Perhaps this may be as good an opportunity as any other for the insertion of some lines, carefully preserved in the MSS. R.S.E., which are at least so far to the present purpose, that they give a pleasing idea of the social circle at Ninewells. They are addressed to a lady who had lived to see her grandchildren; which does not appear to have been the case with the mother of the historian, as her eldest son was not married till 1751. A dowager of an elder generation may have lived for some time at Ninewells during David Hume's youth, though he does not mention her: or there may have been some collateral member of the family, to whom the lines may have been addressed; for, in a series of extracts which I have obtained from the Kirk Session Records of Chirnside, I find that a David Home _in_ Ninewells, who cannot have been a lineal ancestor of the philosopher, had a numerous family baptized between 1691 and 1701. The lines are entitled "Miss A. B. to Mrs. H. by her Black Boy;" and however the genealogical questions, we have just been considering, may stand, their intrinsic merit, as embodying a beautiful and humane sentiment, entitle them to notice.--Query, is it to this alone, or to some extrinsic interest attached to Miss A. B. that we are to attribute the careful preservation of the lines by Hume? Condemn'd in infancy a slave to roam, Far far from India's shore, my native home, To serve a Caledonian maid I come-- In me no father does his darling mourn-- No mother weeps me from her bosom torn-- Both grew to dust, they say to earth below; But who those were, alas, I ne'er shall know. Lady, to thee her love my mistress sends, And bids thy grandsons be Ferdnando's friends. Bids thee suppose, on Afric's distant coast, One of those lily-coloured favourites lost; Doom'd in the train of some proud dame to wait, A slave, as she should will, for use or state. If to the boy you'd wish her to be kind, Such grace from you let Ferdinando find. [296:1] Hom. Il. λ. 515. A medical man is equal in value to many other men. Or, as Pope has it, A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the public weal. [297:1] ----ubi non et multa supersunt, Et dominum fallunt, et prosunt furibus. Hor. epist. i. 6, 45. [298:1] See this passage nearly verbatim in the "Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations," (Works, edit. 1826, p. 483.) Much light has of course been subsequently thrown on this matter by the investigations in Pompeii, and other places.