Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/234

Hume he was anxious to actively defend the protestant succession, but Bolingbroke advised him to moderate his zeal. He was a supporter of the government, and in August 1747 became president of the court of police in Scotland; but after Chesterfield resigned the seals he was in danger of dismissal from office on account of the general suspicion that he was the author of the famous `Apology' for Chesterfield's resignation. In 1750 he was chosen one of the sixteen Scots representative peers, and on 20 June 1764 was made lord keeper of the great seal of Scotland. He continued to be elected a Scots representative peer till 1784. He then finally retired from public life. Thenceforth he occupied himself chiefly with country recreations, and spent his evenings in the study of history and law. He died at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on 10 Jan. 1794. Marchmont boasted that 'he never gave a vote nor spoke from an interested motive during all the years he sat in the two houses.' He certainly was not a self-seeking politician, but his attacks on Walpole derived bitterness largely from his personal animosity to Walpole. That his abilities were much above the average and his character attractive may be inferred from the special respect in which he was held by men like Pope, Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Cobham.

Marchmont married first, in May 1731, Miss Anne Western of London, and by her had one son, Patrick, lord Polwarth, who died young, and three daughters. The youngest daughter, Diana, married Walter Scott of Harden, Berwickshire, and by him had one son, Hugh Scott of Harden, who, as the other daughters left no surviving issue, made good his claim in 1835 to the title of Lord Polwarth in the Scottish peerage, as heir general of the first Earl of Marchmont. His first wife died on 9 May 1747, and Marchmont married, on 30 Jan. of the following year, Elizabeth Crompton, daughter of a linen-draper in Cheapside. According to a letter from David Hume the historian (29 Jan. 1747-8), Marchmont fell in love with Miss Crompton on first seeing her by accident in a box at the theatre. Next morning he wrote to her father, who had recently been made bankrupt, and married the lady three weeks later (, Life of Hume, i. 237). By this lady Marchmont had one son, Alexander, lord Polwarth, who married Lady Anabella Yorke, eldest daughter of Philip, second earl of Hardwicke, and was created a peer of the United Kingdom by the title Baron Hume of Berwick, 14 May 1776, but predeceased his father on 9 March 1781, when the British title became extinct.

The earldom of Marchmont became dormant on the death of the third earl. Marchmont House, Berwickshire, with the estate, was inherited by Sir Hugh Purves, sixth baronet, of Purves Hall, great-grandson of Lady Anne Purves, eldest sister of the third Earl of Marchmont. On inheriting the estates Purves assumed the surname of Hume-Campbell.

[Marchmont Papers, ed. Sir Gr. H. Rose, 3 vols., 1831; Works of Pope,Bolingbroke, and Chesterfield; Coxe's Life of Walpole; Horace Walpole's Letters; Boswell's Life of Johnson; Alexander Carlyle's Autobiography; Hill Burton's Life of David Hume; Douglas's Scottish Peerage(Wood), ii. 183.]  HUME, JAMES (fl. 1639), mathematician, son of David Hume of Godscroft (1560?–1630?) [q. v.], and therefore sometimes described as 'Scotus Theagrius,' lived in France, and on the title-page of his earliest book, 'Pantaleonis Vaticinia Satyra,' dated Rouen, 1633, he is called 'Med. Doctor.' The 'Satyra' is a Latin romance, imitating Barclay's 'Argenis,' but is very crude in form. It is dedicated to Sir Robert Ker, first earl of Ancrum [q. v.], and has an historical appendix on contemporary affairs, mostly German. In 1634 Hume printed in Latin 'Prœlium ad Lipsiam,' 'Gustavus Magnus,' 'De Reditu Ducis Aureliensis ex Flandria,' as an appendix to his father's 'De Unione Insulæ Britanniæ' (Paris). Some Latin verses in the same book accuse one `Morinus' of plagiary for having used some proofs of theorems given by Hume to Napier, baron Merchiston.

In 1636 Hume published at Paris 'Algèbre de Viète d'une Méthode nouuelle, claire et facile,' and 'Traité de la Trigonométric pour resoudre tous Triangles rectilignes et sphériques,' &c At the end of the latter volume appears a list of nine mathematical works which Hume had written in Latin: 'Algebra Vietæ,' 'Algebra secundum Euclidem,' 'Arithmetica,' 'De Arte muniendi more Gallico,' idem 'more Hollandico,' 'Trigonometria,' 'Theoria Planetarum,' 'Sphæra Copernici,' and 'Ptolemaica Geometriæ Practica.' There are besides 'De Horologiis' and 'Grammatica Hebræa,' proving that Hume's attainments were not purely mathematical. A translation of one of his works into French, apparently his 'De Arte muniendi more Gallico,' appeared under the title 'Fortifications Françaises d'une Méthode facile.' [De Morgan's Arith. Works, p. 10; Michel's Écossais en France, p. 292 n.]  HUME, JAMES DEACON (1774–1842), free-trader, son of James Hume, a commissioner and afterwards secretary of the 