115 



HUME, JAMES DEACON. 



HUME, JAMES DEACON. 



(M 



Tim second volume of the ' History of England,' which embraced the 

 period from the death of Charles I. to the Revolution, was publUhed 

 in 1728. "This performance," he saya, " happened to give leu ills- 

 pleaiure to the Whigs, and was better received. It not only rose 

 itself, but helped to buoy up iU unfortunate brother." ' The History 

 of the House of TII 'lor' was published in 1759; and the two volume*, 

 containing the earlier English history, which completed the work, iu 

 1701. 



At tbia point in hii autobiography, he remarks : " Notwithstanding 

 the variety of winds and seasons to which my writings had been 

 exposed, they had still been making suoh advances, that the copy- 

 money given me by the booksellers much exceeded anything formerly 

 known in England ; I was become not only independent, but opulent. 

 I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never inoro to 

 set my foot out of it ; and retaining the satisfaction of never having 

 preferred a request to one great man, or even making advance! 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 embassy, and, in the meanwhile, of per- 

 forming the functions of that office. He at first declined the offer, 

 but, on its being repented, he availed himself of it At Paris, as was 

 to be exp< oU-d, his literary fame brought him uiuch 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 chargtS d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of 

 Richmond. He returned to England in the beginning of 1766, and 

 the year after was appointed Under-Secretory of State. He held this 

 n ppointment 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 10002. 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." 



In 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 he was recommended to go to Bath, to try 

 the effrct 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 1770, 

 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 bis 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 bis 

 history are generally very well known. It is written in a very easy 

 and animated as well as thoughtful and philosophic style ; but on the 

 other hand 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, and the effect which successive enactments have had on the 

 fundamental laws of property. As a philosopher, it baa 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 he 

 perhaps might hnvo 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. Many 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 giro them. 

 They appear to us to contain many most important truths expressed 

 with great felicity ; and if they seldom or never exhaust the subject, 

 they perhaps always dispose the reader to further investigation. In 

 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. & Hughes. The best edition of Hume's philo- 

 sophical works is one published in Edinburgh, in 1826, in 4 vola. 8vo. 

 A 'Life and Correspondence of David Hume/ by Mr. John Hill 

 Burton, appeared in 1847, in 2 vols. 8vo. 



HUME, JAMES DEACON, born 2Sth of April 1774, at Newington 

 in the county of Surrey, was the son of Mr. James Hume, sometime 

 secretary and afterwards a commissioner of the customs, and who was 

 nephew of Dr. Hume, bi-hop of Salisbury. He was sent when very 

 young to Westminster School, and in that establishment received 

 during the head masterships of Dr. Smith anil Dr. Vincent the whole 

 of his school education. In 1790 Mr. Hume was appointed to a 



clerkship in the Custom House, where he soon became conspicuous 

 for that energy of character which accompanied him through life, so 

 that at an unusually early age he was appointed to fill an office of 

 much responsibility in the department. In 1798 Mr. Hume married, 

 and shortly after fixed his residence at Pinner, near Harrow, wheru he 

 rented a considerable extent of laud, and commenced practical farmer 

 upon a large scale, not however neglecting his official duties. He was 

 always deeply interested in the science of agriculture iu all its 

 branches, and frequently iu after-life referred to his practical expe- 

 rience as a farmer in support of those doctrines of political economy 

 of which he became a xealous and enlightened advocate. 



In 1S22 he was induced to relinquish his rural pursuits and again 

 to take up his residence in London. By this time his value had come 

 to be highly appreciated by the government by means of report* which 

 it became his duty to prepare upon subjects connected with the revenue, 

 and in the following year he was appointed to reduce into one im;.l 

 code the many hundred statutes (upwards of 1500), often contradictory 

 of each other and not (infrequently unintelligible, which at that timo 

 formed "the intricate and labyrinthine chaos" of our custom-house 

 legislation. This work had become one of necessity for the guidance 

 as well of the government as of the commercial world. To no other 

 man probably could its performance have been intrusted with anything 

 like the same propriety. Three of the moat valuable years of i. 

 were devoted to tlio task, and to the unremitting labour which hu 

 applied to its accomplishment his friends attributed that inroad upon 

 his bodily powers which was visible in the latter years of his li: 

 which too probably brought him to the grave sooner than with his 

 originally excellent constitution was to be expected. The labour of 

 the task was intense. During its progress he allowed himself no 

 relaxation, and acquired the habit, which lie afterwards continued, of 

 working through the hours of the night and far into the moruing. Of 

 the value of the work thus performed it is hardly possible for auy one 

 to form an adequate estimate who should not have been practically 

 acquainted with the condition of disorder that previously accompanied 

 an important branch of the public business, and into which the acts 

 prepared by Mr. Hume introduced clearness, harmony, and regularity. 

 In the eleven intelligible acts of parliament prepared under Mr. 11 nine's 

 direction, and passed iu 1825, everything was preserved that it was 

 desirable to retain, while all that had become worthless in the many 

 hundreds of repealed statutes was discarded. So intricate and con 

 had the laws indeed been rendered by successive patch-work pieces of 

 legislation, that even those persons who had made it the study of their 

 lives were often at fault in its application, and the practice of our 

 tribunals upon this branch was frequently contradictory. 



So sensible were the ministers by whom this work was intrusted to 

 Mr. Hume of the ability with which it was performed, that be was 

 presented by the treasury on its completion with the sum of 50002. 

 over and above the salary of bis office, from the duties of which he had 

 been relieved during the period devoted to the task ; and thereafter 

 scarcely any question of importance was decided, having reference to 

 the trade of the country, without his opinion concerning it having first 

 been obtained. So frequent did these consultations become, that a 

 room was fitted up for his use in the office of the Board of Trade ; and 

 at length, in July 1829, his services were wholly transferred to that 

 department, where an office was created for him as joint-assistant- 

 secretary. In the performance of the important duties thus intrusted 

 to him, Mr. Hume used the same degree of zeal and intelligence which 

 had marked his previous course, and which secured for him the respect 

 and confidence of the successive chiefs of the department. 



At the beginning of 18-10 the inroads upon his health, caused by a 

 long life of unremitting labour, were so apparent, that Mr. Hume's 

 retirement from the public service became iu a manner necessary. By 

 this time he had completed forty-nine years of active service, forty-four 

 of those years having been passed in situations of responsibility ; and 

 he was allowed to retire on a pension of the same amount as the salary 

 attached to his office, which appears by a treasury minute presented to 

 parliament, in which was expressed their lordships' " full approval of 

 his long and faithful services, accompanied by their regret that the 

 public service would be deprived by his retirement of his great experi- 

 ence and of his profound and intimate acquaintance with the mercantile 

 system of this country." The regret thus expressed was in effect 

 uncalled for, as on all occasions, up to the close of his life, on which 

 his advice and experience were desirable, they were freely sought and 

 communicated; and it is probable that at no time during his active 

 career was he able to render more essential services to the best interests 

 of commerce, than by the suggestions made by him aftor his nominal 

 retirement, and especially by the evidence given by him before the. 

 Import Duties Commitee of 1840 ; evidence which, having been 

 frequently quoted with commendation by all parties iu the House of 

 Commons, has been brought forward to support measures of reform 

 in our fiscal system proposed and carried in conformity with his 

 recommendations. 



After an illness of some weeks' duration, but from which no serious 

 result was apprehended, -Mr. Hume was seized with a stupor of an 

 apoplectic character, and two days after died, on the 12th of January, 

 1842, iu tho sixty-eighth year of his age. 



Although Mr. Hume may almost be said to have lived with the pen 

 in his hand, he published but little, the object of his labours being for 



