I cannot say there
is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope
it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is
easily cleared and ascertained."
Hume died in Edinburgh on the 25th of August, 1776, and, a few days
later, his body, attended by a great concourse of people, who seem to
have anticipated for it the fate appropriate to the remains of wizards
and necromancers, was deposited in a spot selected by himself, in an old
burial-ground on the eastern slope of the Calton Hill.
From the summit of this hill, there is a prospect unequalled by any to
be seen from the midst of a great city. Westward lies the Forth, and
beyond it, dimly blue, the far away Highland hills; eastward, rise the
bold contours of Arthur's Seat and the rugged crags of the Castle rock,
with the grey Old Town of Edinburgh; while, far below, from a maze of
crowded thoroughfares, the hoarse murmur of the toil of a polity of
energetic men is borne upon the ear. At times, a man may be as solitary
here as in a veritable wilderness; and may meditate undisturbedly upon
the epitome of nature and of man--the kingdoms of this world--spread out
before him.
Surely, there is a fitness in the choice of this last resting-place by
the philosopher and historian, who saw so clearly that these two
kingdoms form but one realm, governed by uniform laws and alike based on
impenetrable darkness and eternal silence: and faithful to the last to
that profound veracity which was the secret of his philosophic
greatness, he ordered that the simple Roman tomb which marks his grave
should bear no inscription but
DAVID HUME
BORN 1711.
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