servants and neighbours; and indeed people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose; they dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they wish to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerable good memory and some share of cunning, with the help of walking a-nights over heaths and churchyards, with this, and shewing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the sergeant of a marching regiment-and, by the way, he can steal too upon occasion-I make shift to pick up a livelihood. My trade, indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people

Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket: but Virtue bade him consider on whom he was going to bestow it. Virtue held back his arm; but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him: his fingers lost their compression; nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground, than the watchful cur-a trick he had been taught-snapped it up; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master.

The Death of Harley.

Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune had yet left me; I could not, therefore, but be sensibly concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom passed a day on which I did not make inquiry about him.

The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before, that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time past. I called next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence so welcome to me.

When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch, leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the attitude of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which commanded esteem; there was now something more-a gentle triumph in it. . . .

...

'There are some remembrances,' said Harley, 'which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends who redeem my opinion of mankind. I recollect with the tenderest emotion the scenes of pleasure I have passed among them; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own. I cannot think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is anything of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist; they are calledperhaps they are-weaknesses here; but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues.' He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them when the door opened, and his aunt appeared leading in Miss Walton. My dear,' says she, here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself.' I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat. If to know Miss Walton's goodness,' said he, 'be a title to deserve it, I have some claim.' She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs Margery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. I believe,' said he, from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery.' She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. I know,' said he, that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes which your kindness suggests, but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man is a privilege bestowed on few. I would endeavour to make it mine; nor do I think that I can ever

be better prepared for it than now; it is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach.' 'Those sentiments,' answered Miss Walton, are just; but your good sense, Mr Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the province of virtue, life is ennobled ; as such, it is to be desired. To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment.'

The subject began to overpower her. Harley lifted his eyes from the ground: There are,' said he, in a very low voice, there are attachments, Miss Walton.' His glance met hers. They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn. He paused some moments: 'I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it-it is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections.' He paused again. 'Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy. It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest. To love Miss Walton could not be a crime; if to declare it is one, the expiation will be made.' Her tears were now flowing without control. 'Let me entreat you,' said she, 'to have better hopes. Let not life be so indifferent to you, if my wishes can put any value on it. I will not pretend to misunderstand you I know your worth-I have known it long-I have esteemed it. What would you have me say? I have loved it as it deserved.' He seized her hand, a languid colour reddened his cheek, a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her it grew dim, it fixed, it closed. He sighed, and fell back on his seat. Miss Walton screamed at the sight. His aunt and the servants rushed into the room. They found them lying motionless together. His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them. With Miss Walton they succeeded, but Harley was gone for ever!

He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot near the grave of his mother. This is a weakness, but it is universally incident to humanity; it is at least a memorial for those who survive. For some, indeed, a slender memorial will serve; and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build their structures were it but on the paring of a nail.

He was buried in the place he had desired. It was shaded by an old tree, the only one in the churchyard, in which was a cavity worn by time. I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs. The last time we passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree; there was a branch of it that bent towards us, waving in the wind; he waved his hand, as if he mimicked its motion. There was something predictive in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things.

I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It is worth a thousand homilies; every noble feeling rises within me! Every beat of my heart awakens a virtue; but it will make you hate the world. No; there is such an air of gentleness around that I can hate nothing; but as to the world, I pity the men

of it.

HISTORIANS.

A spirit of philosophical inquiry and reflection, united to the graces of literary composition, can hardly be said to have been presented by any English historian before the appearance of that illustrious triumvirate Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. The early annalists of Britain recorded mere fables and superstitions, with a slight admixture of truth. The classic pen of Buchanan was

