"To  conclude  historically  with  my  own  character,  I  am,  or
rather  was  (for  that  is  the  style  I  must  now  use  in  speaking
of  myself,  which  emboldens  me  the  more  to  speak  my  senti
ments)  ;  I  was,  I  say,  a  man  of  mild  dispositions,  of  command
of  temper,  of  an  open,  social,  and  cheerful  humour,  capable
of  attachment,  but  little  susceptible  of  enmity,  and  of  great
moderation  in  all  my  passions.  Even  my  love  of  literary


II  LATER    YEARS  49

fame,  my  ruling  passion,  never  soured  my  temper,  notwith
standing  my  frequent  disappointments.  My  company  was
not  unacceptable  to  the  young  and  careless,  as  well  as  to  the
studious  and  literary  ;  and  as  I  took  a  particular  pleasure  in  the
company  of  modest  women,  I  had  no  reason  to  be  displeased
with  the  reception  I  met  with  from  them.  In  a  word,  though
most  men  any  wise  eminent,  have  found  reason  to  complain
of  calumny,  I  never  was  touched  or  even  attacked  by  her
baleful  tooth  ;  and  though  I  wantonly  exposed  myself  to  the
rage  of  both  civil  and  religious  factions,  they  seemed  to  be
disarmed  in  my  behalf  of  their  wonted  fury.  My  friends
never  had  occasion  to  vindicate  any  one  circumstance  of  my
character  and  conduct  ;  not  but  that  the  zealots,  we  may  well
suppose,  would  have  been  glad  to  invent  and  propagate  any
story  to  my  disadvantage  but  they  could  never  find  any  which
they  thought  would  wear  the  face  of  probability.  I  cannot  say
there  is  no  vanity  in  making  this  funeral  oration  of  myself,  but
I  hope  it  is  not  a  misplaced  one  ;  and  this  is  a  matter  of  fact
which  is  easily  cleared  and  ascertained."

Hume  died  in  Edinburgh  on  the  25th  of  August,

O  ^

1776,  and,  a  few  days  later,  his  body,  attended  by
a  great  concourse  of  people,  who  seemed  to  have
anticipated  for  it  the  fate  appropriate  to  the  re
mains  of  wizards  and  necromancers,  was  deposited
in  a  spot  selected  by  himself,  in  an  old  burial-
ground  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Calton  Hill.
