Though any attempt to excuse or palliate Hume’s erroneous views and opinions in regard to religion—the dissemination of which he is said to have regretted—would be little less than high treason against Christianity and civilization, his example, in other respects, is of infinite value. His career was characterized by resolution, independence, and self-command, at a time when these qualities were not much in fashion; and his life is a lasting protest against the idea, that the habits of a literary man are necessarily lax in respect to pecuniary affairs. Moreover, he must be acknowledged as prince among the historians of England. He still retains his ascendency after the lapse of an eventful century; and his great work is looked to as the natural source of information on the subject of which it treats. The intelligent reader is animated by feelings of admiration after perusing its inimitable pages; while the less informed goes to it for guidance and instruction. Yet much of this mighty memorial of his great intellect was composed in the face of a reception so galling to a proud spirit, and so discouraging to a heart panting for fame, that most men would, under the circumstances, have thrown down the pen in blank dismay; but Hume, notwithstanding his temporary disgust, had courage and genius fully equal to the occasion. He felt how glorious was the prize at stake, and pushed bravely forward to snatch it. And it is, indeed, impossible too highly to admire the calm, intrepid, unshrinking perseverance he displayed in thus consummating, in spite of all the clamor that the earliest volumes elicited, a work which he ere long had the consolation of knowing the world would not willingly let die. Such, doubtless, has often been the lot of those who write for immortality!

The pedigree of this illustrious personage, who frankly confessed to the charm of an ancient name, was such as might satisfy the most exacting genealogist. Indeed, it is traced in the books of heralds, through potent barons and mighty earls, to the Saxon conquerors of Britain; though it does not appear that he was fully aware of a fact, which, to say the least, would have been reflected on with complacency. But as the subject is not altogether uninteresting to many, it may be here adverted to with brevity.

When the Norman Conquest took place, a Northumbrian prince—whose grandmother was daughter of an English king, and whose brother became, by marriage with the heiress of the Nevilles, progenitor of those barons slain on the field of Barnet—was driven to seek refuge on the north side of the Tweed, where he founded that powerful feudal connection known as the house of Dunbar, which fell in the fifteenth century. One of its branches, and the inheritor of much of its power, was the baronial family of Home, whose chiefs bestowed such lands as came into their possession on their younger sons. One of these cadets—the historian’s ancestor—was thus gifted with Tyninghame, a fertile estate in Lothian; but being, unlike his remote descendant, an irreclaimable spendthrift, he totally dissipated this paternal grant. It happened, however, that his son, a youth of promise, was received into favor by the head of the clan, and planted at the Ninewells, on the pleasant banks of the Whitadder, where his successors, whose names no minstrel has sung, vegetated for three hundred years. In fact, though residing close to the Border, they do not appear to have fought in the wars which desolated the vicinity, nor even to have speculated in the precarious trade of cattle-lifting. They seem neither to have been puissant knights nor “rank reivers;” nor were they in request when a charter was to be attested, or an eldest son served heir to his father. But they paid a species of “black mail” to the English captain of Berwick, received protection, lived in peace, speared salmon, and cultivated their fruitful lands. In the reign of Queen Anne, one of these lairds, whose sire’s heart’s blood seems to have stained the blade of an exasperated sheriff, went in youth to the Scottish capital, and was in due time called to the bar; but without pursuing the legal profession further. He was considered a man of attainments, and took to wife, in 1708, the daughter of Sir David Falconer, Lord President of the College of Justice. By this lady he had two sons and a daughter, of whom David Hume was born, at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April, 1711.

The consideration of a distinguished lineage certainly imparted to Hume’s heart a calm satisfaction and colored, though in the slightest degree, his writings; but as he was deficient in sympathy with the past, it could not infringe on his philosophic mind, perplex his clear intelligence, or influence his serene judgment. The political sentiments in which he was nurtured were destined to exercise a much greater effect on his life and works. His father’s residence was situated in a district where the lords of the soil were, with rare exceptions, deeply tinged with Jacobite principles. Their interest and inclination alike prompted an adherence to the cause of the ancient line of kings; and at the very time when the future historian first saw the light, the accession to power of a Tory ministry had conveyed hope and animation to their breasts. Thus when he began to creep about and lisp forth inarticulate sounds, complaints of real injuries and imaginary insults sustained by his relatives since the Revolution would greet his childish ears, and perhaps enter into his young soul. In his fourth year, these restless worthies proposed to hold a public meeting with a view of obtaining a redress of their grievances; but as the authorities deemed that it might prove a cause of embarrassment to the newly-established government, it was sternly interdicted, and precautions were taken to repress any attempt to disobey the official mandate. David’s fierce clansmen bit their gloves, shook their heads, and vowed revenge. Several of them risked and lost all in the insurrection of 1715; his chief and a near kinsman were committed to the Castle of Edinburgh for their devotion to the house of Stuart; and amidst scenes of tumult, disorder, and confiscation, the first few years of Hume’s life passed over. Perhaps, indeed, to his brother and himself having been minors at the time may be ascribed their not having assumed the white cockade, and that the acres held for centuries by their ancestors were not appropriated by some intriguing agent for forfeited estates, or seized by a factor with few scruples of conscience and sufficient dexterity in arithmetical mystification.

