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SPIRIT OF MAGAZINES.

CHARACTER OF HUME, BY THE EARL OF CHARLEMONT.

"THE celebrated David Hume, whose character is so deservedly high in the literary world, and whose works, both as a philosopher and as an historian, are so wonderfully replete with genius and entertainment, was, when I was at Turin, secretary to Sir John Sinclair, plenipotentiary from the court of Great Britain to his Sardinian majesty. He had then lately published those philosophical essays, which have done so much mischief to mankind, by contributing to loosen the sacred bonds by which alone man can be restrained from rushing to his own destruction, and which are so intimately necessary to our nature, that a propensity to be bound by them was apparently instilled into the human mind by the allwise Creator, as a balance against those passions which, though perhaps necessary as incitements to activity, must, without such control, inevitably have hurried us to our ruin. The world, however, unconscious of its danger, had greedily swallowed the bait; the essays were received with applause, read with delight, and their admired author was already, by public opinion, placed at the head of the dangerous school of skeptic philosophy.

"With this extraordinary man I was intimately acquainted. He had kindly distinguished me from among a number of young men, who were then at the academy; and appeared so warmly attached to me, that it was apparent he not only intended to honour me with his friendship, but to bestow on me what was, in his opinion, the first of all favours and benefits, by making me his convert and disciple.

"Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume. The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skilful in that science pretend to discover the smallest trace of the faculties of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility.

His eyes vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher. His speech, in English, was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable; so that wisdom, most certainly, never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb. Though now near fifty years old, he was healthy and strong; but his health and strength, far from being advantageous to his figure, instead of manly comeliness, had only the appearance of rusticity. His wearing a uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. Sinclair was a lieutenant-general, and was sent to the courts of Vienna and Turin as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Aus trians and Piedmontese. It was, therefore, thought necessary that his secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet.

"Having thus given an account of his exterior, it is but fair that I should state my good opinion of his character. Of all the philosophers of his sect, none, I believe, ever joined more real benevolence to its mischievous principles than my friend Hume. His love to mankind was universal and vehement; and there was no service he would not cheerfully have done to his fellow creatures, excepting only that of suffering them to save their souls in their own way. He was tenderhearted, friendly, and charitable in the extreme, as will appear from a fact, which I have from good authority. When a member of the university of Edinburgh, and in great want of money, having little or no paternal fortune, and the collegiate stipend being very inconsiderable, he had procured, through the interest of some friend, an office in the university, which was worth about forty pounds a year. On the day when he had received this good news, and just when he had got into his possession the patent, or grant, entitling him to his office, he was visited by his friend Blacklock, the poet, who is much better known by his poverty and blindness, than by his genius. This poor man began a long descant on his misery, bewailing his want of sight, his large family of children, and his utter inability to provide for them, or even to procure them the necessaries of life. Hume, unable to bear his complaints, and destitute of money to assist him, ran instantly to his desk, took out the grant, and presented it to his miserable friend, who received it with exultation, and whose name was soon after, by Hume's interest, inserted instead of his own. After such a relation it is needless that I should say any

more of his genuine philanthropy and generous beneficence; but the difficulty will now occur, how a man, endowed with such qualities, could possibly consent to become the agent of so much mischief as undoubtedly has been done to mankind by his writings; and this difficulty can only be solved by having recourse to that universal passion, which has, I fear, a much more general influence over all our actions than we are willing to confess. Pride, or vanity, joined to a skeptical turn of mind, and to an education which, though learned, rather sipped knowledge than drank it, was probably the ultimate cause of this singular phenomenon; and the desire of being placed at the head of a sect, whose tenets controverted and contradicted all received opinions, was too strong to be resisted by a man, whose genius enabled him to find plausible arguments, sufficient to persuade both himself and many others that his own opinions were true. A philosophical knight-errant was the dragon he had vowed to vanquish, and he was careless, or thoughtless, of the consequences which ensue from the achievement of the adventure to which he had pledged himself. He once professed himself the admirer of a young, most beautiful, and accomplished lady, at Turin, who only laughed at his passion. One day he addressed her in the usual common-place strain, that he was abimé, anéanti— • Oh! pour anéanti,' replied the lady, 'ce n'est en effet qu'une operation très naturelle de votre systême.

