The person with whom David Hume was thus connected was the last Marquis of Annandale, on whose death that title became dormant. On the 5th of March, 1748, he was found, on an inquest from the Court of Chancery in England, to be a lunatic, incapable of governing himself and managing his own affairs, and to have been so since 12th December, 1744, a few months anterior to Hume's engagement with him. The correspondence does not give the reader the notion of one reduced to so abject a mental state, but rather that of a man nervously timid and reserved; distrustful of himself and his ability to transact business with other people, but not quite incapable of managing his affairs, though exciteable, and liable to be driven into fits of passion by causes not susceptible of being anticipated. A party to the correspondence, talking of him as in an improved condition, says: "My Lord walked out with me lately two or three miles, received and returned the compliments of the hat of those we met, and without any shyness or reserve: and bears to stand by, and hear me talk with any farmer or countryman. This is a vast change for the better, and the greatest appearance that it will continue."[172:1] He appears to have been haunted by a spirit of literary ambition. Hume says in a letter to Lord Elibank, "I have copied out half a dozen of epigrams, which I hope will give you entertainment. The thought in them is indeed little inferior to that in the celebrated Epigrams of Rousseau; though the versification be not so correct. What a pity! I say this on account both of the author and myself; for I am afraid I must leave him." And on another occasion he alludes at length to a far more extensive literary achievement, a novel, which the excited Marquis had written, and which those about him had found it necessary to print, circulating a few copies, and advertising it in one newspaper to allay any suspicions in the author's mind that a thousand copies had not been printed. Hume says: "You would certainly be a little surprised and vexed on receiving a printed copy of the novel, which was in hands when you left London. If I did not explain the mystery to you, I believe I told you, that I hoped that affair was entirely over, by my employing Lord Marchmont and Lord Bolingbroke's authority against publishing that novel; though you will readily suppose that neither of these two noble Lords ever perused it. This machine operated for six weeks; but the vanity of the author returned with redoubled force, fortified by suspicions, and increased by the delay. 'Pardie,' dit il, 'je crois que ces messieurs veulent être les seules Seigneurs d'Angleterre qui eussent de l'esprit. Mais je leur montrerai ce que le petit A---- peut faire aussi.' In short, we were obliged to print off thirty copies, to make him believe that we had printed a thousand, and that they were to be dispersed all over the kingdom.