At an early age—indeed almost in infancy—Hume lost his father; and his widowed mother, though young and handsome enough to have aspired with success to a second husband, devoted her whole time and attention to the rearing and education of her children. David soon began to manifest an ardent love for his books. As a boy he was particularly docile, well behaved, and attentive to his studies, without being remarkable for the display of precocious talents. The family property had, of course, gone to his elder brother; and as the portion of a second son was not such as to encourage for a moment the idea of passing his life without labor, he felt under the necessity of bringing his abilities into active operation. With this view he was sent to fit himself for exertion by completing his education at the university of his native city, where he went through the usual academic course with comparative credit and success.

His extraordinary ability at this period is beyond all question, for a letter written to a youthful intimate at the age of sixteen proves that his marvelous talent was then exhibiting itself. Having been fired with that enthusiasm for literature which continued to be his ruling passion and chief delight, he impressed his guardians with a high opinion of his studious disposition; and they, taking into account his steadiness of conduct and sobriety of demeanor, arrived at the conclusion, that the Scottish bar would be a proper sphere for the exercise of that intellectual industry of which he daily gave signal proofs. His tastes, however, were rather unsuited to pursuing the profession successfully; and he states that he was generally engaged in devouring Cicero and Virgil while he was supposed to be occupied with the more practical studies of Voet and Vinnius. At eighteen the law appeared utterly nauseous to him, and his aversion to it as the business of life became extreme. He pondered and reflected; he could think of no other method to push his way in the world than as a scholar and philosopher, and this prospect pleased him infinitely for a season; but his health giving way under the pressure of severe mental application, a reaction came, and his ardor quite expired. He abandoned all thoughts of the law as a profession, and removed to the residence of his brother. The change of air and scene had a beneficial influence, and the young philosopher applied to the family doctor to restore his health and spirits. The latter laughed at his patient’s imaginary ailments; but, at the same time, accompanied his unwelcome raillery by the extremely palatable advice to drink a pint of claret a day, and take plenty of equestrian exercise. Hume attended to the prescription, daily swallowed a proper quantity of the grateful beverage, and rode some ten or twelve miles on horseback. Though caring little for rural pleasures, pursuits, or recreations, he seems to have really enjoyed himself at this period: he soon gathered strength from his exercise in the open air; and, from being a tall, lean, and raw-boned lad, he passed to the other extreme—his complexion became ruddy and his countenance cheerful. His pursuits seem to have been diversified. He studied Latin, English, French, and Italian. He read books of morality, and was captivated with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy; and he listened, not without gratification, to stories about the fortunes of their race from some knightly clansman or old freeholder. The traditionary lore and local associations were apparently, it must be confessed, quite lost upon him: he was without local ambition; and the scenes of his boyhood, when he has occasion to mention them, are alluded to with the same cold dignity with which he writes of places which he had never seen. His intellect was so severely original, that it disdained to draw one particle of inspiration from buildings and battle-plains which have since been invested with so pleasing a charm, and made the subject of glowing verse. There is no sign of his having viewed Norham Castle, Flodden Field, and Halidon Hill, or ridden through “the rich Merse,” and perambulated the ancient capital of the eastern marshes, or gazed on the “desolate grandeur” of Home, with romantic enthusiasm, poetic perception, or provincial pride. While accumulating information in regard to distant countries with industry and rapidity, he altogether neglected or scorned the precious metals which lay in his way; and while contemplating the perfections of Roman poets, he had not a thought to spare to the Border ballad-makers, whose verses Scott toiled to preserve and restore. He had therefore small temptation to linger amidst the fields, meadows, and woods through which he had roamed in his thoughtful childhood. He felt, indeed, that such an expenditure of time was by no means in harmony with his circumstances; and, believing that business and diversion would give him peace of mind and relief from anxiety, he resolved to betake himself to a more active life, and entered on a course, of all others, at variance with his natural bent toward studious retirement and philosophic reflection—that of commerce. In doing so, he confessed that he could never wholly give up his pretensions in learning but with his latest breath. He merely laid them aside for the time, with a view of resuming them to greater advantage. In reality, he was actuated by an ardent and consuming passion to achieve literary fame and found a philosophical reputation when he formed his determination—a most inauspicious frame of mind, assuredly, with which to enter upon the harsh duties of mercantile existence!

