\ 
C WA ROA ‘CT E-R-S; 
sire a copy of my new edirion 
should be sent to Mr. Gibbon; as 
wishing that gentleman, whom ‘I 
so highly valuc, should peruse me 
in a form the least imperfect to 
which I can bring my work. 
tid otal DY oh Smith?s performance 
is another excellent work that has 
come from your press this winter ; 
but I have ventured to tell him, 
that it requires too much thought 
to be as popular as Mr. Gibbon’s. 
Mr. Ferguson to Mr. Gibbon. 
Edinburgh, April 18th, 1776. 
Dear Sir, 
I SHOULD make some apology 
for not writing you sooner an an- 
swer to your obliging letter: but if 
you should honour me frequently 
with such requests, you will find, 
that, with very good intentions, I 
am a very dilatory and irregular 
correspondent. I am sorry-to tell 
you, that our respectable friend 
[ Mr. Hume] is still declining in his 
health; he is greatly emiciated, 
and. loses strength. He taiks fa- 
miliarly of his near prospect of 
dying. His mother, it seems, died 
under the same symptoms ; and it 
appears so little necessary, or pro- 
per, to fiatter him, that no one 
attempts it. I never observed his 
understanding more clear, or his 
humour more pleasant and lively. 
He has a great aversion to Icave 
the tranquillity of his own house, to 
go in search of health among inns 
and hostlers. And his friends here 
gave way to him for some time ; 
bot now think it necessary that he 
should make an effort to try what 
change of place and air, or any 
thing else sir John Pringle may ad- 
vise, cando forhim. I left him 
this morning in the mind to com- 
, 
~any! one hesides 
[375 
ply in ‘this article, and I hap¢ that 
he will be prevailed on to set out 
in,a few days. He is jist now 
sixty-fi 
I am very glad that the pleasure 
you give us, recoils a little on 
yourself, through our fecble testi- 
mony. J have, as you suppose, 
been employed, at any intervals of 
leisure or rest I have had for some 
years, in taking notes, or colleét- 
ing materials, for a history of the 
distraG@ions that broke down the 
Roman republic, and ended in the 
establishment of Augustus and his 
immediate successors. The com- 
pliment you are pleased to pay, I 
cannot accept of, even to my sub- 
ject. Your subject now. appears 
with advantages it was not sup- 
posed to have had; and I suspect 
that the magnificence of the moul- 
dering ruin will appear more strik- 
ing, than the same building when 
the view is perplexed with: scaf- 
folding, work:ncn, and disorderly 
lodgers, and th> earis stunned with 
the noise of destrustions and re- 
pairs, and the alarms of fire. The 
night which you begin to describe 
is solemn, and there are gleams of 
light superior to what is to be found 
in any other time. IJ comfort my- 
self, that as my trade is the study 
ef humannature, I could not fix on 
a more interesting corner of it, 
than the end ef the Roman re- 
prblic. Whether my compilations 
should ever deserve the attention of 
myself, must re- 
main to be determ'ned, after they 
are farther advanced. I take the’ 
liberty to trouble you with the in. 
closed for Mr. Smith, whose un. 
certain stay in London mikes me 
at a Joss how ‘to direét for hinx 
You have both such reason’ to be 
pieased with the world just now, 
Bb 4 that 
