Hume's Political Discourses. David Hume

      ADAM SMITH’S CELEBRATED ACCOUNT OF HUME’S DEATH.

       Table of Contents

      “KIRKCALDY, FIFESHIRE, Nov. 9, 1776.

      “DEAR SIR,—It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down to give you some account of the behaviour of our excellent friend, Mr. Hume, during his last illness.

      “Though, in his own judgment, his disease was mortal and incurable, yet he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey. A few days before he set out he wrote that account of his own life which, together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account, therefore, shall begin where his ends.

      “He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with Mr. John Home and myself, who had both come down from London to see him, expecting to have found him in Edinburgh. Mr. Home returned with him, and attended him during the whole of his stay in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing my journey. His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air, and when he arrived in London he was apparently in much better health than when he left Edinburgh. He was advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon {p-xxiii} him that even he himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own health. His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he continued to divert himself as usual, with correcting his own works for a new edition, and reading books of amusement, with the conversation of his friends, and, sometimes in the evening, with a party at his favourite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying. ‘I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmondstone,’ said Doctor Dundas to him one day, ‘that I left you much better, and in a fair way of recovery.’ ‘Doctor,’ said he, ‘as I believe you would not choose to tell anything but the truth, you had better tell him that I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and as cheerfully as my best friends could desire.’ Colonel Edmondstone soon afterwards came to see him, and took leave of him; and on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter bidding him once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as a dying man, the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend, the Marquis de la Fare. Mr. Hume’s magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded nothing in talking or writing to him as to a dying man, and that, so far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and flattered by it. I happened to come into his room while he was reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he immediately showed me. I told him that though I was sensible how very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects very bad yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not help {p-xxiv} entertaining some faint hopes. He answered—‘Your hopes are groundless. An habitual diarrhœa of more than a year’s standing would be a very bad disease at any age: at my age it is a mortal one. When I lie down in the evening, I feel myself weaker than when I rose in the morning; and when I rise in the morning, weaker than when I lay down in the evening. I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital parts are affected, so that I must soon die.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if it must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, your brother’s family in particular, in great prosperity.’ He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was reading a few days before, Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. ‘I could not well imagine,’ said he, ‘what excuse I could make to Charon in order to obtain a little delay. I have done everything of consequence which I ever meant to do; and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now like to leave them; I therefore have all reason to die contented.’ He then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them. ‘Upon further consideration,’ said he, ‘I thought I might say to him, good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition; allow me a little time that I may see how the public receives the alterations.’ But Charon would answer, ‘When you have seen the effect of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.’ But I might still urge, ‘Have a little patience, good Charon; I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.’ But Charon would then lose all temper and decency. ‘You loitering {p-xxv} rogue; that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering rogue.’

      “But though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject but when the conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than the course of the conversation happened to require; it was a subject, indeed, which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the inquiries which his friends who came to see him naturally made concerning the state of his health. The conversation which I mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was the last except one that I ever had with him. He had now become so very weak that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him; for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion than suited the weakness of his body. At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and returned to my mother’s house here, at Kirkcaldy, upon condition that he would send for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who saw him most frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking in the meantime to write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.

      “On the 22nd of August the doctor wrote me the following letter:—

      “ ‘Since my last Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is much weaker. He sits up, goes downstairs once a day, and amuses himself with reading, but seldom sees anybody. He finds that even the conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him; and it is happy that he does not need it, for he is quite free from anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing books.’ {p-xxvi}

      “I received the day after a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the following is an extract:—

      “ ‘EDINBURGH, August 23, 1776.

      “ ‘MY DEAREST FRIEND,—I am obliged to make use of my nephew’s hand in writing to you, as I do not rise to-day.

      · · · · · ·

      “ ‘I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but unluckily it has, in a great measure, gone