Hume: TLDH Vol 1 Ltr 169 To: Smith [59] p 311
† * 169. To ADAM SMITH

Dear Sir

Your Friend, Mr Wilson,† 7 calld on me two or three days ago when I was abroad, & he left your Letter: I did not see him till to day. He seems a very modest, sensible, ingenious Man. Before I saw him, I spoke to A. Millar about him, & found him very much dispos’d to serve him. I proposd particularly to Mr Millar, that it was worthy of so eminent a Bookseller as he to make a compleat elegant Set of the Classics, which might set up his Name equal to the Alduses, Stevens, or Elzivirs; and that Mr Wilson was the properest Person in the World to assist him in such a Project. He confest to me, that he had sometimes thought of it; but that his great Difficulty was to find a Man of Letters, who cou’d correct the Press. I mentioned the Matter to Wilson, who said he had a Man of Letters in his Eye; one Lyon,† 1 a nonjuring Clergyman at Glasgow. He is probably known to you, or at least may be so: I wou’d desire your Opinion of him.

312

Mr Wilson told me of his Machines, which seem very ingenious, & deserve much Encouragement. I shall soon see them.

I am very well acquainted with Bourke,† 2 who was much taken with your Book. He got your Direction from me with a View of writing to you, & thanking you for your Present: For I made it pass in your Name. I wonder he has not done it: He is now in Ireland. I am not acquainted with Jennyns;† 3 but he spoke very highly of the Book to Oswald, who is his Brother in the Board of Trade. Millar show’d me a few days ago a Letter from Lord Fitz-maurice;† 4 where he tells him, that he had carryd over a few Copies to the HAGUE for Presents. Mr Yorke† 5 was much taken with it as well as several others who had read it.

I am told that you are preparing a new Edition,† 6 & propose to make some Additions & Alterations, in order to obviate Objections. I shall use the Freedom to propose one, which, if it appears to be of any Weight, you may have in your Eye. I wish you had more particularly and fully prov’d, that all kinds of Sympathy are necessarily Agreeable. This is the Hinge of your System, & yet you only mention the Matter cursorily in p. 20. Now it woud appear that there is a disagreeable Sympathy, as well as an agreeable: And indeed, as the Sympathetic Passion is a reflex Image of the principal, it must partake of its Qualities, & be painful where that is so. Indeed, when we converse with a man with whom we can entirely sympathize, that is, where there is a warm & intimate Friendship, the cordial openness of such a Commerce overpowers the Pain of a disagreeable Sympathy, and renders the whole Movement agreeable. But in ordinary Cases, this cannot have place. An ill-humord Fellow; a man tir’d & disgusted with every thing, always ennuié; sickly, complaining, embarass’d; such a one throws an evident Damp on Company, which I suppose wou’d be accounted for by Sympathy; and yet is disagreeable.

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It is always thought a difficult Problem to account for the Pleasure, receivd from the Tears & Grief & Sympathy of Tragedy; which woud not be the Case, if all Sympathy was agreeable. An Hospital woud be a more entertaining Place than a Ball. I am afraid that in p. 99 and 111 this Proposition has escapd you, or rather is interwove with your Reasonings in that place. You say expressly, it is painful to go along with Grief & we always enter into it with Reluctance. It will probably be requisite for you to modify or explain this Sentiment, & reconcile it to your System.

My Dear Mr Smith; You must not be so much engross’d with your own Book, as never to mention mine. The Whigs, I am told, are anew in a Rage against me; tho’ they know not how to vent themselves: For they are constrain’d to allow all my Facts. You have probably seen Hurd’s Abuse of me.† 1 He is of the Warburtonian School; and consequently very insolent and very scurrilous; but I shall never reply a word to him. If my past Writings do not sufficiently prove me to be no Jacobite, ten Volumes in folio never would.

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I signd yesterday an Agreement with Mr Millar; where I mention that I proposd to write the History of England from the Beginning till the Accession of Henry the VII; & he engages to give me 1400 Pounds for the Copy. This is the first previous Agreement ever I made with a Bookseller. I shall execute this Work at Leizure, without fatiguing myself by such ardent Application as I have hitherto employd. It is chiefly as a Ressource against Idleness, that I shall undertake this Work: For as to Money, I have enough: And as to Reputation, what I have wrote already will be sufficient, if it be good: If not, it is not likely I shall now write better. I found it impracticable (at least fancy’d so) to write the History since the Revolution. I am in doubt whether I shall stay here & execute the Work; or return to Scotland, & only come up here to consult the Manuscripts. I have several Inducements on both Sides. Scotland suits my Fortune best, & is the Seat of my principal Friendships; but it is too narrow a Place for me, and it mortifies me that I sometimes hurt my Friends. Pray write me your Judgement soon. Are the Bigots much in Arms on account of this last Volume? Robertson’s Book has great Merit; but it was visible that he profited here by the Animosity against me. I suppose the Case was the same with you. I am

Dear Smith

Yours sincerely

DAVID HUME.

London 28 July 1759.

Hume: TLDH Vol 1 Ltr 169 To: Smith [59] Fn * p 311
† * MS., R.S.E.; Lit. Gazette, 1821, p. 665 f.; Burton, ii. 59 ff.
† 7 Alexander Wilson, M.D. (1733-86), a St. Andrews man; practised medicine in London for a time; took to type-founding; appointed type-founder to University of Glasgow, 1748; appointed
Professor of Practical Astronomy, and Observer, University of Glasgow, 1760; awarded gold medal of Royal Society of Sciences, Copenhagen, 1772, for a dissertation on sun spots. He founded the types for the Foulis brothers in Glasgow, his Greek founts being unsurpassed.
Hume: TLDH Vol 1 Ltr 169 To: Smith [59] Fn 1 p 312
† 1 I have not been able to trace this man.
† 2 Presumably Edmund Burke.
† 3 Soame Jenyns.
† 4 William Petty, Viscount Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), succeeded as Earl of Shelburne, 1761.
† 5 Probably the Hon. Charles Yorke (1722-70), 2nd son of 1st Earl of Hardwicke; M.P. for Reigate; Solicitor-General, 1756; Attorney-General, 1761-3; Lord Chancellor for three days, 1770.
† 6 The 2nd edit. did not appear till 1761.
Hume: TLDH Vol 1 Ltr 169 To: Smith [59] Fn 1 p 313
† 1 The 1st edit. of Richard Hurd’s Moral and Political Dialogues, 1759, contains a 7 1/2-page Postscript censuring Hume’s Tudors. The following extracts indicate the tone of it. ‘For having undertaken to conjure up the spirit of absolute power, he [Hume] judged it necessary to the charm, to reverse the order of things, and to evoke this frightful spectre by writing (as witches use to say their prayers) backwards. . . . Accordingly, while one half of his pains is laid out in exposing the absurdities of reformed religion, the other half is suitably employed in discrediting the cause of civil liberty.’ In later editions Hurd changed the Postscript into a footnote in which modified praise is given to Hume’s History from Julius Caesar to Henry VII, in comparison with the other sections.

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