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If this piece be deficient in fire or polish, it has at least the merit of simplicity, and of not being a slavish [230]adaptation to the formal taste of the age. The following pieces will scarcely perhaps be thought worthy of the like qualified praise.

TO A LADY,

Suspecting that the friendship of men to her sex always concealed a
more dangerous passion.

LAURA'S ANSWER.

The question, whether the man concerning whom a biographical work is written was ever in love, is an important feature in his history, if any light can be thrown upon it. Perhaps some readers will hold, that the tameness of these verses show that, at all events, when he wrote them, Hume was under the impulse of no passion. Very little more light can be brought to bear on this subject; and what can be obtained, is of a like faint and negative cast. He tells us in his "own life," "As I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them." In his essays he frequently discusses the passion of love, [232]dividing it into its elements about as systematically as if he had subjected it to a chemical analysis, and laying down rules regarding it as distinctly and specifically as if it were a system of logic. Nor do the references in his correspondence to any individuals of the other sex, show any perceptible warmth of sentiment. In a letter to Henry Home, of which the other portions are printed above,[232:1] he speaks with perhaps as much appearance of sentiment as any where else, when he says,—

"I thank Mrs. Home for her intelligence, and have much employed my brain to find out the person she means. It could not be the widow: for she toasts always the Duke of Argyle or Lord Stair, and never would name a young man whom she may reasonably enough suppose to be in love with her. I shall therefore flatter myself it was Miss Dalrymple. It is now Exchequer term: she is among the few very fine ladies of Mrs. Home's acquaintance, whom I have the happiness of knowing. In short, many circumstances, besides my earnest wishes, concur to make me believe it was she who did me that honour. I will persevere in that opinion; unless you think it proper to disabuse me, for fear of my being too much puft up with vanity by such a conceit."

His friend Jardine, writing to him when he was secretary of legation in France, says, evidently in ironical reference to his notorious want of sensibility in this respect, "An inordinate love of the fair sex, as I have often told you, is one of those sins, that always, even from your earliest years, did most easily beset you."

Nor does the following passage in a letter from [233]Mr. Crawford,[233:1] dated, London, 9th December, 1766, seem to convey any more serious charge:—

"What keeps you in Scotland? Lord Ossory says, it can be nothing but the young beauty for whom you had formerly some passion. But we are both of opinion, that she must now be old and ugly, and cannot be worthy to detain you in so vile a country. Neither love nor wit can flourish there, otherwise you would not have cracked such bad jokes upon philosophers, the best subject in the world for joking upon. Then,

Come up here, and I know not but what I may be able to introduce you to a young beauty, such as your imagination never figured to itself. With charms and accomplishments possessed by no other woman, she has an understanding equal to that of Madame du Deffand.—Would to God she were blind like her too, that I might dare to avow my passion for her."

If there be any thing in these passages tending to show a slight degree of interest in the sex, their tendency will perhaps be fully neutralized by Hume's exultation on the fortunate nature of his own happy indifference, in a letter to Oswald, which will be found a few pages farther on. It must be confessed, indeed, that, according to all appearance, the appellation, more expressive than classical, frequently used on such occasions, is applicable to Hume, and that he was a "sad indifferent dog."