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"About this time, 1766, or somewhat before this, Lord Charlemont once more met his friend, David Hume. His lordship mentions him in some detached papers, which I shall here collect, and give to the reader. Nothing,' says Lord Charlemont, ever showed a mind more truly beneficent than Hume's whole conduct with regard to Rousseau. That story is too well known to be repeated, and exhibits a striking picture of Hume's heart, whilst it displays the strange and unaccountable vanity and madness of the French, or rather Swiss, moralist. When first they arrived together from France, happening to meet with Hume in the Park, I wished him joy of his pleasing connexion, and particularly hinted, that I was convinced he must be perfectly happy in his new friend, as their sentiments were, I believed, nearly similar. Why no, man,' said he, 'in hat you are mistaken; Rousseau is not what you think him; he has a hankering after the bible, and, indeed, is little better than a christian, in a way of his own.' Excess of vanity was the madness of Rousseau. When he first arrived in London, he and his Armenian dress were followed by crowds, and as long as this species of admiration lasted, he was contented and happy. But in London, such sights are only the wonder of the day, and

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in a very short time he was suffered to walk where he pleased, unattended, unobserved. From that instant, his discontent may be dated. But to dwell no longer on matters of public notoriety, I shall only mention one fact, which I can vouch for truth, and which would, of itself, be amply sufficient to convey an adequate idea of the amazing eccentricity of this singular man. When, after having quarrelled with Hume, and all his English friends, Rousseau was bent on making his escape, as he termed it, into France, he stopped at a village between London and Dover, and from thence wrote to General Conway, then secretary of state, informing him, that, although he had got so far with safety, he was well apprized that the remainder of his route was so beset by his inexorable enemies, that, unprotected, he could not escape. He, therefore, solemnly claimed the protection of the king, and desired that a party of cavalry might be immediately ordered to escort him to Dover. This letter General Conway showed to me, together with his answer, in which he assured him, that the postillions were altogether a very sufficient guard throughout every part of the king's dominions. To return to Hume. In London, where he often did me the honour to communicate the manuscripts of his additional essays, before their publication, I have sometimes, in the course of our intimacy, asked him whether he thought that, if his opinions were universally to take place, mankind would not be rendered more unhappy than they now were; and whether he did not suppose that the curb of religion was necessary to human nature? The objections,' answered he, are not without weight; but error never can produce good, and truth ought to take place of all considerations.' He never failed, in the midst of any controversy, to give its due praise to every thing tolerable that was either said or written against him. One day that he visited me in London, he came into my room laughing, and apparently well pleased. What has put you into this good humour, Huine?' said I. 'Why man,' replied he, I have just now had the best thing said to me I ever heard. I was complaining in a company, where I spent the morning, that I was very ill treated by the world, and that the censures past upon me were hard and unreasonable. That I had written many volumes, throughout the whole of which there were but a few pages that contained any reprehensible matter, and yet, for those few I was abused and torn to pieces.' You pages, put me in mind,' said an honest fellow in the company, whose name I did not know, of an acquaintance of mine, a notary public, who, having been condemned to be hanged for forgery, lamented the hardship of his case; that, after having written

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many thousand inoffensive sheets, he should be hanged for one line.'

"But an unfortunate disposition to doubt of every thing seemed interwoven with the nature of Hume; and never was there, I am convinced, a more thorough and sincere skeptic. He seemed not to be certain even of his own present existence, and could not, therefore, be expected to entertain any settled opinion respecting his future state. Once I asked him what he thought of the immortality of the soul? Why troth, man,' said he, it is so pretty and so comfortable a theory, that I wish I could be convinced of its truth, but I canna help doubting.'

"Hume's fashion at Paris, when he was there as secretary to Lord Hertford, was truly ridiculous; and nothing ever marked, in a more striking manner, the whimsical genius of the French. No man, from his manners, was surely less formed for their society, or less likely to meet with their approbation; but that flimsy philosophy, which pervades and deadens even their most licentious novels, was then the folly of the day. Freethinking and English frocks were the fashion, and the Anglomanie was the ton du pais. Lord Holland, though far better calculated than Hume to please in France, was also an instance of this singular predilection. Being about this time on a visit to Paris, the French concluded that an Englishman of his reputation must be a philosopher, and must be admired. It was customary with him to doze after dinner, and one day, at a great entertainment, he happened to fall asleep: Le voilà!. says a marquis, pulling his neighbour by the sleeve; ' Le voilà, qui pense! But the madness for Hume was far more singular and extravagant. From what has been already said of him, 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 yet no lady's toilet was complete without Hume's attendance. At the opera, his broad, unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux jolis minois. The ladies in France give the ton, and the ton was deism; a species of philosophy ill suited to the softer sex, in whose delicate frame weakness is interesting, and timidity a charm. But the women in France were deists, as with us they were charioteers. The tenets of the new philosophy were à portée de tout le monde, and the perusal of a wanton novel, such, for example, as Therese Philosophe, was amply sufficient to render any fine gentleman, or any fine lady, an accomplished, nay, a learned deist. How my friend Hume was able to endure the encounter of these French female Titans I know not. In England, either his philosophic pride, or his con

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