As might have been predicted, this venture was
not more fortunate than his previous ones; and, after a year's
endurance, diversified latterly with pecuniary squabbles, in which
Hume's tenacity about a somewhat small claim is remarkable, the
engagement came to an end.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A picture of the house, taken from Drummond's _History of Noble
British Families_, is to be seen in Chambers's _Book of Days_ (April
26th); and if, as Drummond says, "It is a favourable specimen of the
best Scotch lairds' houses," all that can be said is worst Scotch lairds
must have been poorly lodged indeed.
[2] Mr. John Hill Burton, in his valuable _Life of Hume_, on which, I
need hardly say, I have drawn freely for the materials of the present
biographical sketch.
[3] One cannot but be reminded of young Descartes' renunciation of study
for soldiering.
[4] _My Own Life._
[5] Letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, 1751. "So vast an undertaking,
planned before I was one-and-twenty, and composed before twenty-five,
must necessarily be very defective. I have repented my haste a hundred
and a hundred times."
[6] So says Mr. Burton, and that he is right is proved by a letter of
Hume's, dated February 13, 1739, in which he writes, "'Tis now a
fortnight since my book was published." But it is a curious illustration
of the value of testimony, that Hume, in _My Own Life_, states: "In the
end of 1738 I published my Treatise, and immediately went down to my
mother and my brother.
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