230 HUME. 



be remarked, that the only part of the whole statement 

 which he at once willingly disbelieved, although it was 

 the only part that had a real foundation, was Hume's 

 helping him to the pension. Therefore, having in the 

 heroics of his first indignation thrown it up, he at once 

 offered afterwards to take it back, and complained of 

 the whole arrears not having been paid. 



Mr. Hume hearing that this frantic creature was 

 writing constantly to Paris complaints of being de- 

 ceived and persecuted by him, wrote to desire he would 

 specify his grounds ; and then came a letter, full of the 

 most ridiculous charges, ascribing to Mr. Hume's most 

 indifferent acts, even to his looks, the most black de- 

 signs; a letter plainly proving that the writer was 

 deranged in one region of his mind, and that vanity 

 was, if not the main cause of his malady, certainly the 

 pivot on which it turned. No one can read that let- 

 ter without a feeling of indignation ; for it shows 

 throughout quite reason enough to make its writer 

 answerable for his pure selfishness and his unbearable 

 suspicions. It is a source, too, of irritation to the reader, 

 that of the many persons whom he called in as arbi- 

 trators, by sending them copies of his favourite pro- 

 duction, not any one appears to have had the manly 

 firmness, the true and rational friendship for Rousseau 

 himself, of at once plainly declaring, what all of them 

 must needs have felt when they read it, that the 

 whole was a fiction of the man's own brain. Lord 

 Marischal seems, indeed, to have perceived that any 

 communication with such a creature was unsafe; and 

 he let him know that henceforth they must no 

 longer correspond. But for this notice, he no doubt 



