Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/41

Rh friends writing to, of, or for friends, may be thought partiall, as countreymen and friends. The vertuous may be deemed to be partiall towards the vertuous, and the godly towards the godly and religious: all writers have some such respect, which is a kind of partiality. I do not refuse to be thought to have some, or all of these respects, and I hope none wil think I do amisse in having them. Pleasing of men, I am so farre from shunning of it, that it is my chief end and scope: but let it please them to be pleased with vertue, otherwise they shal find nothing here to please them. If thou findest any thing here besides, blame me boldly; and why should any be displeased that wil be pleased with it ? would to God I could so please the world, I should never displease any. But if either of these (partiality or desire to please) carry me besides the truth, then shal I confesse my self guilty, and esteem these as great faults, as it is faultie and blame-worthy to forsake the truth. But, otherwise, so the truth be stuck unto, there is no hurt in partiality and labouring to please. And as for truth, clip not, nor champ not my words (as some have done elsewhere), and I beleeve the worst affected will not charge mee with lying. I have ever sought the truth in all things carefully, and even here also, and that painfully in every point : where I find it assured, I have set it down confidently; where I thought there was some reason to doubt, I tell my authour : so that if I deceive, it is my self I deceive, and not thee; for I hide nothing from thee that I myself know, and as I know it, leaving place to thee, if thou knowest more or better, which, if thou doest, impart and communicate it ; for so thou shouldest do, and so is truth brought to light, which else would lye hid and buried. My paines and travel in it have been greater than every one would think, in correcting my errours; thine will not bee so much, and both of us may furnish matter for a third man to finde out the truth more exactly, than either of us hath yet done. Help, therefore, but carp not For the language, it is my mother-tongue, that is, Scottish: and why not, to Scottish men? why should I contemne it? I never thought the difference so great, as that by seeking to speak English, I would hazard the imputation of affectation. Every tongue hath its own vertue and grace. Some are more substantial!, others more ornate and succinct. They have also their own defects and faultinesses, some are harsh, some are effeminate, some are rude, some affectate and swelling. The Romanes spake from their heart, the Grecians Avith their h'ps only, and their ordinary speech was complements; especially the Asiatick Greeks did use a loose and blown kind of phrase. And who is there that keeps that golden mean? For my own part, I like our own, and he that writes well in it, writes well enough to me. Yet I have yeelded somewhat to the tyrannie of custome and the times, not seeking curiously for words, but taking them as they come to hand. I acknowledge also my fault (if it be a fault), that I ever accounted it a mean study, and of no great commendation to learn to write, or to speak English, and have loved better to bestow my pains and time on forreign languages, esteeming it but a dialect of our own, and that, (perhaps) more corrupt." The work commences with a preface concerning "the Douglases in general, that is, their antiquity, to which is joined their original, nobility and descent, greatness and valour of the family of the name of Douglas." The history begins with Sholto Douglas, the first that bore the name, and the vanquisher of Donald Bane, in the reign of king Salvathius, and concludes with the death of Archibald, ninth earl of Angus, who has been already noticed in the course of this memoir. With this work closes every trace of David Hume. It is supposed to have been written about 1625, or between that period and 1630, and it is not probable that he survived that period long. Supposing him to have been born about 1560, he must then have attained to the age of three score years and ten.