Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 2

David Hume · en
Had the solitudes of Wooton been peopled by multitudes anxious to catch
a passing glance of the "apostle of affliction," he would doubtless have
let loose his half-appeased discontent in some querulous letters about
the impossibility of his finding repose and solitude; but he would not
have courted such a conflict as he rushed into in the bitterness of his
solitude. Although his character stands without parallel in its own vast
proportions, it is not without abundance of exemplifications on a
smaller scale. There are few who have not, in their journey through
life, encountered one or more small Rousseaus, in men of ravenous and
insatiable vanity, who, unlike the ordinary good-natured vain men, are
perpetually rejecting the incense offered to their appetite, and
demanding some new form of worship. In these, as in the chimney-piece
models of celebrated statues, may we view the proportions of the great
self-tormenter's mind; and when it is found that the peculiarity is
generally accompanied with some observable amount of intellectual
acquirements, which place the individual a degree above those who
surround him, the resemblance is the more complete. Vanity being its
source, the shape assumed by his monomania was a dread of conspiracies
in all shapes; and he was as sincere a believer in their existence, as
any unfortunate inhabitant of bedlam has ever been in the creations of
his diseased mind.[334:1]

Hume had difficulty in extracting an answer to his letter of 26th June;
and probably it would not have been opened without the intervention of
Mr. Davenport. It was one of Rousseau's whims for some time not to
receive any letters; he said they were one of the methods by which his
enemies had persecuted him. On his first arrival he was to open none but
those which passed through the hands of his _Cher Patron_;[335:1] a
convenient arrangement, as it afterwards enabled him to accuse Hume of
tampering with his correspondence.

Two letters were received from Mr. Davenport, before Rousseau drew up
his charge.


MR. DAVENPORT _to_ HUME.

     _Davenport, June 30, 1766._