Note 294:1 — Chapter VII

There is a traditional anecdote, to the effect that Mrs. Hume, expressing her opinion of her son David and his accomplishments, said, "Our Davie's a fine good-natured crater, but uncommon wake-minded." I have heard this adduced as a proof of the philosopher's gentle, passive nature, and the effect it had in stamping an impression of his character on one not capable of appreciating his genius. But the anecdote is not characteristic of either party, and arises out of the common mistake that Hume was all his life tame, phlegmatic, and unimpassioned. However much he had tutored himself to stoicism, and had succeeded in conquering the outward demonstrations of strong feelings, it will be seen in various documents quoted in these volumes, and in the incidents narrated, that he was a man of strong impulses, full of blood and nerve, and that, as in a high-mettled horse, his energies were regulated, not extinguished. No one who had the training of his youth could have escaped observing in him the workings of strong aspirations, and of a hardy resolute temper.

But Mrs. Hume was evidently an accomplished woman, worthy of the sympathy and respect of her distinguished son, and could not have failed to see and to appreciate from its earliest dawnings the originality and power of his intellect. Her portrait, which I have seen, represents a thin but pleasing countenance, expressive of great intellectual acuteness. Some verses, which a lady, who is her direct descendant, authenticates as being in her handwriting, are in the curious collection of autographs and illustrated portraits, in the possession of Mr. W. F. Watson, Prince's Street, Edinburgh. It has been supposed that they are the composition of David Hume himself; but the use of the Scottish language almost amounts to evidence against that supposition: he would as readily have walked the streets of Edinburgh in a kilt. The lines are called "Song.—Air, Mary's Dream," and begin—

Perhaps this may be as good an opportunity as any other for the insertion of some lines, carefully preserved in the MSS. R.S.E., which are at least so far to the present purpose, that they give a pleasing idea of the social circle at Ninewells. They are addressed to a lady who had lived to see her grandchildren; which does not appear to have been the case with the mother of the historian, as her eldest son was not married till 1751. A dowager of an elder generation may have lived for some time at Ninewells during David Hume's youth, though he does not mention her: or there may have been some collateral member of the family, to whom the lines may have been addressed; for, in a series of extracts which I have obtained from the Kirk Session Records of Chirnside, I find that a David Home in Ninewells, who cannot have been a lineal ancestor of the philosopher, had a numerous family baptized between 1691 and 1701. The lines are entitled "Miss A. B. to Mrs. H. by her Black Boy;" and however the genealogical questions, we have just been considering, may stand, their intrinsic merit, as embodying a beautiful and humane sentiment, entitle them to notice.—Query, is it to this alone, or to some extrinsic interest attached to Miss A. B. that we are to attribute the careful preservation of the lines by Hume?