ford. There he became acquainted with a body of men who were in some respects kindred spirits, and in all respects delightful companions for a philosopher and a man of letters. These were D'Alembert, Diderot, Holbach, Malesherbes, Buffon, Morelet, Marmontel, Henault, Crebillon the younger, and the elder Mirabeau. But the most remarkable result of his migration was, that he became the idol of the great ladies who presided in fashionable salons in France, such as de Boufflers, Geofrin, and Du Deffaud. Another remarkable star, subsequently of malign influences to him, appeared in the same horizon in the person of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He was there in the full enjoyment of all his persecutions, and it was arranged among the gay group surrounding both, that Hume was to find an asylum in England for "the self-torturing sophist." Hume's simplicity in ordinary matters between man and man, was always contrasted by his friends with his acuteness on paper. He believed that Rousseau wanted solitude, privacy, and safety, and found for him a retreat where these advantages were only too fully enjoyed. He, on the other hand, wished notoriety and a dash of persecution; and as he could only find them by assailing his benefactor, and running back into the scene of his old dangers, he opened an attack on Hume, with which all Europe rang to his satisfaction. Hume took the most effective, and at the same time severe step he could take, by publishing the whole correspondence connected with their union and rupture. Hume returned to Britain in 1766, and became under-secretary of state for the northern department. He now not only enjoyed the great fame of his works, but was affluent and high in political rank. In 1770 he resumed his abode among his old friends in Edinburgh. Of these Dr. Carlyle, in his lately published Autobiography, gives (in addition to what will be found in the Life of Hume by the present writer) some very pleasing particulars. He says—"As Mr. Hume's circumstances improved, he enlarged his mode of living, and, instead of the roasted hen and minced collops, and a bottle of punch, he gave both elegant dinners and suppers, and the best claret; and, which was best of all, he furnished the entertainment with the most instructive and pleasing conversation, for he assembled whomsoever were most knowing and agreeable among either the laity or clergy. This he always did, but still more unsparingly when he became what he called rich. For innocent mirth and agreeable raillery I never knew his match." And again, "He took much to the company of the younger clergy, not from a wish to bring them over to his opinions, for he never attempted to overturn any man's principles, but they best understood his notions, and could furnish him with literary conversation" (274-76). In the spring of 1776, finding his health breaking, he took a journey to the Bath waters, of which there is a pleasant description by his companion, John Home. Receiving no benefit from this attempt, he returned, and died at Edinburgh, 25th August, 1776.—J. H. B—n.
HUME, David, nephew of the preceding, a distinguished Scottish lawyer, was born in 1756. He was successively sheriff of Berwickshire and West Lothian, professor of Scot's law in the university of Edinburgh, and one of the barons of the Exchequer. This last office he held till the abolition of the court in 1830. He published in 1797 "Commentaries on the Law of Scotland respecting the Description and Punishment of Crimes," a work which immediately became a text book in that department of jurisprudence. On the death of Baron Hume, which occurred at Edinburgh on the 30th August, 1838, a valuable collection of MSS. came in the hands of Sir James Robison, as secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, consisting principally of letters addressed to David Hume by the illustrious foreign savants with whom he corresponded, but comprising some of Hume's own MSS. This collection has furnished the latest biographer of the great metaphysician with many interesting; and important facts.
HUME, James Deacon, an early and an official promoter of free-trade principles and practice, was the son of Mr. James Hume, secretary and afterwards commissioner of customs, and was born at Newington in Surrey in the April of 1774. Educated at Westminster, he found himself at eighteen stationed as a clerk in the long-room of the London custom-house. Fond of riding and out-of-door exercises, Mr. Hume combined with these robust amusements a study of the political economy of Adam Smith. Marrying in 1798, he began to farm on rather a large scale at Pinner, near Harrow, but he relinquished the pursuit in 1822, when years of peace had depreciated the value of agricultural produce, and he then removed his residence to London. His experience as a farmer aided his theoretical studies in his subsequent advocacy of free-trade principles. In 1821 he assisted Mr. Thomas Tooke to found the Political Economy Club, at one of the meetings of which Mr. Cobden heard him advocate a total repeal of the corn-laws in opposition to arguments for a fixed duty. Not long afterwards one of his official reports attracted the attention of Mr. Huskisson, appointed in 1823 president of the board of trade. Huskisson asked for a personal interview with the writer whose views of commercial policy were so bold and sound, and after a long conversation with him, saw reason to repose the greatest confidence in his new acquaintance. Mr. Hume was now employed by the government to undertake the important duty of consolidating or codifying the statutes relating to the customs, confused and contradictory, and more than fifteen hundred in number. After three years' ceaseless labour the task was completed. In 1825 the customs act, his work, received the royal assent, and the sum of £6000 was voted as a public acknowledgment of his services. In 1828 he was transferred from the customs to the board of trade, in which the post of joint-secretary was created for him, so anxious were the heads of that department to secure his permanent services. His first, and indeed almost his only, striking appearance as a writer dates from 1833, when, stimulated by the outrageous schemes broached at a meeting in Manchester, he commenced the publication of a series of letters (signed H. B. T.) in the Morning Chronicle, indicating the repeal of the corn-laws as one of the chief anodynes for the sufferings of the working classes. These letters were afterwards republished in a separate form, and extracts from them were widely circulated by the anti-corn-law league of subsequent years. Before the timber duty committee of 1835, Mr. Hume gave valuable evidence with a strong free-trade tendency. By 1840 his long labours had so affected his health that he retired from the public service, and the treasury marked its sense of his merits by conferring on him a pension of £1500 per annum, equal in amount, it is said, to his previous salary. His career of usefulness, however, was not yet terminated. It was about this time that he suggested to his namesake, Mr. Joseph Hume, the expediency of moving for a select committee of the house of commons to inquire into the nature of the several duties levied upon imports. The suggestion was accompanied by an intimation that he would be able to give important evidence before the committee. The committee was granted. Mr. Deacon Hume kept his promise, and his evidence, supported by a long experience, and by the most intimate acquaintance with the commerce of the country, was irrefragable. Sir Robert Peel's subsequent tariff alterations did but embody conclusions derived from the evidence of Mr. Deacon Hume before the import duties committee, and after the death of the latter, on the 12th of January, 1842, Sir Robert spoke of it as "a loss which the house would sincerely deplore." A biography of him, in one volume, by the Rev. Mr. Badham, has been recently published.—F. E.
HUME, Joseph, the champion of economy in national finance, and for thirty-seven years foremost in the ranks of parliamentary liberalism, was born at Montrose in the year 1777. His father, a shipmaster, owner of two vessels, died when he was five years old. His mother, a woman of strong mind and great good sense, found herself unable, after a trial, to carry on her husband's business, and she, by industry and skilful management, reared her family on the profits of a crockery shop. Joseph had the education which is seldom denied, when a parent is anxious for it, to a child-denizen of a Scottish burgh; and the deficiencies of the instruction given him he endeavoured to repair by his own exertions. Among his notable schoolfellows was his friend and fellow-worker of after-life, the late John Mill the historian of British India. The medical profession was his own choice. Apprenticed at fourteen to a surgeon at Montrose, he migrated three years later to the university of Edinburgh, completed his medical studies, and in 1795 was admitted a member of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons. He made a voyage to India in 1796, and in 1797, after attending the hospitals, was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons in London. He now entered as an assistant-surgeon the service of the East India Company. He began his career with the equipment of an indomitable energy, and of a disposition to be helpful and useful in any emergency. Even in the course of his first passage out he volunteered to supply the place of the purser, accidentally inca-
