defect of imagination, which this indicates, may be ascribed his want of sympathy with the higher virtues, no one of which can exist with out the imaginative power. Wordsworth almost identifies Imagination and Faith. Hume's "History" is that of the progressof society rather than the story of individuals. It would seem that in his view-and we are not prepared to dispute its justness-that condition of society is the happiest in which the individual is lost from sight. If a state of society could be imagined allowing free development to all that is good in man, it would be, no doubt, the best; but the very conception, we fear, implies a contradiction. Civili

zation with its Wilkies, its Blacklocks, and its M'Phersons, is, probably, something better than barbarism with its true Homer.

Whatever Hume's abstract love for High Church may have been, and however opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the Scottish Church, he was in practice no Puseyite-at least he did not fast. Beef and cabbage he calls a charming dish; old mutton, too, he thought well of. He wished the Duke of Nivernois to become apprentice to his "lass," to learn the secret of making sheep's-head broth.

The fat philosopher was fond of children. He was so fat that the little thing who got possession of his knee remembered through all after-life keeping fast hold of his laced waistcoat to save itself from falling; as for more than one climbing at a time, as in Gray's family pic ture, it was out of the question.

Hume, in walking home from a party, with Ferguson, addressed his friend, pointing to the starry sky"Oh, Adam, can any one contemplate the wonders of that firmament, and not believe that there is a God?" Men are forgiven anything rather than inconsistency with the character which society forms of them; and we are afraid that we are diminishing Hume's claims to the honour of canonization when we mention that he was a good church-goer. When in France, he appears to have attended the ambassador's chapel pretty regularly; and in Edinburgh he is said to have been fond of Robertson's preaching, and not averse to that of his colleague and opponent, John Erskine. Hume was seriously angry with a servant maid of his who did not attend church, where he had pro

vided seats for all his household. The woman was a dissenter, and attended a different place of worship, which answer satisfied him. A number of stories are told on doubtful authority, all illustrative of Hume's good nature and good sense. They may not be true; but their being believed is some evidence of the character of the man of whom they could be plausibly told. A chandler's wife on one occasion visited him-" She had been entrusted," she said, "with a message to him from on high." Hume ordered her a glass of wine; and before she commenced her attack, contrived to divert her mind from theological topics, by fixing it on soap and candles and their price, and giving her an order for some. He is said to have got bogged in some marshy ground at the base of the Castle rock; an old woman finding "Hume the deist" in this slough of despond, refused to assist him out till he became a Christian. He repeated the creed and Lord's prayer, and thus her conscience was satisfied, and the philosopher rescued.

A proof of Hume's good nature was his writing a review of Dr. Henry's History of England. His review was written for the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, a journal conducted by Gilbert Stuart. Stuart, it would appear, detested Henry; and ascribing his own passions to others, thought it good policy to get Henry reviewed by a rival historian. Hume's review was printed, but suppressed. It did not answer Stuart's malignant purpose; for, as might be expected, it was conceived in a spirit of the greatest kindliness to Henry, and contained almost unqualified praise of his work. Stuart's account of it is characteristic, and worth preserving for its insane vehemence. He thus writes to a friend :

"David Hume wants to review Henry, but that task is so precious that I will undertake it myself. Moses, were he to ask it as a favour, should not have it; yea, not even the man after God's own heart. I wish I could transport myself to London to review it for the Monthly-a fire there, and in the Critical, would perfectly annihilate him. Could you do nothing in the latter? To the former I suppose David Hume has transferred the criticism he intended for us. It is precious, and would divert you. I keep a proof of it in my cabinet for the amusement

of friends. This great philosopher begins to dote."

Mr. Burton quotes another sentence from this letter:

"Strike, by all means; the wretch will tremble, grow pale, and return [?] with a consciousness of his debility. When you have an enemy to attack, I shall, in return, give my best assistance, and aim at him a mortal blow, and rush forward to his overthrow, though the flames of hell should start up to oppose me."

It is almost a relief to know that this scoundrel was absolutely insane.

In the early part of the year 1776, Hume wrote letters of congratulation to his friend Adam Smith, and to Gibbon, on their respective publication of the "Wealth of Nations," and the "Decline and Fall;" of the latter he told Gibbon he could not expect to see the future volumes, as his health was broken. In April of that year he drew up the short sketch of his life, to which he has left little to his biographer to add. In the previous January he had made all arrangements with reference to his pecuniary affairs. The "Dialogues on Natural Religion" he had some reason to think would be suppressed, and he at once took effectual means to secure their publication, though he had withheld them for a period of thirty years, to avoid giving his friends offence. After writing the short memoir of his life, he set out for London, and at Morpeth met Home and Smith. Smith was obliged to return to Edinburgh. Home was enabled to accompany him to Bath, where the disease (an internal hemorrhage) seemed to yield, and hopes were entertained of recovery. In Mackenzie's "Life of Home" are some letters of Hume's, which we think Mr. Burton ought to have incorporated with his selection, and we have a codicil to Hume's will,

in which he records his difference with the poet, as to spelling the family name, and their opposed opinions on the subject of port wine. He leaves him "six dozen of port, provided he attests, under his hand, signed JOHN HUME, that he has himself alone finished one bottle of port at two sittings. By this concession he will, at once, terminate the only two differences that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.' "Hume returned home in July. His recovery now was plainly impossible. His friends appear to have been very much with him till within a few days of his actual decease. There is a mournful levity in their accounts of the indifference Iwith which he awaited death. The letter of Adam Smith, in which the particulars are detailed, can be easily referred to, being prefixed to most of the editions of the History of England. We are glad to avoid a subject so deeply painful.

We are, on the whole, pleased with Mr. Burton's book. His subject presented great difficulties, which are manfully met. To ourselves, an arrangement of the matter separating the letters of Hume more distinctly from the comments of his biographer, would seem a more convenient one both to author and reader. We close with Mr. Burton's account of Hume's burial place.

"On the 'declivity of the Calton hill, there is an old grave-yard which, seventy years ago, was in the open country beyond the boundary of the city of Edinburgh, and even at the present day, when it is the centre of a wide circumference of streets and terraces, has an air of solitude from its elevated site, and the abrupt rocky banks that separate it from the crowded thoroughfares. There, on a conspicuous point of rock, beneath a circular monument, built after the simple and solemn fashion of the old Roman tombs, lies the dust of DAVID HUME."

Mackenzie's Life of John Home.