Let not, then, the considerate and charitable reader overlook all these palliations of the motives which may have induced a great man to humble himself and bear so much contumely. Let us suppose that he who reads this narrative is an editor of a newspaper, with a salary of say two or three hundred a-year; or that he writes articles for the periodicals, and neither in name nor in reality bound to any one, gets the fair price of his independent labour; or that he is a teacher in an active commercial academy, who, after the harassing labours of the day, can retire to the bosom of his own family, without fearing the frown or desiring the smile of any great man,--let him, if such should be his lot, indulge, in all its luxury, the consciousness of his superior independence and happier fate; but in looking from its elevation to David Hume, a bondman in the house of an insane lord, let compassion rather than contempt tinge his estimate of the illustrious victim's motives, and let him thank the better times, that with all the drudgery of his lot, its disappointed aspirations, and the bitterness of unavailing efforts to raise it to a higher and more justly-respected position in the eye of the world, have yet enabled him to quaff the sweet cup of independence. Before entirely leaving the subject of Hume's connexion with the Marquis of Annandale, it is necessary to take a view of his conduct regarding a pecuniary dispute which arose out of the transaction. The terms of the agreement were very distinctly set forth by Captain Vincent in the following letter:-- "SIR,--You desire to have a letter from me, expressing all the conditions of the agreement concluded betwixt us, with regard to your living with the Marquis of Annandale. In compliance with so reasonable a request, I hereby acknowledge that, by virtue of powers committed to me by the said Marquis, and with the approbation and consent of his Lordship and Sir James Johnstone, I engaged that my Lord should pay you three hundred pounds sterling a-year, so long as you continued to live with him, beginning from the first of April, one thousand seven hundred and forty-five: also that the said Marquis, or his heirs, should be engaged to pay you, or your heirs, the sum of three hundred pounds, as one year's salary, even though the Marquis should happen to die any time in the first year of your attendance, or should embrace any new scheme or plan of life, which should make him choose that you should not continue to live out the first year with him. Another condition was, that, if you should, on your part, choose to leave the Marquis any time in the first or subsequent years, you should be free to do it; and that the Marquis should be bound to pay you your salary for the time you had attended him, and also the salary for that quarter in which you should leave him, in the same manner as if that quarter should be fully expired.