Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 2

David Hume · en
To obtain literary distinction in France at that time, was to be
received at court. The star of Germany had not yet risen in the horizon
of literature, and the great monarch and warrior of the Teutonic tribes
treated his native tongue as the speech of boors, tried to distinguish
himself in French literature, and was ambitious of being received into
equal companionship with the popular authors of France. Britain,
notwithstanding her series of illustrious names, had not yet quite
shaken off an air of provincialism. Shakspere was a strange wild genius,
full of barbarisms and abominable galimatias: Voltaire had said it, and
it was a judgment, not an opinion. Some discontented Frerons or Arnauds,
might cavil against it: but this was rebellion, not controversy. The
greatness of our masters in science and philosophy was fully admitted;
but they were viewed as citizens of the great world of letters,
accidentally born in one of its more barren districts; and they were
scarcely more closely identified with the national literature of their
country, than Linnæus might be with that of Sweden, or Tycho Brahe with
that of Denmark. In truth, the apparent interregnum, following the
decline of the Latin as the literary language of the world, appeared
likely to end in the establishment of the French as its successor. Such
expectations gave to the literature of France a metropolitan air, with
which no other could cope; and communicated to those natives of other
places, whose name was honoured in the French circles of letters, a
corresponding elevation.[167:1] Hume would have been impervious to the
most conclusive evidence on the subject, if he had failed to know how
greatly he was honoured among all the literary circles of the continent,
and particularly in those of the metropolis of literature. Lord Elibank,
writing from Paris, on 11th May, 1763, says to him, "No author ever yet
attained to that degree of reputation in his own lifetime that you are
now in possession of at Paris;"[167:2] and the extent of his fame was
abundantly attested by others.[167:3]

Hume arrived in France on the 14th day of October, 1763. Of his
reception, his own letters will give the best account.


HUME _to_ ADAM SMITH.

"_Fontainbleau, 26th Oct. 1763._