Читать книгу Traditions of Edinburgh - Robert Chambers - Страница 28

Table of Contents

The first fixed residence of David Hume in Edinburgh appears to have been in Riddel’s Land, Lawnmarket, near the head of the West Bow. He commenced housekeeping there in 1751, when, according to his own account, he ‘removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a man of letters.’ It was while in Riddel’s Land that he published his Political Discourses, and obtained the situation of librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In this place also he commenced the writing of his History of England. He dates from Riddel’s Land in January 1753, but in June we find him removed to Jack’s Land,[41] a somewhat airier situation in the Canongate, where he remained for nine years. Excepting only the small portion composed in the Lawnmarket mansion, the whole of the History of England was written in Jack’s Land; a fact which will probably raise some interest respecting that locality. It is, in reality, a plain, middle-aged fabric, of no particular appearance, and without a single circumstance of a curious nature connected with it, besides the somewhat odd one that the continuator of the History, Smollett, lived, some time after, in his sister’s house precisely opposite.

Jack’s Land, Canongate.

Hume removed at Whitsunday 1762 to a house which he purchased in James’s Court—the eastern portion of the third floor in the west stair (counting from the level of the court). This was such a step as a man would take in those days as a consequence of improvement in his circumstances. The philosopher had lived in James’s Court but a short time, when he was taken to France as secretary to the embassy. In his absence, which lasted several years, his house was occupied by Dr Blair, who here had a son of the Duke of Northumberland as a pupil. It is interesting to find Hume, some time after, writing to his friend Dr Ferguson from the midst of the gaieties of Paris: ‘I am sensible that I am misplaced, and I wish twice or thrice a day for my easy-chair and my retreat in James’s Court.’ Then he adds a beautiful sentiment: ‘Never think, dear Ferguson, that as long as you are master of your own fireside and your own time, you can be unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add to your enjoyment.’[42] In one of his letters to Blair he speaks minutely of his house: ‘Never put a fire in the south room with the red paper. It was so warm of itself that all last winter, which was a very severe one, I lay with a single blanket; and frequently, upon coming in at midnight starving with cold, have sat down and read for an hour, as if I had had a stove in the room.’ From 1763 till 1766 he lived in high diplomatic situations at Paris; and thinking to settle there for life, for the sake of the agreeable society, gave orders to sell his house in Edinburgh. He informs us, in a letter to the Countess de Boufflers (General Correspondence, 4to, 1820, p. 231), that he was prevented by a singular accident from carrying his intention into effect. After writing a letter to Edinburgh for the purpose of disposing of his house, and leaving it with his Parisian landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with the Countess de Boufflers at L’Isle Adam; but being driven back by a snowstorm, which blocked up the roads, he found on his return that the letter had not been sent to the post-house. More deliberate thoughts then determined him to keep up his Edinburgh mansion, thinking that, if any affairs should call him to his native country, ‘it would be very inconvenient not to have a house to retire to.’ On his return, therefore, in 1766, he re-entered into possession of his flat in James’s Court, but was soon again called from it by an invitation from Mr Conway to be an under-secretary of state. At length, in 1769, he returned permanently to his native city, in possession of what he thought opulence—a thousand a year. We find him immediately writing from his retreat in James’s Court to his friend Adam Smith, then commencing his great work On the Wealth of Nations in the quiet of his mother’s house at Kirkcaldy: ‘I am glad to have come within sight of you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows; but I wish also to be within speaking-terms of you,’ &c. To another person he writes: ‘I live still, and must for a twelvemonth, in my old house in James’s Court, which is very cheerful, and even elegant, but too small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict the remaining years of my life!’

Hume now built a superior house for himself in the New Town, which was then little beyond its commencement, selecting a site adjoining to St Andrew Square. The superintendence of this work was an amusement to him. A story is related in more than one way regarding the manner in which a denomination was conferred upon the street in which this house is situated. Perhaps, if it be premised that a corresponding street at the other angle of St Andrew Square is called St Andrew Street—a natural enough circumstance with reference to the square, whose title was determined on in the plan—it will appear likely that the choosing of ‘St David Street’ for that in which Hume’s house stood was not originally designed as a jest at his expense, though a second thought, and the whim of his friends, might quickly give it that application. The story, as told by Mr Burton, is as follows: ‘When the house was built and inhabited by Hume, but while yet the street of which it was the commencement had no name, a witty young lady, daughter of Baron Ord, chalked on the wall the words, St David Street. The allusion was very obvious. Hume’s “lass,” judging that it was not meant in honour or reverence, ran into the house much excited, to tell her master how he was made game of. “Never mind, lassie,” he said, “many a better man has been made a saint of before.”’

That Hume was a native of Edinburgh is well known. One could wish to know the spot of his birth; but it is not now perhaps possible to ascertain it. The nearest approach made to the fact is from intelligence conveyed by a memorandum in his father’s handwriting among the family papers, where he speaks of ‘my son David, born in the Tron Church parish’—a district comprehending a large square clump of town between the High Street and Cowgate, east of the site of the church itself.

One of Hume’s most intimate friends amongst the other sex was Mrs Cockburn, author of one of the beautiful songs called The Flowers of the Forest. While he was in France in 1764, she writes to him from Baird’s Close,[43] Castle-hill: ‘The cloven foot for which thou art worshipped I despise; yet I remember thee with affection. I remember that, in spite of vain philosophy, of dark doubts, of toilsome learning, God has stamped his image of benignity so strong upon thy heart, that not all the labours of thy head could efface it.’ After Hume’s return to Edinburgh, he kept up his acquaintance with this spirited and amiable woman. The late Mr Alexander Young, W.S., had some reminiscences of parties which he attended when a boy at her house, and at which the philosopher was present. Hume came in one evening behind time for her petit souper, when, seeing her bustling to get something for him to eat, he called out: ‘Now, no trouble, if you please, about quality; for you know I’m only a glutton, not an epicure.’ Mr Young attended at a dinner where, besides Hume, there were present Lord Monboddo and some other learned personages. Mrs Cockburn was then living in the neat first floor of a house at the end of Crighton Street, with windows looking along the Potterrow. She had a son of eccentric habits, in middle life, or rather elderly, who came in during the dinner tipsy, and going into a bedroom, locked himself in, went to bed, and fell asleep. The company in time made a move for departure, when it was discovered that their hats, cloaks, and greatcoats were all locked up in Mr Cockburn’s room. The door was knocked at and shaken, but no answer. What was to be done? At length Mrs Cockburn had no alternative from sending out to her neighbours to borrow a supply of similar integuments, which was soon procured. There was then such fun in fitting the various savants with suitable substitutes for their own proper gear! Hume, for instance, with a dreadnought riding-coat; Monboddo with a shabby old hat, as unlike his own neat chapeau as possible! In the highest exaltation of spirits did these two men of genius at length proceed homeward along the Potterrow, Horse Wynd, Assembly Close, &c., making the old echoes merry with their peals of laughter at the strange appearance which they respectively made.[44]

I lately inspected Hume’s cheerful and elegant mansion in James’s Court, and found it divided amongst three or four tenants in humble life, each possessing little more than a single room. It was amusing to observe that what had been the dining-room and drawing-room towards the north were each provided with one of those little side oratories which have been described elsewhere as peculiar to a period in Edinburgh house-building, being designed for private devotion. