232 HUME. 



unfavourable to their friend. Certain it is, that 

 Hume's publication, wholly superfluous to all men of 

 ordinary sense and common candour, was insufficient 

 to convince such ill-natured and silly people as the 

 DefFands and their flatterers, who were anxious to 

 have a pretext for levelling their malice at the Eng- 

 lishman and the philosopher ; and though despising 

 Rousseau from the bottom of their hearts, were willing 

 enough to make his fancied grievances a cloak for their 

 attacks upon Mr. Hume. It seems plain that his own 

 subsequent reflection upon the matter brought him over 

 to Mr. Smith's opinion : for in the sketch which he 

 has left of his own life, he makes not the least allusion 

 to his quarrel with Rousseau, although, in his pam- 

 phlet, he says that it gave him more trouble and annoy- 

 ance than any thing that had ever happened to him. 



Mr. Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1766, but 

 early next year he was appointed Under-Secretary of 

 State under Marshal Conway, and held that office 

 above a year. In 1769, some time after he resigned 

 it, he returned to Edinburgh, and took a house in 

 the only part of the new town then built, St. An- 

 drew's Square. With the exception of a journey to 

 Harrowgate for his health, and another to Bath the 

 year he died, he lived in his native country during 

 the remainder of his life, enjoying the constant society 

 of his old friends ; and himself the delight of their 

 circles by his abundant spirits, his never-failing good- 

 humour, and even temper, and the kindness as w r ell 

 as the uprightness of his character. In the spring 

 of 1775, he tells us, he was seized with a disease in 

 his bowels. " At first," he says, " it gave me no 



