great truth of him, one single instance excepted, which shall be mentioned.

He joined to the noblest and strictest principles of honour and generosity the tenderest sentiments of benevolence and compassion; and as he was naturally warm, he could not even hear of an injustice or a baseness, without a sudden indignation, nor of the misfortunes or miseries of a fellow-creature, without melting into softness, and endeavouring to relieve them. This part of his character was so universally known, that our best and most satirical English poet says;

When I confess, there is one who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, Scarb'rough need I name?

He had not the least pride of birth and rank, that common narrow notion of little minds, that wretched mistaken succedaneum of merit; but he was jealous to anxiety of his character, as all men are who deserve a good one. And such was his diffidence upon that subject, that he never could be persuaded that mankind really thought of him as they did. For surely never man had a higher reputation, and never man enjoyed a more universal esteem. Even knaves respected him ; and fools thought they loved him. If he had any enemies, for I protest I never knew one, they could only be such as were weary of always hearing of Aristides the Just.

He was too subject to sudden gusts of passion, but they never hurried him into any illiberal or indecent expression or action; so invincibly habitual to him were good nature and good manners. But, if ever any word happened to fall from him in warmth, which upon subsequent reflection he himself thought too strong, he was never easy till he had made more than a sufficient atonement for it.

He had a most unfortunate, I will call it a most fatal kind of melancholy in his nature, which often made him both absent and silent in company, but never morose or sour. At other times he was a cheerful and agreeable companion; but, conscious that he was not always so, he avoided company too much, and was too often alone, giving way to a train of gloomy reflections.

DAVID HUME.

David Hume was born at Edinburgh in 1711 and died there in 1776. His character was amiable and upright; his literary achievements in two different branches extraordinary. He remains to this day the only historian of the whole, not a part, of English history, whose literary merit is very high, and the clearness, pregnancy, and elegance of his philosophical style have never been surpassed.

ON MIRACLES.

A MIRACLE is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a

firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air ; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden : because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There must, therefore, be an uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct

and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.

The plain consequence is—and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention,―That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.

HIS OWN CHARACTER.

IN spring 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name the period of my life, which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this latter period. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few 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 few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.

To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was, for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments; -I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.

My Own Life.

P. 196, L. 19. Uniform experience amounts to a proof. Formal logic, it must be remembered, had been almost entirely neglected in Hume's time. It would have saved one of the acutest of reasoners from making an obvious blunder. Uniform experience of course amounts to no proof except with the aid of a postulate or assumption as to the “uniformity of nature,” which is in fact a circular argument.

IN

HENRY FIELDING.

Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham in Somersetshire in 1707, and died at Lisbon in 1754. He divided his life between hard spending as a man of pleasure, and hard earning as a man of letters and a police magistrate. His four great novels put him, if not at the head of all English novelists, at least in a position shared only by Scott and Thackeray.

PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY.

N the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridge immediately declared, it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the music was played, he said, "It was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out." While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the Commonprayer-book, before the gunpowder-treason service." Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, "That here were candles enough burnt in one night, to keep an honest poor family for a twelvemonth."

As soon as the play, which was Hamlet Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones, what man that was in the strange dress? "Something," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armour, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can.