DAVID HUME was born in Edinburgh, April 26, 1711. His father, who was descended from a branch of the Earl of Home's or Hume's family, died while David was an infant, leaving him, with an elder brother and sister, to the care of his mother, the daughter of Sir Edward Falconer, who devoted the remainder of her days to the welfare of her children. Her property was inconsiderable, and that which fell to David, as a younger son, was very slender. His family, observing the manner in which he acquitted himself at college, would have fixed his attention on the law; but his growing passion for philosophy and general learning rendered him averse to that pursuit, and after a fruitless attempt at Bristol to reconcile himself to a more active kind of employment, he went to France, where he laid down that plan of life to which he ever afterwards ad

hered. It now became his fixed resolve to secure his independence by means of the most rigid frugality; and to deem every acquisition contemptible, except the improvement of his talents in literature. This was in 1734.

During his three years' residence in France, Hume composed his Treatise of Human Nature, which he published on his return to England, in 1738. The work failed to attract the slightest notice from friend or foe. But our young aspirant was not dismayed; and his buoyant spirit was much strengthened by the degree of success which attended the appearance of the first part of his Essays, which were published at Edinburgh in 1742.

In 1745 Hume quitted the residence of his mother and brother, in compliance with an invitation from the Marquis of Annandale; the friends of that young nobleman having thought that his health and mind required the aid which such a tutorship, or companionship, for we hardly know which to call it, would afford. Hume states, that his employment during the twelve months thus passed in England made a considerable accession to his small fortune. "I thus received," he says, an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit 1747, I received an invitation from the General to attend him in the same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer and was introduced at those courts as aid-decamp to the General, along with Sir Harry Erskine, and Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years were almost the only interruptions my studies received during the course of my life."

In 1747 Hume re-cast the first part of his Trea

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tise of Human Nature, and published it under the title of an Inquiry concerning Human Understanding. But this amended performance also failed to produce any immediate effects; and a new edition of his Essays Moral and Political, published about the same time in London, found scarcely a better reception. Still looking to the hopeful side of things, our author composed during 1749 and 1750 the second part of his Essays, which were called Political Discourses; and also his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which was another part of his ill-fated Treatise of Human Nature, in a new form. By this time some of the more obnoxious parts of that treatise began to call forth opponents, and it became evident that its author, though much more frequently censured than applauded, was a man of rising reputation. This result was favoured by his determination never to reply to any of his critics, a resolve which the peculiarities of his temper enabled him to act upon to

the end of life.

In 1751 he removed to Edinburgh, and being chosen librarian by the Faculty of Advocates in the following year, the plan of writing his History of England was formed. This memorable work commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart; and the author, who was sanguine as to its success, relates that" on the publication of the first volume, he scarcely knew a man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book." After a sale of less than fifty copies in the first year, the work seemed fast sinking into oblivion. This disappointment appears to have affected Hume more than any event which had befallen him; and, had not the war with France at that juncture prevented it, he would probably have gone to that country, never again to see his own. But the

habits induced by a passion for literature are not easily put in abeyance. Soon after receiving this discouragement, Hume published his Natural History of Religion. In 1756 the second volume of the History of England made its appearance, "which not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother." The third volume, relating to the House of Tudor, appeared in 1759, and was censured hardly less than the first. In 1761 the two volumes embracing the early period of our history were published, and, according to their author, "with tolerable, and but tolerable success.”

Hume now formed the purpose of spending the remainder of his days in philosophical retirement in Scotland; but was induced in 1763 to visit Paris, in connexion with the embassy of the Earl of Hertford to that city. The honours paid to our philosopher and historian in that capital once disposed him to think of settling there for life. He had now passed his fiftieth year, and his official residence in Paris extended, with a slight intermission, to six years-from 1763 to 1769. From the period of his leaving Paris, to 1775, when his last sickness came upon him, his time appears to have been given chiefly to the enjoyment of his friends ; his authorship, and other employments, having secured him an income of not less than 1000/. a year. A disorder in the bowels, which reduced him considerably, but without becoming the occasion of much pain, or at all affecting his spirits, ended his life, August 25, 1776, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

Hume's character as a man has been sketched by himself, and his account may be admitted as, in most respects, substantially accurate. He describes himself as mild in disposition, possessing a command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour,

capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in his passions. "Even my love of literary fame," he adds, "my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men any wise eminent, have found reason to complain of Calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct." Much to this effect is the testimony of Dr. Adam Smith, the intimate friend of Hume. This writer, indeed, does not hesitate to speak of him "as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." Some deduction should of course be made from this language, as that of a natural self-love in the one instance, and of an ardent friendship in the other. It is no proof, for example, of Hume's exemption from the irascible passions, that he should have been so rarely capable of adverting to the opponents of his favourite speculations in morals or religion, without indulging in reproachful and degrading language; "bigots" and "zealots" being the designations flung at such persons on almost all occasions. In the same spirit the name of a "faction "" is his favourite one for that large class of politicians in this country whose principles did not embrace so much of "the monstrous creed of many made for one," as belonged to his own.