Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/43

Rh curiosity. The absence of such information allows us, however, to make a general inference, that no part of the conduct of the schoolboy was sufficiently remarkable to be commemorated by his friends, and that, as he was in advanced life (independent of the celebrity produced by his works) a man of unobservable and unassuming conduct ; he was as a boy docile, well behaved, and attentive, without being remarkable either for precocity of talent, or that carelessness and insubordination which some biographers have taken pains to bring home to the subjects of their memoirs. In early infancy Hume was deprived of his father, and left to the guidance of his mother and an elder brother and sister; with the brother who succeeded by birthright to the family property, he ever lived on terms of fraternal intimacy and affection, and towards his two female relatives he displayed, through all the stages of his life, an unvarying kindness and unremitted attention, which have gone far, along with his other social virtues, in causing him to be respected as a man, by those who were his most bitter opponents as a philosopher.

The property of the respectable family of Ninewells was not large, and the limited share which fell to the younger brother precluded the idea of his supporting himself without labour. Having finished the course of study which such in institution was capable of providing, he attended for some time the university of Edinburgh, then rising in reputation ; of his progress in study he gives us the following account: "I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments; my studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me: but I found an insurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors I was secretly devouring. It is almost unnecessary to mention, that when we use the words of Hume about himself, we quote from that curious little memoir called " My Own Life," written by Hume on his death- bed, and published in 1777, by Mr Strahan, (to whom the manuscript was consigned) previously to its publication in the ensuing edition of the History of England. In a work which ought to contain a quantity of original matter proportioned to the importance of the subjects treated, some apology or explanation may be due, for quoting from a production which has been brought so frequently before the public; but in the life of a person so well known, and into whose conduct there has been so much investigation, while we try to bring together as much original matter as it is possible to obtain, we must frequently be contented with statements modeled according to our own views, and in our own language, of facts which have already been frequently recorded. Independent of this necessity, the memoir of the author written by himself, is so characteristic of his mind and feelings, both in the method of the narrative, and in the circumstances detailed, that any life of Hume which might neglect reference to it, must lose a very striking chain of connexion betwixt the mind of the author and the character of his works. Let us here remark, that while (in the words of Hume himself) "it is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity," this little memoir seems to have defied criticism to discover anything injudicious or assuming, either in the details or reflections. It is true, he has been slightly accused of speaking with too much complacency of his own good qualities : but be it remarked, those qualities of disposition to study, sobriety, and industry, are such as a man of genius is seldom disposed to arrogate to himself, at least without some hints of the existence of others more brilliant and distinguishing. We cannot help being of opinion, that the author's philosophical command over his feelings has prompted him to avoid the extremes which the natural egotism and vanity of most men would have caused them to fall into on similar occasions, of either alluding to very high qualities which the suffrages of others had allowed that they possessed, or gaining credit for humility, by not recognizing the existence of qualities which they know their partial friends would be roady to admit. "Of this aversion not only to the practice, but to the abstract study of the law, in a mind constituted like that of Hume, guided by reason, acute in the perception of differences and connexions, naturally prone to industry, and given up to the indulgence neither of passion nor sentiment, it is difficult to account We are ignorant of the method by