The distinguished scientific man, in the course of whose researches this curious literary incident was divulged, informs us that Burke was also a candidate for this chair,[351:1] and that the successful competitor was a Mr. Clow. Concerning this fortunate person literary history is silent; but he has acquired a curious title to fame, from the greatness of the man to whom he succeeded, and of those over whom he was triumphant. It is not, perhaps, to be regretted, that Hume failed in both his attempts to obtain a professor's chair. He was not of the stuff that satisfactory teachers of youth are made of. Although he was beyond all doubt an able man of business, in matters sufficiently important to command his earnest attention, yet it is pretty clear that he had acquired the outward manner of an absent, good-natured man, unconscious of much that was going on around him; and that he would have thus afforded a butt to the mischief and raillery of his pupils, from which all the lustre of his philosophical reputation would not have protected him. Discoverers do not make, in ordinary circumstances, the best instructors of youth, because their minds are often too full of the fermentation of their own original ideas and partly developed systems, to possess the coolness and clearness necessary for conveying a distinct view of the laws and elements of an established system. But if this may be an incidental inconvenience in one whose discoveries are but extensions of admitted doctrines, the revolutionist who is endeavouring to pull to pieces what has been taught for ages within the same walls, and to erect a new system in its stead, can scarcely ever be a satisfactory instructor of any considerable number of young men. The teacher of the moral department of science especially must be, to a certain extent, a conformist; if he be not, what is taught in the class-room will be forgotten or contradicted in the closet. The teachers of youth are themselves not less irascible and sometimes not less prejudiced than other mortals. They have their hatreds and partisanships, often productive of acrimonious controversy; but when there is something like a unity of opinion in the systems of those who teach the same, or like subjects, these superficial discussions produce no evil fruit. Hume would have been at peace with all who would have let his unobtrusive spirit alone; but he would probably have quietly proceeded to inculcate doctrines to which most of his fellow-labourers were strongly averse; and that, perhaps, without knowing or feeling that he was in any way departing from the simple routine of duties which the public expected of him. And thus he would probably have created in the midst of the rising youth of the day, an isolated circle of disciples, taught to despise the acquirements and opinions of their contemporaries, as these contemporaries held theirs in abhorrence.[353:1]