He does not enter into a minute inquiry into the origin of the family, a species of antiquarianism of which it must be confessed our Scottish historians are sufficiently fond:—"My intention," he says, "does not extend farther than to write those things that are peculiar to the House of Wedderburn." The work begins with "David, first laird of Wedderburn," who appears to have lived about the end of the fourteenth century, and concludes with an account of the earlier part of his brother's life.
During the latter period of his life, Hume appears to have devoted himself almost entirely to literary pursuits. He had appeared before the world as a poet in his "Lusus Poetici," published in 1605, and afterwards incorporated into the excellent collection entitled "Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum," edited by Dr Arthur Johnston. He seems to have added to his poetical works when years and habits of study might be supposed to have cooled his imaginative powers. When prince Henry died, he gave vent to his grief in a poem entitled "Henrici Principis Justa," which, Wodrow conjectures, was probably sent to Sir James Semple of Beltrees, then a favourite at court, and by whom it is not improbable that it was shown to his majesty. A few years afterwards (1617) he wrote his "Regi Suo Graticulatio,"—a congratulatory poem on the king's revisiting his native country. In the same year he prepared (but did not publish) a prose work under the following title, "Cambdenia; idest, Examennonnulloruma Gulielmo Cambdenoin 'Britannia' sua positorum, praecipue quas ad irrisionem Scoticas gentis, et eorum et Pictorum falsam originem." "In a very short preface to his readers," says Wodrow, "Mr Hume observes that nothing more useful to this island was ever proposed, than the union of the two islands, and scarce ever any proposal was more opposed; witness the insults in the House of Commons, and Paget's fury, rather than speech, against it, for which he was very justly fined. After some other things to the same purpose, he adds, that Mr Cambden hath now in his Britannia appeared on the same side, and is at no small labour to extol to the skies England and his Britons, and to depress and expose Scotland, how unjustly he does so is Mr Hume's design in this work." Cambden's assertions were also noticed by William Drummond in his Nuntius Scoto-Britannus, and in another of his works more professedly levelled against him, entitled "A Pair of Spectacles for Cambden."
The last work in which we are aware of Hume's having been engaged, is his largest, and that by which he is best known. The History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus, seems to have been first printed at Edinburgh, by Evan Tyler, in 1644, but this edition has several discrepancies in the title-page. Some copies bear the date 1648, " to be sold by T. W. in London," and others have a title altogether different, "A Generall History of Scotland, together with a particular history of the houses of Douglas and Angus," but are without date. After mentioning in the preface that, in writing such a work it is impossible to please all parties, that some may say that it is an unnecessary work others, that it is merely a party-statement, and a third complain of "the style, the phrase, the periods, the diction, and the language," Hume goes on to say, "in all these particulars, to satisfy all men is more than we can hope for; yet thus much shortly of each of them to such as will give ear to reason : that I write, and of this subject, I am constrained to do it, not by any violence or compulsion, but by the force of duty, as I take it: for being desired to do it by those I would not refuse, I thought myself bound to honour that name, and in it and by it, our king and countrey. . . . Touching partiality, I deny it not, but am content to acknowledge my interest. Neither do I think that ever any man did set pen to paper without some particular relation of kindred, countrey, or such like. The Romans in writing the Romane, the Grecians in writing their Greek histories;
