[6:1] A sketch of Hume's character and habits, in _The Edinburgh Magazine_ for 1802, professing to be by one who was personally acquainted with him, is discredited, by its containing a statement that he had joined the Roman Catholic Church when he was in France. The reader will remember that, almost from the moment of his setting foot on foreign soil, he censures the Roman Catholics, in his letters to his friends; and nothing could be mentioned more at variance with a known character, than this writer's assertion, which seems to rest on some imaginative parallel between the personal history of Hume and that of Gibbon. As the reader may desire to read the sketch thus condemned, and to judge for himself of its applicability to Hume, it is here given.
"David Hume was a man of parts, natural and acquired, far superior to most of mankind; of a benevolent heart, a friendly, kind disposition, and a real affection for all his connexions. No man is without his failings; and his great views of being singular, and a vanity to show himself superior to most people, led him to advance many axioms that were dissonant to the opinions of others, and led him into sceptical doctrines only to show how minute and puzzling they were to other folk; in so far, that I have often seen him (in various companies, according as he saw some enthusiastic person there) combat either their religious or political principles; nay, after he had struck them dumb, take up the argument on their side with equal good humour, wit, and jocoseness, all to show his pre-eminency. For the justness of these observations, I appeal to his life, wrote by himself, and published by his friend and admirer, Adam Smith, where you see he was so chagrined at no notice of, or answer being made to, his Essays, and was so disappointed, that he proposed to retire to Saumure, or some other part of France, to be lost to the unheeding world; and, in short, be a perfect hermit. But, on being answered by a bishop, on some of his dogmas, and other favourable circumstances flattering him that he would at last be conspicuous, he gave up the project, and was first a companion, for some time, to the Marquis of Annandale; then librarian to the Advocates here; after that, secretary to General Sinclair at Turin (who was, under pretence of an ambassador to his Sardinian Majesty, a spy, as his conduct was dubious to the allies, against Louis XV.;) afterwards, by General Conway's interest, secretary to Lord Hertford at Paris; left there chargé d'affairs; and, finally, one of the under secretaries of state for about half a year. After which he settled in Edinburgh for life, and made all his friends and connexions happy by the possession of so worthy a man.--Thus far I have given my real sentiments of the man, and can only now regret that he was so weak as to write his life in the style he did.