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Hume to Gilbert Elliot of Minto.
1751.
"Dear Sir,—I am sorry your keeping these papers has proceeded from business and avocations, and not from your endeavours to clear up so difficult an argument. I despair not, however, of getting some assistance from you; the subject is surely of the greatest [337]importance, and the views of it so new as to challenge some attention.
"I believe the Philosophical Essays contain every thing of consequence relating to the understanding, which you would meet with in the Treatise; and I give you my advice against reading the latter. By shortening and simplifying the questions, I really render them much more complete. Addo dum minuo. The philosophical principles are the same in both; but I was carried away by the heat of youth and invention to publish too precipitately.—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.
"I return Strabo, whom I have found very judicious and useful. I give you a great many thanks for your trouble. I am," &c.
Hume's elder brother, John, the laird of Ninewells, was married in 1751; and the following letter, enlivened by touches of light and even elegant raillery, scarcely excelled in the writings of Addison, evidently refers to that event. The plan of life which he sets forth was afterwards altered, at least in so far as he had then in view a place of residence.
Hume to Mrs. Dysart.[337:1]
"Ninewells, March 19th, 1751.
"Dear Madam,—Our friend at last plucked up a resolution, and has ventured on that dangerous encounter. He went off on Monday morning; and this is the first action of his life wherein he has engaged [338]himself, without being able to compute exactly the consequences. But what arithmetic will serve to fix the proportion between good and bad wives, and rate the different classes of each? Sir Isaac Newton himself, who could measure the course of the planets, and weigh the earth as in a pair of scales,—even he had not algebra enough to reduce that amiable part of our species to a just equation; and they are the only heavenly bodies whose orbits are as yet uncertain.
"If you think yourself too grave a matron to have this florid part of the speech addressed to you, pray lend it to the Collector, and he will send it to Miss Nancy.
"Since my brother's departure, Katty and I have been computing in our turn, and the result of our deliberation is, that we are to take up house in Berwick; where, if arithmetic and frugality don't deceive us, (and they are pretty certain arts) we shall be able, after providing for hunger, warmth, and cleanliness, to keep a stock in reserve, which we may afterwards turn either to the purposes of hoarding, luxury, or charity. But I have declared beforehand against the first; I can easily guess which of the other two you and Mr. Dysart will be most favourable to. But we reject your judgment; for nothing blinds one so much as inveterate habits.
"My compliments to his Solicitorship.[338:1] Unfortunately I have not a horse at present to carry my fat carcass, to pay its respects to his superior obesity. But if he finds travelling requisite either for his health or the captain's, we shall be glad to entertain him here, as long as we can do it at another's expense; in hopes we shall soon be able to do it at our own.
[339]"Pray tell the Solicitor that I have been reading lately, in an old author called Strabo, that in some cities of ancient Gaul, there was a fixed legal standard established for corpulency; and that the senate kept a measure, beyond which, if any belly presumed to increase, the proprietor of that belly was obliged to pay a fine to the public, proportionable to its rotundity. Ill would it fare with his worship and I,[339:1] if such a law should pass our parliament; for I am afraid we are already got beyond the statute.
"I wonder, indeed, no harpy of the treasury has ever thought of this method of raising money. Taxes on luxury are always most approved of; and no one will say, that the carrying about a portly belly is of any use or necessity. 'Tis a mere superfluous ornament; and is a proof, too, that its proprietor enjoys greater plenty than he puts to a good use; and, therefore, 'tis fit to reduce him to a level with his fellow-subjects, by taxes and impositions.
"As the lean people are the most active, unquiet, and ambitious, they every where govern the world, and may certainly oppress their antagonists whenever they please. Heaven forbid that Whig and Tory should ever be abolished; for then the nation might be split into fat and lean; and our faction, I am afraid, would be in piteous taking. The only comfort is, if they oppressed us very much, we should at last change sides with them.
"Besides, who knows if a tax were imposed on fatness, but some jealous divine might pretend that the church was in danger.
"I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Csar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men, and his aversion to lean ones. All the world allows, that [340]that emperor was the greatest genius that ever was, and the greatest judge of mankind.
"But I should ask your pardon, dear madam, for this long dissertation on fatness and leanness, in which you are no way concerned; for you are neither fat nor lean, and may indeed be denominated an arrant trimmer. But this letter may all be read to the Solicitor; for it contains nothing that need be a secret to him. On the contrary, I hope he will profit by the example; and, were I near him, I should endeavour to prove as good an encourager as in this other instance. What can the man be afraid of? The Mayor of London had more courage, who defied the hare.[340:1]
"But I am resolved some time to conclude, by putting a grave epilogue to a farce, and telling you a real serious truth, that I am, with great esteem, dear madam, your most obedient humble servant.[340:2]
"P.S. Pray let the Solicitor tell Frank, that he is a bad correspondent—the only way in which he can be a bad one, by his silence."
We find, through the whole of his acts and written thoughts before his return from the embassy to Turin, the indications of an earnest wish to possess the means of independent livelihood, suitable to one belonging to the middle classes of life. Great wealth or ornamental rank he seems never to have desired: but the circumstance of his having, in the year 1748, achieved the means of independence through his official emoluments, seems to have taken so strong a hold of his mind, that nearly thirty years afterwards, [341]in writing his autobiography, he speaks with exultation of his having been then in possession of 1000. The position of the man in comfortable circumstances, equally removed from the dread of want, and the uneasy pressure of superfluous wealth, appears always to have presented itself as the most desirable fate which, in mere pecuniary matters, fortune could have in store for him; and no commentary on the sacred text has perhaps better illustrated its application to the conduct and feelings of mankind, than his adaptation of Agur's prayer to the middle station in life, at a time when he was far from having realized that happy mediocrity of fortune, of which he gives so pleasing a picture.
