he could not. In short, the whole oration is of such a strain, that the Duke of Argyle might have spoke it in the House of Peers against my Lord Orford; and decency would not now allow the greatest enemies to go farther. But this oration is not much admired by the ancients. The Divine Philippic, as Juvenal calls it, is the second, where he gives a full loose to his scurrility; and without having any point to gain by it, except vilifying his antagonist, and without supporting any fact by witnesses, (for there was no trial or accusation), he rakes into all the filth of Antony's character; reproaches him with drunkenness and vomiting, and cowardice, and every sort of debauchery and villany. There is great genius and wit in many passages of this oration; but I think the whole turn of it would not now be generally admired. "I thank Mrs Home for her intelligence, and have much employ'd my brain to find out the person she means. It cou'd 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 CHAP. III. BOOK I, unless you think it proper to disabuse me, for fear of my being too much puft up with vanity by such a conceit. "I am obliged to you for Vaugelas and the pamphlets. I fancy I have been misinformed with regard to Kincaid. The Essays are all sold in London, as I am informed by two letters from English gentlemen of my acquaintance. There is a demand for them; and, as one of them tells me, Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, wonders there is not a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers. I am also told that Dr Butler has every where recommended them, so that I hope they will have some success. They may prove like dung with marl, and bring forward the rest of my philosophy, which is of a more durable, though of a harder and more stubborn nature. You see I can talk to you in your own style. Adieu. Yours, &c. DAVID HUME." The estimate which Mr Hume here makes of the comparative merit of his Political Essays and his Metaphysical Speculations, is one of the strongest examples of the mistaken judgments which authors are apt to form of their own writings. His Political Dissertations, published above sixty years ago, enjoy at this day an extensive and permanent reputation: they abound with the most solid instruction; and have served as the basis of that enlarged system of policy, which connects the welfare of every nation with the prospe rity of all its surrounding states. To his Philosophy, deemed by him of a more durable nature, we see no reasonable grounds for assigning a more lasting empire, than has been the lot of the once equally celebrated systems of Malebranche, Leibnitz, and Berkeley. CHAP. III. VOL. I. CHAP. CHAPTER IV. Mr Home married in 1741.—His mode of life in town.—His occupations in the country.-Dictionary of Decisions.—Mr Home's early political opinions.-Essays on British Antiquities.—On the Feudal Law.-On the Constitution of Parliament.- On Honour, Dignity, and Succession.-On Hereditary and Indefeasible Right.-Correspondence with David Hume. BOOK I. Mr Home married in 1741. MR HOME was married in 1741, to Miss AGATHA DrumMOND, a younger daughter of James Drummond, Esq; of Blair, in the county of Perth. Their union was the result of mutual esteem, and a perfect knowledge of each other's character, founded on a long and intimate acquaintance. Mrs Home was endowed with an excellent understanding, and an enlightened and solid judgment in the conduct of life, with much sweetness of temper and gentleness of manners. With a remarkable diffidence in her own abilities, she possessed a natural good taste; and though superior to the affectation of shining as a wit, she had an uncommon share of humour, an acute discernment of characters, and was not in disposed disposed in the company of intimate friends to indulge a playful vein of satire on the lighter weaknesses, or ludicrous absurdities that came under her view. But this talent was rarely displayed, and ever under the regulation of good manners, and the better restraint of a humane and benevolent heart. In the management of her household, where it was the more becoming in her to attend to economy, that her husband's turn for hospitality, and her own sense of what was suitable to the rank they occupied in life, rendered it necessary to maintain a handsome and liberal establishment, Mrs Home's conduct was a model of propriety. Abridging every superfluous expence, indulging in none of the frivolous gratifications of vanity, but studious alone of uniting the real comforts of life with that modest measure of external show which the station of a gentleman demands, she kept an elegant but simple table, at which the guests of her husband met always with a cheerful welcome. In the earlier period of Mr Home's married life, attention to economy was a necessary duty and he found in his partner that excellent good sense and discretion, which felt it no sacrifice to conform their mode of living to the just bounds of their income. I have from Mr Drummond Home the following anecdote, which, as he justly observes, is illustrative of the characters both of his father and mother. "Mrs Home, who had a "taste for every thing that is elegant, was passionately fond "of old china; and soon after her marriage, had made such frequent purchases in that way, as to impress her husband " with 66 02 CHAP. IV. |