221 HUME. 



p roach. This model of bigotry and rudeness had, 

 notwithstanding, met at dinner, with perfect satisfac- 

 tion, and conversed for hours, with Wilkes, whose life 

 was as abandoned as his faith was scanty, who had 

 been convicted of blasphemy and obscenity in a court 

 of justice, and who held in bitter scorn every one of 

 the sturdy moralist's religious and political principles. 

 But Wilkes was English, Hume Scotch. From the 

 country of the Johnsons, the latter deemed that he 

 had made a happy escape, when he found himself 

 among the gay, the polite, the tolerant French ; and 

 he remained there happy, and respected, and beloved, 

 till 1766, when he was diverted from his project of 

 settling in Paris for the rest of his life, by being 

 appointed Under-Secretary of State in General Con- 

 way's ministry, who was Lord Hertford's brother. 

 He held that office for about two years, and in 1769 

 returned to Edinburgh with an income of a thousand 

 a-year, the produce of his own honest industry, 

 " healthy," as he says, " but somewhat stricken in 

 years, with the prospect before him of long enjoying 

 his ease, and of seeing his reputation increase." 



During the first few months of his residence at 

 Paris he was not Private Secretary, as he tells one of 

 his correspondents whom he chides for making that 

 mistake, as will be seen in the Appendix ; and he adds 

 that he performed all the duties of the Secretary of 

 Embassy, Sir Charles Bunbury, who was the brother- 

 in-law of Lord Holland and the Duke of Richmond, 

 and who, being thus protected, did nothing beyond 

 receiving the salary. Lord Hertford, however, ex- 

 erted his influence to obtain Mr. Hume's appoint- 



