I EARLY LIFE 7 



ation. Nevertheless, as a very competent author- 

 ity l wisely remarks : 



"There appear to have been in Hume all the elements of 

 which a good lawyer is made : clearness of judgment, power of 

 rapidly acquiring knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic 

 skill : and if his mind had not been preoccupied, he might have 

 fallen into the gulf in which many of the world's greatest 

 geniuses lie buried professional eminence ; and might have 

 left behind him a reputation limited to the traditional recollec- 

 tions of the Parliament house, or associated with important 

 decisions. He was through life an able, clear-headed man of 

 business, and I have seen several legal documents written in 

 his own hand and evidently drawn by himself. They stand 

 the test of general professional observation ; and their writer, 

 by preparing documents of facts of such a character on his own 

 responsibility, showed that he had considerable confidence in 

 his ability to adhere to the forms adequate for the occasion. 

 He talked of it as ' an ancient prejudice industriously propagated 

 by the dunces in all countries, that a man of genius is unfit for 

 business,' and he showed, in his general conduct through life, 

 that he did not choose to come voluntarily under this proscrip- 

 tion." 



Six years longer Hume remained at Ninewells 

 before he made another attempt to embark in a 

 practical career this time commerce and with a 

 like result. For a few months' trial proved that 

 kind of life, also, to be hopelessly against the 

 grain. 



It was while in London, on his way to Bristol, 

 where he proposed to commence his mercantile 



1 Mr. John Hill Burton, in his valuable Life of Hume, on 

 which, I need hardly say, I have drawn freely for the materials 

 of the present biographical sketch. 