About the beginning of March, 1734, Hume started for Bristol. He visited London in his way, and then traveled onward. He had obtained introductions to several leading merchants in the place; and on reaching his destination established himself in the counting-house of one of them, in the hope of forgetting the past, preparing for the future, and enriching himself by commerce. But the petty cares, the perpetual bustle, and the perennial annoyances of such a career, were found, as might have been anticipated, utterly intolerable to a person to whom legal studies had appeared irksome and unattractive; and, after a few months’ trial, he relinquished his new situation, with all its coarse, uncongenial duties, and those prospects of remuneration which are so seldom realized.

Hume had already, according to his own statement, collected materials for many volumes. He, therefore, passed over to France, with the view of prosecuting his studies in some rural retreat. No doubt he could have done so at the time-honored mansion of his fathers, but circumstances had occurred since he left which rendered it impossible to return there with any feeling of comfort; so he made a short stay in Paris, and then repaired to Rheims, in the north of France, where he spent some months in literary retirement. “I there,” he writes, “laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvement of my talents in literature.”

Having formed this wise and prudent determination, he removed to La FlÈche, in Anjou, where he prepared his “Treatise on Human Nature;” and then he returned to London, to superintend the publication, and endure the suspense. Being issued in 1738, the work, to use his own expression, fell still-born from the press; though when subsequently published in separate essays, it was a little more successful.

Having thus, at the age of twenty-seven, embarked and made an inauspicious voyage on the uncertain sea of literature, Hume, without even waiting to know the fate of his work—for which a publisher had given the sum of fifty pounds—turned his face northward; and, perhaps, with some slight regret that he had relinquished the profession of the law, and deserted the merchant’s desk, sought the agreeable seclusion of his family’s fair domain, which he found his brother laudably occupied in improving and enhancing in value. Among its old trees, pleasantly shading the gentle acclivity whence burst the nine fountains which gave a name to the place, and with which the argent lion on his ancestral shield was charged, Hume experienced so much satisfactory enjoyment in “retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,” that, though the ideas and tastes of his relatives could not have harmonized very readily or easily with his own, he would, in all probability, had other matters been equal, have chosen to pass his life there. But the ambition for literary fame continued strongly to animate and influence him; and his time was chiefly spent in grave reading, deep meditation, in restoring his knowledge of the Greek language, and in corresponding, among others, with his friend Henry Home, afterward celebrated as Lord Kames.

Such was his position, when the last Marquis of Annandale, a Scottish nobleman, whose eccentricity took the form of lunacy, having read some of the hapless essays, was so charmed with something he saw in them, that he conceived a passionate wish to obtain the services of the learned author as his tutor. Hume was induced, by the temptation of an ample salary, to accept the office of companion to this weak-minded man, and had his temper severely tested in consequence. After holding the luckless and invidious post for a year, during which the marquis seems to have written a novel, relating to some events and love affairs in his own life, Hume’s patience and placidity gave way, and, throwing up the situation, he became candidate for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, which, although powerfully supported, he was unable to obtain, on account of his well-known sentiments on religious subjects.

Matters, however, ere long, began to assume a pleasanter aspect. An honorable appointment, as private secretary to General St. Clair, uncle of Lord-chancellor Loughborough, was almost immediately bestowed on him, as if by way of solace for his depressing defeat. The General had originally been destined for an important expedition to Canada, which somehow ended—or, rather was metamorphosed—into an incursion on the coast of France. On returning, Hume retreated to country quarters, and wrote a defense of the expedition, which has since been printed; and shortly afterward he accompanied General St. Clair on an embassy to the courts of Turin and Vienna, in the double capacity of secretary and aid-de-camp, wearing the uniform of an officer. His time, while in this position, was passed agreeably, in good company, and with considerable profit in a pecuniary point of view.

