The second volume of the ' History of England,' which embraced the period from the death of Charles I. to the Revolution, was published in 1756. " This performance," ho says, " happened to give less dis pleasure to the Whigs, sud was bettor received. It not only rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother." The history of the House of Tudor' was published in 1759; and the two volumes, containing the earlier English history, which completed the work, in 1761.
At this point in his autobiography, he remarks : "Notwithstanding the variety of winds and seasons to which my writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances, that the copy money given me by the booksellers much exceeded anything formerly known m England ; I was become not only independent, but opulent. I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never moro to set my foot out of It; and retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them." His determination was not long adhered to. He received in 1763 an invitation from the Earl of Hertford to accompany him on his embassy to Paris, with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the emba'ey, and, In the meanwhile, of per forming the function, of that office. He at first declined the offer, but, on its being repeated, he availed himself of it. At Paris, as was to be expsoted, his literary fame brought him much attention ; and he was greatly delighted with his residence there. When Lord Hert ford was, in 1765, appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Hume remained at Paris as chargd d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond. lie returned to England in the beginning of 1706, and the year after was appointed Under-Secretary of State. He held this appointment about two years, and then returned to Edinburgh. "I returned to Edinburgh," he says, "in 1769, very opulent (for I pos sessed a revenue of 10001. a year), healthy, and though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation." Iu the spring of 1775 he was attacked by a disorder in his bowels, which at first caused him no alarm, but which ultimately carried him off. In the spring of 1776 be was recommended to go to Bath, to try the effect of the waters; and just before making the journey he wrote this autobiography from which we have quoted so largely. The waters were of no avail, and he shortly returned to Edinburgh, thoroughly resigned to his fate. He died on the 25th of August 1776, in his 66th year.
Together with Hume's autobiography was published, shortly after his decease, a letter from Dr. Adam Smith to Mr. Strachan, giving an
account, of his last days and of his death, and containing a lofty and glowing panegyric on his personal character.
As an author, Hume is to be viewed principally in two ways, as an historian and as a philosopher. The merits and the demerits of his history are generally very well known. It is written in a very easy and animated as well as thoughtful and philosophic style ; but un the other band it is disfigured by partiality, misrepresentation, and want of accuracy. He could not tolerate the labour of research into original documents, and he had not sufficient knowledge of the subject to indicate the steps by which the constitution has attained its present form, end the effect which successive enactments have had on the fundamental laws of property. As a philosopher, it has been observed that Hume is acute and ingenious, but not profound; and the remark is just, if applied to what he has done, rather than to what ho perhaps might have accomplished. His treatises contain no complete system of any branch of philosophy; and the separate essays are chiefly valuable for acute observations and just deductions expressed in clear, concise, and appropriate words. 31auy of them will suggest further matter for reflection, though we think that few can be viewed as possessing the character of completeness. As a political writer, Hume cannot be ranked in the first class. To many of the literary essays of Hume we should assign a higher degree of merit than perhaps, at the present day, most people are disposed to give them. They appear to us to contain many most important truths expressed with great felicity ; and if they seldom or never exhaust the aubject, they perhaps always dispose the reader to further investigation. Iu his ' Enquiry concerning the Principals of Morals' he has made many ingenious elucidations of the principle of utility, as the fundamental principle of morals, but he has at the same time admitted a principle of conscience, independent of that principle of utility.
The editions of Hume's History are innumerable; and, as is well known, it now always goes along with that of Smollett, and to some recent editions is added a carefully written continuation, in which the narrative is carried on to the present time, from where Smollett left it, by the Rev. T. S. Hughes. The best edition of Hume's philo sophies] works is one published in Edinburgh, in 1826, in 4 voles 8vo. A 'Life and Correspondence of David Hume,' by Mr. John Hill Burton. appeared in 1847, in 2 vols. 8vo.