testimonies and assurances of good will from a person whom we highly value, and whose sentiments are of such importance to us! You could not possibly have done an action more charitable than to speak to me in so friendly a manner. You have thereby supplied me for a long time with matter for the most agreeable musing: and I shall henceforth, I hope, bid defiance to all returns of diffidence and jealousy. I confess with shame that I am but too subject to this sentiment, even in friendship. I never doubt of my friend's probity or honour; but often of his attachment to me, and sometimes, as I have afterwards found, without reason. If such was my disposition even in youth, you may judge that, having arrived at a time of life when I can less expect to please, I must be more subject to inroads of suspicion. Common sense requires that I should keep at a distance from all attachments that can imply passion. But it must surely be the height of folly, to lay myself at the mercy of a person whose situation seems calculated to inspire doubt, and who, being so little at her own disposal, could not be able, even if willing, to seek such remedies as might appease that tormenting sentiment.

Should I meet with one, in any future time (for to be sure I know of none such at present), who was endowed with graces and charms beyond all expression, whose character and understanding were equally an object of esteem, as her person was of tenderness; I ought to fly her company, to avoid all connexion with her, even such as might bear the name of friendship; and

to endeavour to forget her as soon as possible. I know not if it would be prudent even to bid her adieu surely, it would be highly imprudent to receive from her any testimonies of friendship and regard. But who, in that situation, could have resolution to reject them? Who would not drink up the poison with joy and satisfaction?

But let us return, dear madam, from imaginary suppositions to our real selves. I am much pleased that your leisure allows you to betake yourself to your old occupation of reading; and that your relish for it still remains entire. I have frequently, in the course of my life, met with interruptions, from business and dissipation; yet always returned to my closet with pleasure. I have no other prospect for easing the burthen of old age than in these enjoyments; and if I sometimes join the chimerical project of relaxing the severities of study, by the society of a person dear to me, and who could have indulgence for me, I consider it a pleasing dream, in which I can repose no confidence. My only comfort is, that I am myself a person free as the air we breathe, and that, wherever such a blessing might present itself, I could there fix my habitation.

You tell me, that, though you are still exposed to the attacks of melancholy, it is of the softer kind, and such as you would not desire to be rid of. I shall not, any further than you allow me, indulge my conjectures. You were offended at my former ones, and I wish they may be false. But it is impossible for my thoughts not to return often to a subject in which I am so deeply interested. If there are any obstacles to your happi

ness, I should wish they were of a nature that could be removed; and that they admitted of some other remedy than the one you sometimes mention, on which I cannot think without terror. I feel the reflection this instant, as the stroke of a poniard at my heart; and the tear at present starts in my eye when it recurs to me. Is it necessary that my sympathy too should furnish you with arms against me?

But I perceive, dear madam, or shall I say my amiable pupil, that while I am answering the second part of your letter, I have entirely forgot the first; which yet surely is not of a nature wholly indifferent to me.

It gives me a sensible uneasiness that my friend's performance has not gained your approbation. I am more sorry on his account, than because you condemn my judgment, which I am sensible may easily be warped by friendship and partiality. I acknowledge too, that most of your objections, and indeed all of them, are well founded. I could add some others, which a more frequent perusal of the piece has suggested to me. I always disliked the character of Glenalvon, as being that of such a finished and black villain as either is not in nature, or requires very little genius in the poet to have imagined. Such a personage seems only to be a gross artifice in the writer, when the plot requires an incident, which he knows not how to introduce naturally. nalvon is a kind of Diabolus ex machina; more blamable than the Deus ex machina, which the ancient critics condemned as an unartificial manner of unravelling a plot. But though I allow

Gle

all these objections, and more which would occur to you on a second perusal, I cannot still but flatter myself that the tragedy of Douglas is a work of merit, from the sensible pathetic which runs through the whole. The value of a theatrical piece can less be determined by an analysis of its conduct, than by the ascendant which it gains over the heart, and by the strokes of nature which are interspersed through it. But I am afraid that it has not affected you to the degree I could wish, even in this particular, and that you have not found in it any such beauties as can compensate for its defects.

If such be your judgment on a second perusal (for you must allow me to appeal from your first judgment to your second, and I shall surely never think of any other appeal), if such, I say, be the case, I can do nothing but acquiesce. Your nation, your sex, and, above all, the peculiar delicacy of your taste, give you a title to pronounce on these subjects.

I can even kiss the hand, with pleasure and passion, which signs the verdict against me: I could only have kissed it with more pleasure, had it acquitted my friend.

Allow me, dear madam, before I bid you adieu (since it is necessary to come to that at last), to ask you, whether you do not come to Paris about the middle of August, and stay there for some time? My question proceeds not merely from curiosity, I could wish to enjoy your company before the return of winter recalls us to our former dissipations.

DAVID HUME TO THE COUNTESS DE

BOUFFLERS.

I COULD never yet accuse myself, dear madam, of hypocrisy or dissimulation; and I was surely guilty of these vices in the highest degree, if I wrote you a letter which carried with it any marks of indifference. What I said in particular, I cannot entirely recollect, but I well remember in general what I felt, which was a great regard and attachment to you, not increased indeed (for that was scarce possible), but rendered more agreeable to myself, from the marks you had given me of your friendship and confidence: I adhere to these; I will never, but with my life, be persuaded to part with the hold which you have been pleased to afford me: you may cut me to pieces, limb by limb; but like those pertinacious animals of my country, I shall expire still attached to you, and you will in vain attempt to get free. For this reason, madam, I set at defiance all those menaces, which you obliquely throw out against me. Do you seriously think that it is at present in your power to determine whether I shall be your friend or not? In every thing else your authority over me is without control. But with your ingenuity, you will scarce contrive to use me so ill, that I shall not still better bear it: and after all, you will find yourself obliged, from pity, or generosity, or friendship, to take me back into your service. At least this will probably be the case, till you find one who loves you more sincerely and values you