guided by party rancour, undignified by research. Even Milton, when he set himself to compose a history of his native country, included the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The history of the Long Parliament by May is a valuable fragment, and the works of Clarendon and Burnet are interesting though prejudiced pictures of the times. A taste for our national annals soon began to call for more extensive compilations; and in 1706 a Complete History of England was published, containing a collection of various works previous to the time of Charles I. and a continuation by White Kennet, bishop of Peterborough. M. Rapin, a French Protestant (1661-1725), who had come over to England with the Prince of Orange, and resided here several years, seems to have been interested in our affairs; for, on retiring to the Hague, he there composed a voluminous history of England, in French, which was speedily translated, and enjoyed great popularity. The work of Rapin is still considered valuable, and it possesses a property which no English author has yet been able to confer on a similar narration, that of impartiality; but it wants literary attrac tions. A more laborious, exact, and original historian appeared in THOMAS CARTE (1686-1754), who meditated a complete domestic or civil history of England, for which he had made large collections, encouraged by public subscriptions. His work was projected in 1743, and four years afterwards the first volume appeared. Unfortu nately, Carte made allusion to a case, which he said had come under his own observation, of a person who had been cured of the king's-evil by the Pretender, then in exile in France; and this Jacobite sally proved the ruin of his work. Subscribers withdrew their names, and the historian was 'left forlorn and abandoned amid his extensive collections.' A second and third volume, however, were published by the indefatigable collector, and a fourth, which he left incomplete, was published after his death. Carte was author also of a Life of the Duke of Ormond, remarkable for the fulness of its information, but disfigured by his Jacobite predilections.

The Roman History by NATHANIEL HOOKE (circa 1690–1763) also belongs to this period. It commences with the building of Rome, and is continued to the downfall of the commonwealth. Hooke was patronised by Pope-to whom he dedicated his first volume-and he produced a useful work, which still maintains its place. The first volume of this history was published in 1733, but the publication was not completed till 1771. Hooke wrote an Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marborough, usually termed an 'Apology,' for which the duchess is said to have given him £5000.

DR CONYERS MIDDLETON.

In 1741, DR CONYERS MIDDLETON (1683–1750), an English clergyman, and librarian of the public library at Cambridge, produced his historical Life of Cicero, in two volumes. Reviewing the whole of the celebrated orator's public career, and the principal transactions of his times-mixing up questions of philosophy, government, and politics with the details of biography, Middleton compiled a highly interesting work, full of varied and import ant information, and written with great care and

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taste. An admiration of the rounded style and flowing periods of Cicero seems to have produced in his biographer a desire to attain to similar excellence; and perhaps no author, prior to Johnson's great works, wrote English with the same careful finish and sustained dignity. The graces of Addison were wanting, but certainly no historical writings of the day were at all comparable to Middleton's memoir. One or two sentences from his summary of Cicero's character (of which Middleton was almost an idolater) will exemplify the author's style:

Character of Cicero.

He (Cicero) made a just distinction between bearing what we cannot help, and approving what we ought to condemn; and submitted, therefore, yet never consented to those usurpations; and when he was forced to comply with them, did it always with a reluctance that he expresses very keenly in his letters to his friends. But whenever that force was removed, and he was at liberty to pursue his principles and act without control, as in his consulship, in his province, and after Cæsar's death -the only periods of his life in which he was truly master of himself there we see him shining out in his genuine character of an excellent citizen, a great magistrate, a glorious patriot; there we could see the man who could declare of himself with truth, in an appeal to Atticus as to the best witness of his conscience, that he had always done the greatest services to his country when it was in his power; or when it was not, had never harboured a thought of it but what was divine. If we must needs compare him, therefore, with Cato, as some writers affect to do, it is certain that if Cato's virtue seem more splendid in theory, Cicero's will be found superior in practice; the one was romantic, the other was natural; the one drawn from the refinements of the schools, the other from nature and social life; the one always unsuccessful, often hurtful; the other always beneficial, often salutary to the republic.

To conclude: Cicero's death, though violent, cannot be called untimely, but was the proper end of such a life; which must also have been rendered less glorious if it had owed its preservation to Antony. It was, therefore, not only what he expected, but, in the circumstances to which he was reduced, what he seems even to have wished. For he, who before had been timid in dangers, and desponding in distress, yet, from the time of Cæsar's death, roused by the desperate state of the republic, assumed the fortitude of a hero; discarded all fear; despised all danger; and when he could not free his country from a tyranny, provoked the tyrants to take that life which he no longer cared to preserve. Thus, like a great actor on the stage, he reserved himself, as it were, for the last act; and after he had played his part with dignity, resolved to finish it with glory.

