A APP BIN IDOE, 129 
ters ferved only to amufe his leifure, and to animate his conver- 
fation. ‘The infirmities of age, of which he very early began 
to feel the approaches, reminded him at laft, when it was too 
late, of what he yet owed to the public, and to his own fame. 
The principal materials of the works which he had announced, 
had been long ago colleéted ; and little probably was wanting, 
but a few years of health and retirement, to beftow on them 
that fyftematical arrangement in which he delighted ; and the 
ornaments of that flowing, and apparently artlefs ftyle, which 
he had ftudioufly cultivated, but which, after all his experience 
in compofition, he adjufted, with extreme difficulty, to his. 
own tafte * 
Tue death of his mother in 1784, which was followed by 
that of Mifs DovexLas in 1788, contributed, it is probable, to 
fruftrate thefe projects. They had been the objects of his af- 
feGtion for more than fixty years; and in their fociety he had 
enjoyed, from ‘his infancy, all that he ever knew of the endear- 
ments of a family. He was now alone, and helplefs; and, 
though he bore his lofs with equanimity, and regained’ appa- 
rently his former cheerfulnefs, yet his health and ftrength gra- 
dually declined till the period of his death, which happened im 
July 1790, about two years after that of his coufin, and fix af- 
ter that of his mother. His Jaft illnefs, which arofe from a 
Vou. III. (R) chronic 
* Mr Situ obferved to me, not long before his death, that after all his praétice 
in writing, he compofed as flowly, and with as great difficulty, as at firft. He 
added, at the fame time, that Mr Hume had acquired fo great a facility in this re- 
fpeét, that the laft volumes of his Hiftory were printed from his original copy, 
with a few marginal corrections, 
Ir may gratify the curiofity of fome readers to know, that when Mr Smitu was 
employed in compofition, he generally walked up and down his apartment, dicta- 
ting to a fecretary. All Mr Hume’s works (I have been aflured) were written 
with his own hand. A critical reader may, I think, perceive in the different ftyles - 
of thefe two claffical writers, the effects of their different modes of ftndy. 
Account of 
Dr Smith, 