Meantime his “Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” being the substance of his former work in a new shape, was published in London, but with scarcely greater success than the original; any interest it excited being merely of a temporary character. However, his natural cheerfulness bore him up against his repeated literary disappointments; and he returned to Scotland to delight his kinsfolk and acquaintances with narrations of his adventures in lands beyond the sea, and to digest the frustration of his hopes as well as he could. Still resolute of purpose, he wrote, during a two-years’ retirement, his “Political Discourses,” which were given to the world in 1752, and excited interest and attention both at home and abroad. Indeed, though in some measure overshadowed by the celebrated work which his friend Adam Smith produced fourteen years later, they unfold and enforce those views of economical science which are now recognized and adopted, for better or for worse, by all English statesmen. Moreover, they have, in the highest degree, the merit of originality; and their style is so admirable, that they can be perused by general readers at once with profit and pleasure. At the same time he composed his “Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,” which, notwithstanding his own high estimate of its comparative merits, was little noticed or regarded. The former emanations of his great intellect were now beginning to attract observation, and he was gratified by finding that answers antagonistic to the views they maintained were gradually appearing; but he discreetly formed the resolution of not being drawn into controversy by such effusions, and inflexibly kept his purpose in this respect.

Hume had now attained the age of forty, and, though there certainly exists evidence which makes one suspect that he had not always proved that rare impenetrability to female blandishments for which his biographers have given him credit, there was, at this time of life, small chance of his being betrayed into a matrimonial alliance. His brother, therefore, aroused himself to the duty of transmitting the name, and continuing the succession, and, in 1751, wedded the daughter of a neighboring family. This country gentleman was a person of retired habits; he had a strong aversion to every thing savoring, or even having the appearance, of vanity; and he was so extremely prudent in his actions, that, with the exception of his marriage, he never took any step without having previously calculated the consequences to his satisfaction. When the latter momentous event occurred, the philosopher felt a natural longing to have a tenement of his own. His mother, whom he describes as a woman of singular merit, and whom he had in her lifetime treated with much filial kindness and affection, had been in her grave for years; and he proposed “to take up house in Berwickshire” with his sister; but duly weighing and deliberately considering the matter, he came to the conclusion that a town was “the true scene for a man of letters;” and, removing to Edinburgh, he exercised so much frugality in disposing of his slender income that he was enabled to live in comfort and contentment. Yet he was not, by any means, parsimonious, and ever was ready, on fitting occasions, to prove his generosity by charitable and beneficent actions.

The year 1752 was an important one in Hume’s life. He was then appointed Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, after a severe and spirited contest, in which, besides the junior members of the bar, his chief allies were the ladies of “modern Athens,” who made strenuous efforts and exerted their utmost fascinations in his behalf. When the triumph was achieved he found himself in a most advantageous position in regard to an excellent and well-stocked library, which fortunately suggested to his brain the scheme of furnishing the world with a classical history of England, then a serious desideratum in national literature. “Being frightened,” he states in his autobiography, “with the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced with the House of Stuart, an epoch where I thought the misrepresentation of faction began chiefly to take place.”

When the first volume, recording the events in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., was issued, in 1754, the effects of the author’s earlier training were sufficiently apparent to kindle the wrath of one party without flattering the prejudices of the other. Accordingly, it was assailed by one cry of reproach and disapprobation; the sale was quite inconsiderable, and almost the only token of encouragement worth having came from the Primates of England and Ireland, who advised him to take heart, and proceed in his undertaking. But, whatever may be thought of Hume’s historic leanings and political sympathies, it must be admitted that he acted courageously, conscientiously, and without fishing for the favor of those who had in their hands all the patronage and disposal of such places and rewards as he could have aspired to. He followed what appeared to him the true and just course, notwithstanding the storms to which he felt he would on that account be exposed; and his genius, more potent than had been the swords of his insurgent kinsmen, threw a wall of defense around the memory of the exiled race which, with all its defects, succeeding writers, whatever their ability and energy, have never been skillful and vigorous enough to scale or break down. Nevertheless, the reception of his work inspired him with feelings of such dislike for the British public, that he resolved upon leaving the country, renouncing his name, and passing the remainder of his days on the Continent; but a French war luckily put an end to his scheme of self-expatriation, and he determined to persevere with his laborious and ungrateful task. In 1756 his second volume appeared, and proved not less obnoxious than the first; but by that he had, as he says, “grown callous against the impressions of public folly.” It was fortunate, in any case, that he did not succumb till the tyranny was overpast. His victory was secure, slowly as it might approach.

