Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/67

Rh sphere of the literary circle of Edinburgh, could have produced so able a work, that he was made acquainted with the secret. In whimsical revenge of the want of confidence displayed by his friends, Hume gravely maintained himself to be the author of a humorous work of Adam Ferguson, "The History of Sister Peg," and penned a letter to the publisher, which any person who might peruse it without knowing the circumstances, could not fail to consider a sincere acknowledgment. Hume was a member of the Philosophical Society, which afterwards merged into the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and acted as joint secretary along with Dr Munro junior. He was also a member of the illustrious Poker Club, and not an uncongenial one, so long as the members held their unobtrusive discussion in a tavern, over a small quantity of claret ; but when this method of managing matters.was abolished, and the institution merged into the more consequential denomination of "The Select Society," amidst the exertions of many eloquent and distinguished men, he was only remarkable, along with his friend Adam Smith, for having never opened his mouth.

In 1761, Mr Hume published the two remaining volumes of the History of England, treating of the period previous to the accession of the house of Tudor: he tells us that it was received with "tolerable, and but tolerable success." Whitaker, Hallam, Turner, and others, have examined their respective portions of this period of history with care, and pointed out the inaccuracies of Hume; but the subject did not possess so much political interest as the later periods, and general readers have not been much disposed to discuss the question of his general accuracy. Men such as the first name we have mentioned have attacked him with peevishness on local and obscure matters of antiquarian research, which a historian can hardly be blamed for neglecting: others, however, who seem well-informed, have found serious objections to his accuracy. In an article on the Saxon Chronicle, which appeared in the Retrospective Review, by an apparently well-informed writer, he is charged in these terms: "It would be perfectly startling to -popular credulity, should all the instances be quoted in which the text of Hume, in the remoter periods more especially, is at the most positive variance with the authorities he pretends to rest upon. In a series of historical inquiries which the writer of this article had some years since particular occasion to superintend, aberrations of this kind were so frequently detected, that it became necessary to lay it down as a rule never to admit a quotation from that popular historian, when the authorities he pretends to refer to were not accessible for the purpose of previous comparison and confirmation."

Hume, now pretty far advanced in life, had formed the resolution of ending his days in literary retirement in his own country, when in 1763, he was solicited by the earl of Hertford to attend him on his embassy to Paris, and after having declined, on a second invitation he accepted the situation. In the full blaze of a wide-spread reputation, the philosopher was now surrounded by a new world of literary rivals, imitators, and admirers, and he received from a circle of society ever searching for what was new, brilliant, and striking, numberless marks of distinction highly flattering to his literary pride, though not unmixed with affectation. In some very amusing letters to his friends written during this period, he shows, that if he was weak enough to feel vain of these distinctions, he. had sincerity enough to say so.

The fashionable people of Paris, and especially the ladies, practised on the patient and good-humoured philosopher every torture which, their extreme desire to render him and themselves distinguished could dictate. "From what has been already said of him," says lord Charlemont, "it is apparent that his conversation to strangers, and particularly to Frenchmen, could be little delightful, and still more particularly one would suppose, to French women; and