please to write to Sir James to signify occasionally to Mr. Hume that the management is left to me, and not to a stranger, who, if he is not satisfied, is at his liberty to remove from such attendance." This illustration of character would be incomplete without a passage in a subsequent letter, in which, after Hume had ceased to attend on the Marquis, Vincent characterizes the sort of person who would be a desirable successor. "If any proper person is about him again whilst I am concerned, terms for their behaviour must be specified, and as they wax fat and are encouraged, they must be discreet enough and reasonable in their nature, so as not to kick. Such deportment would engage any good offices of mine, in favour of a worthy man, fit for the purpose, which, I confess, is very hard to find, and possibly my Lord will not care to have any body put upon him by way of terms of continuance." That the iron of this bondage entered into his soul, is apparent in many passages of Hume's letters. He regretted that he had left independence in a humble home, for dependence in a lordly mansion: he regretted that he had been led to meddle with intrigues, in which a vulgar selfish man, who knew the world, was far more than a match for a profound philosopher. How wise it had been for him had he never deserted the humble prospects of an independent life, the following complaints, addressed to Lord Elibank, testify:-- "Meanwhile, I own to you, that my heart rebels against this unworthy treatment; and nothing but the prospect of depending entirely on you, and being independent of him, could make me submit to it. I have fifty resolutions about it. My loss, in ever hearkening to his treacherous professions, has been very great; but, as it is now irreparable, I must make the best of a bad bargain. I am proud to say that, as I am no plotter myself, I never suspect others to be such, till it be too late; and, having always lived independent, and in such a manner as that it never was any one's interest to profess false friendship to me, I am not sufficiently on my guard in this particular. . . . . My way of living is more melancholy than ever was submitted to by any human creature, who ever had any hopes or pretensions to any thing better; and if to confinement, solitude, and bad company, be also added these marks of disregard, . . . . I shall say nothing, but only that books, study, leisure, frugality, and independence, are a great deal better." The filling up of the cup of his slights and injuries, and the termination of his servitude, is thus described by Hume; and one reads it with a feeling of relief, as an event long protracted, and for the occurrence of which the reader of the narrative is impatient. He says, writing to Sir James Johnstone, on 17th April, 1746,-- "You'll be surprised, perhaps, that I date my letters no longer from Weldehall; this happened from an accident, if our inconstancies and uncertainties can be called such.