years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that I could have but a few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.'
After having finished the account of his life, he, at the request of his friends, went to England for the improvement of his health, but returned with no benefit, after a few weeks' stay at London and Bath. He now employed himself in correcting his works for a new edition, and considering himself as a dying man, talked familiarly and even jocularly of his approaching dissolution. To one of his friends, who, struck by his cheerfulness, could not help expressing hopes of his recovery, he said, 'Your hopes are groundless; I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.' His weakness increased daily, until the afternoon of the 26th of August 1776, when he expired, says Dr. Black, 'in such a happy composure of mind, that nothing could exceed it.'
Hume seemed to have formed a very just estimate of his own character: he describes himself as a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all his passions. This account of himself is fully corroborated by Dr. Adam Smith, who speaks of his social and intellectual qualities in the highest strain of eulogy: 'Upon the whole,' says the doctor, in his concluding remarks upon the death of Hume, 'I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as, perhaps, the nature of human frailty will permit.' Of this frailty he exhibited no inconsiderable portion in treating all systems of religion as founded in superstition; and, perhaps, there was a levity of conduct immediately preceding his death, which was beyond the dignity even of a philosopher, as it was certainly very opposite to the unpretending resignation of a dying Christian. His person had no affinity to his mind; his face was broad and flat, his mouth wide, his eyes vacant, and the corpulency of his whole person is said to have been better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman, than of a refined philosopher. At Turin he fell in love with a lady, and addressing her, declared that he was "abime aneanti." "Oh! pour aneanti," replied the lady, "ce n'est en effet qu'une operation très naturelle de votre systême."
In his intellectual character he takes his place in the first rank of modern philosophical sceptics, and it must be confessed that few writers have insisted on their theories with more vigor, self-command, or ability. The merit of his History of England is now generally allowed, though notwithstanding his own claim to perfect impartiality, prejudices, particularly in favor of the House of Stuart, appear in his work, and he has been accused of coloring facts to support his favorite and somewhat erroneous position that the English constitution cannot be considered as a regular plan of liberty before the reigns of the first two Stuarts. Upon the whole, however, few historians are more free from prejudice than Hume; nor is he often excelled in the clearness and eloquence of his style. About seven years after his death appeared an Essay on Suicide, generally believed to have been the production of his pen, and which, it is said, would have appeared in his lifetime, had not the booksellers been afraid to publish it.