He had already published the “Natural History of Religion,” which was severely censured; and when the author had arrived at his fiftieth year, his matchless and magnificent “History of England” was completed in six volumes. His easy, elegant, and interesting style ere long rendered the work highly popular. Hume was by universal consent, placed on a lofty pedestal of fame; and, though its reception had originally been so disheartening, the sum obtained for the copyright, and for his former productions, together with his economical habits, had made him not only independent but, as he considered it, opulent. He, therefore, looked forward to passing the remainder of his days in peace, and in his native land, congratulating himself on having never, in his struggle for fortune, courted the smiles of any great man, or treated the humble with discourtesy. He was, though plain and careless in manner, eminently qualified, by his frank and social humor, to enjoy the company of his chosen friends, with whom, in spite of their wide differences of opinion on the most serious subjects, he was ever on terms of affectionate intercourse and uninterrupted friendship. Nevertheless, within two years, he consented to forego his cherished plans, at the earnest and repeated solicitations of Lord Hertford, who was going as Embassador to Paris. Thither Hume accompanied that nobleman, and was shortly after appointed Secretary of Embassy. In 1765, when Lord Hertford departed to undertake the government of Ireland, the historian remained in the French capital as ChargÉ d’Affaires, and performed the functions pertaining to the office in a manner highly creditable to his clearness of judgment, his talent for business, and capacity for state affairs. In the gay and fashionable circles of Paris his fame, station, and agreeable bearing, secured him so hearty a welcome that ladies and princes, wits and philosophers, vied in their attentions. It was there that, in an evil hour, he consented, in a spirit of excessive amiability, to take under his wing the frantic and erratic Rousseau, whose connection afterward involved him in much trouble, and caused him infinite annoyance.

Hume returned to this country in 1766, and was, the next year appointed Under-secretary of State for the department presided over by Marshal Conway, an office which he retained for more than twelve months. His annual income, the fruits of real industry, now amounted to a thousand pounds a year; and, taking a house in the new town of Edinburgh, he settled to spend his remaining days among his old and most attached friends. For some time his peaceful existence was uninterrupted, but in 1766 his health became so precarious that he was under the necessity of undertaking a journey to Bath, when he was attended by his friend and remote relative, John Home, the author of “Douglas,” with whom he had many a jocular debate about the correct orthography of their name, and the comparative merits of port and claret. The illustrious historian was fond of relieving his sinking spirits by a playful jest at the expense of his clansman’s warlike propensities, and did not omit so favorable an opportunity as that presented by the poet’s pistols being handed, with much ceremony, into the traveling-carriage:

“You shall have your humor, John,” he said, “and shoot as many highwaymen as you like; for,” he added, with as much melancholy, perhaps, as a philosopher could well feel, “there’s too little life left in me to be worth fighting about.”

It appears that the martial predilections alluded to were shortly afterward gratified by a commission in the “Buccleuch Fencibles,” though on this occasion they were not in requisition; unless, indeed, to inspire the young soul of Walter Scott, who was then exercising his precocious imagination at Bath, where he made the acquaintance of the bard, soldier, and divine, whose fame his pen, more than fifty years later, did something to extend and perpetuate. If the eye of the great historian, from which the world and all its vanities were fast vanishing, lighted on that lame boy, vigilantly guarded by a sarcastic and high-spirited female, how little could he have supposed that there was the being destined to invest with the charms of romance and the glow of chivalry that old royal cause, which he had employed all his wisdom and all his intellect to restore to public favor and render permanently attractive!

Meantime the veteran philosopher and historian, deriving little or no benefit from his visit to Bath, returned to die under his own roof. His decline was gradual; and, to the last, his most ultimate associates could not observe any diminution of gayety. He talked familiarly with them during their calls, and alluded to his approaching dissolution in a tone of whose levity even Dr. Smith, his most ardent admirer, could not approve. Whatever twinges of doubt or dread in regard to the future he might in his last hours experience, were encountered and borne with the semblance of indifference and tranquillity. He could not, indeed, feel the blessedness of those who have fought a good fight and kept the faith; nor could he, like Addison, exclaim with hopeful and serene resignation, “You see how a Christian can die:” but, five days before his last, he wrote, “I see death approaching gradually without anxiety or regret.” On the 25th of August, 1776, he breathed his last; and was buried in a cemetery on the Calton Hill, where a monument to his memory has since been erected.