and lord privy seal, and a great favourite with Queen Caroline, which enabled him to become so thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the court. All the vices, coarseness, and dullness of that court he has described at length, and in some respects a more humiliating or disgusting picture has never been thrown open to the public gaze. Besides his Memoirs, Lord Hervey wrote occasional verses, and joined with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in endeavouring vainly to repel the envenomed shafts of Pope. He was a man of talent and energy, though contending with wretched health, drinking asses' milk, and rouging his countenance to conceal his ghastly appearance -all which personal infirmities, Pope mercilessly turned against him; but of moral or religious principle, or public honour, Hervey appears to have been wholly destitute. A few weeks before his death, we find him writing thus characteristically to Lady Mary: 'The last stages of an infirm life are filthy roads, and, like all other roads, I find the further one goes from the capital, the more tedious the miles grow, and the more rough and disagreeable the way. I know of no turnpikes, to mend them; medicine pretends to be such, but doctors who have the management of it, like the commissioners for most other turnpikes, seldom execute what they undertake; they only put the toll of the poor cheated passenger in their pockets, and leave every jolt at least as bad as they found it, if not worse." He died in 1743, aged forty-seven. Lady Hervey survived till 1768. A volume of her Letters was published in 1821, and does honour to her acuteness and literary acquirements.

Personal Traits of George II. and Queen Caroline.

Many ingredients concurred to form this reluctance in his majesty to bestowing. One was that, taking all his notions from a German measure, he thought every man who served him in England overpaid; another was, that while employments were vacant he saved the salary; but the most prevalent of all was his never having the least inclination to oblige. I do not believe there ever lived a man to whose temper benevolence was so absolutely a stranger. It was a sensation that, I dare say, never accompanied any one act of his power; so that whatever good he did was either extorted from him, or was the adventitious effect of some self-interested act of policy: consequently, if any seeming favour he conferred ever obliged the receiver, it must have been because the man on whom it fell was ignorant of the motives from which the giver bestowed. I remember Sir Robert Walpole saying once, in speaking to me of the king, that to talk with him of compassion, consideration of past services, charity, and bounty, was making use of words that with him had no meaning. ... I once heard him say he would much sooner forgive anybody that had So recently as 1848, appeared, edited from the murdered a man, than anybody that cut down one of original manuscript by Mr John Wilson Croker, his oaks; because an oak was so much longer growing Memoirs of the Reign of George II. from his to a useful size than a man, and consequently, one loss Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline-from would be sooner supplied than the other and one 1727 to 1737-by JOHN, LORD HERVEY. This work evening, after a horse had run away, and killed himis a valuable addition to our history of the Georgian self against an iron spike, poor Lady Suffolk saying period. It abounds in minute details drawn from it was very lucky the man who was upon him had personal observation; the characters are well and said: 'Yes, I am very lucky, truly pray, where is received no hurt, his majesty snapped her very short, painted and discriminated, and the style is plain, the luck? I have lost a good horse, and I have got a vigorous, and concise. Lord Hervey is well known booby of a groom still to keep.'... The queen, by as the Sporus of Pope, the husband of the beauti- long studying and long experience of his temper, knew ful Mary Lepell, celebrated by the poets, and as a how to instil her own sentiments-whilst she affected supple politician, though a good parliamentary to receive his majesty's; she could appear convinced debater, He was successively vice-chamberlain | whilst she was controverting, and obedient whilst she

LORD HERVEY.

