HUBIE, DAVID, was born at Edinburgh on the 26th of April 1711. His father's family was a branch of that of the Earl of Hume, or Hume; but it was not a wealthy family, and Hume, being besides a younger brother, inherited but a slander patrimony. Ha was destined by his mother (his father had died when he was very young), for the pro fession of the law, but for this he showed no inclination, and it was eventually given up. The following is his own account of the matter:— "I passed through the ordinary course of education with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me ; but I found an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning ; and while they fancied 1 was poring upon Yost and Vianius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring." We proceed with quotations from his autobiography :—" My very slender fortune however being unsuitable to this plan of life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering into a more active scene of life. In 1734 I went to Bristol, with same recom mendations to eminent merchants, but iu a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat, and 1 then laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. 1 resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to main tain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as con temptible except the improvement of my talents in literature." Ho first went to Rheims, and thence to La Floche in Anjou; and at these two places, but chiefly at the latter, he composed his ' Treatise of Human Nature.' He returned to London in 1737, and published his Treatise' the year after. "Never," he observes, "was literary attempt more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature.' It fell dead born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." But the disappointment did not affect him much or long ; and going to Scotland to his brother's house, he there prosecuted hia studies with vigour. In 1742 he pub lished at Edinburgh the first part of hia ' Essays,' which was on the whole favourably received, and the success of which consoled him in some measure for the failure of his first literary attempt.
In 1745 Hume went to live with the Marquis of Annandale, whose state of mind and health was such as to require a companion. He lived with him a twelvemonth, and received, it appears, a handsome salary. He had immediately after an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as secretary to his expedition, which was at first intended against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France.
Hume took the appointment, and the next year (1747) went as secre tary to the same general iu his military embassy to tba courts of Vienna and Turin. "These two years were almost the only interrup tiona which my studies have received during the course of my life ; I passed them agreeably and in good company ; and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune, which 1 called inde pendent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when I said ao ; iu short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds." On his return to England he went again to his brother's house, and living there two years, composed his 'Political Discourses,' which formed the second part of his Essays,' and his ' Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.' These two works were published in 1752, the firat in Edinburgh, and the second in London. Of the first he tells us that it wan "well received abroad and at home ;" but the other "came unnoticed and unobserved into the world." In the same year he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, an office which was unattended with emolument, but which, as he tells us, gave him the command of a large library. He now formed the plan of writing the 'History of England.' "Being frightened," he says, " with the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of 1700 years, I commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart, an epoch when, I thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place." Priding himself much ou hia own impartiality, he was bitterly disappointed when, on the appearance of the first volume, he was accused on all hands of onesidedness. "I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation ; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freathiuker and religionist, patriot, and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles 1. and the Earl of Strafford ; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. . . . 1 was, I confess, discouraged ; and had not the war been at that time breaking out between Franca and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never mora.have returned to my native country, But as this scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably advanced, 1 resolved to pick up courage and persevere." In the interval between the appearance of the first and that of the second volume of his History, he published his Natural History of Religion,' against which a violent pamphlet was written by Dr. Hurd.