Philosophical Works, v. 1 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author — David Hume — John Shaqi
Philosophical Works, v. 1 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author
David Hume · en
The remembrance of your former kindness, induces me to
be again importunate. It is to desire you will be so
good, for the second time, to be the censor of one of
my performances. It is a very paltry rhapsody, which I
compiled many years ago, under the title of _A Musical
Dictionary_, and am now obliged to republish it for
subsistence. Amidst the torrent of misfortunes that
overwhelm me, I am not in a situation to review the work;
which, I know, is full of oversights and mistakes. If any
interest you may take in the lot of the most unfortunate
of mankind, should induce you to bestow a little more
attention on his work than on that of another, I should be
extremely obliged to you, if you would take the trouble to
correct such errors as you may meet with in the perusal.
To point them out, without correcting them, would be doing
nothing, for I am absolutely incapable of paying the
least attention to such a work; so that if you would but
condescend to alter, add, retrench, and, in short, use it
as you would do your own, you would do a great charity, for
which I should be extremely thankful. Accept, Sir, my most
humble excuses and salutations.
J. J. R.
It is with reluctance I say it, but I am compelled to it; I now know of
a certainty that this affectation of extreme poverty and distress was a
mere pretence, a petty kind of imposture which Mr Rousseau successfully
employed to excite the compassion of the public; but I was then very
far from suspecting any such artifice. I must own, I felt on this
occasion an emotion of pity, mixed with indignation, to think a man
of letters of such eminent merit, should be reduced, in spite of the
simplicity of his manner of living, to such extreme indigence; and that
this unhappy state should be rendered more intolerable by sickness,
by the approach of old age, and the implacable rage of persecution.
I knew that many persons imputed the wretchedness of Mr Rousseau to
his excessive pride, which induced him to refuse the assistance of
his friends; but I thought this fault, if it were a fault, was a very
respectable one. Too many men of letters have debased their character
in stooping so low as to solicit the assistance of persons of wealth
or power, unworthy of affording them protection; and I conceived that
a noble pride, even though carried to excess, merited some indulgence
in a man of genius, who, borne up by a sense of his own superiority and
a love of independence, should have braved the storms of fortune and
the insults of mankind. I proposed, therefore, to serve Mr Rousseau
in his own way. I desired Mr Clairaut, accordingly, to give me his
letter, which I showed to several of Mr Rousseau's friends and patrons
in Paris. At the same time I proposed to them a scheme by which he
might be relieved, without suspecting any thing of the matter. This