was ruling; and by this means her dexterity and address Elizabeth and against the Stuarts; and master of made it impossible for anybody to persuade him what a style singularly fascinating, simple, and graceful, was truly his case-that whilst she was seemingly on the celebrated DAVID HUME left his philosophical every occasion giving up her opinion and her will to his, studies to embark in historical composition. This she was always in reality turning his opinion and bending eminent person was a native of Scotland, born of his will to hers. She managed this deified image as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, Home-the historian first spelt the name Humea good family, being the second son of Joseph kneeling and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god, laird of Ninewells, near Dunse, in Berwickshire, they received with the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which they had before instilled David was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April and regulated in private. And as these idols con- 1711. After attending the university of Edinsequently were only propitious to the favourites of the burgh, his friends were anxious that he should augurers, so nobody who had not tampered with our commence his study of the law, but a love of chief priestess ever received a favourable answer from our literature rendered him averse to this profession. god storms and thunder greeted every votary that An attempt was then made to establish him in entered the temple without her protection calms and business, and he was placed in a mercantile house sunshine those who obtained it. The king himself was in Bristol. This employment was found equally so little sensible of this being his case, that one day, uncongenial, and Hume removed to France, where enumerating the people who had governed this country he passed three years in literary study and retirein other reigns, he said Charles I. was governed by his wife, Charles II. by his mistresses, King James by his ment, living with the utmost frugality and care on priests, King William by his men, and Queen Anne by the small allowance made him by his family. He her women-favourites. His father, he added, had returned in 1737 to publish his first philosophical been governed by anybody that could get at him. And work, the Treatise on Human Nature, which at the end of this compendious history of our great appeared in January 1739, and which he acknowand wise monarchs, with a significant, satisfied, trium- ledges 'fell dead-born from the press.' A third phant air, he turned about, smiling, to one of his audi- part appeared in 1740; and in 1742 he produced tors, and asked him : And who do they say governs two volumes, entitled Essays, Moral and Philosenow?' Whether this is a true or a false story of the king, phical. Some of these miscellaneous productions I know not, but it was currently reported and generally are remarkable for research and discrimination, believed. She was at least seven or eight hours and for elegance of style. In 1745, he undertook tête-à-tête with the king every day, during which time the charge of the Marquis of Annandale, a young she was generally saying what she did not think, assenting nobleman of deranged mind; and in this humilito what she did not believe, and praising what she did not approve; for they were seldom of the same opinion, ating employment the philosopher continued about and he too fond of his own for her ever at first to dare a twelvemonth. He next made an unsuccessful to controvert it (Consilii quamvis egregii quod ipse non attempt to be appointed professor of moral philosafferret inimicus-An enemy to any counsel, however ophy in his native university, after which he fortuexcellent, which he himself had not suggested.'-Tacitus). nately obtained the situation of secretary to LieuShe used to give him her opinion as jugglers do a card, tenant-general St Clair, who was first appointed by changing it imperceptibly, and making him believe to the command of an expedition against Canada, he held the same with that he first pitched upon. But and afterwards ambassador to the courts of Vienna that which made these tête-à-têtes seem heaviest was and Turin. In the latter, Hume enjoyed conthat he neither liked reading nor being read to-unless genial and refined society. While at Turin he it was to sleep she was forced, like a spider, to spin cast anew, as he says, the first part of his Treatise out of her own bowels all the conversation with which on Human Nature, and it was published in London the fly was taken. However, to all this she submitted, under the title of an Inquiry concerning Human for the sake of power, and for the reputation of having it; for the vanity of being thought to possess what she Understanding. In this work he promulgated the desired was equal to the pleasure of the possession itself. theory of association, which excited much admirBut, either for the appearance or the reality, she knew ation for its simplicity and beauty. In 1751 he it was absolutely necessary to have interest in her produced his Inquiry concerning the Principles of husband, as she was sensible that interest was the Morals, which he considered as incomparably his measure by which people would always judge of her best work; and in the following year, having repower. Her every thought, word, and act therefore moved to Edinburgh, he published there his Polititended and was calculated to preserve her influence cal Discourses, the only work of Hume's which was there; to him she sacrificed her time, for him she at first successful. At this time, with a view to the mortified her inclination; she looked, spake, and promotion of his studies, he assumed gratuitously breathed but for him, like a weathercock to every the office of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, capricious blast of his uncertain temper, and governed and struck into the path of historical writing. In him-if such influence so gained can bear the name of government-by being as great a slave to him thus 1754 appeared the first volume of his History of ruled as any other wife could be to a man who ruled Great Britain, containing the reigns of James Í. her. For all the tedious hours she spent, then, in and Charles I. It was assailed by the Whigs with watching him whilst he slept, or the heavier task of unusual bitterness, and Hume was so disappointed, entertaining him whilst he was awake, her single con- partly from the attacks on him, and partly because solation was in reflecting she had power, and that people of the slow sale of the work, that he intended in coffee-houses and ruelles were saying she governed retiring to France, changing his name, and never this country, without knowing how dear the government more returning to his native_country. The breaking out of the war with France prevented this step, but we suspect the complacency of Hume and his love of Scotland would otherwise have frustrated his intention. A second volume of the history was published, with more success, in 1757; a third and fourth in 1759; and the last two in 1762. The work became highly popular; edition

of it cost her.

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DAVID HUMÈ.

Relying on the valuable collections of Carte; animated by a strong love of literary fame, which he avowed to be his ruling passion; desirous also of combating the popular prejudices in favour of

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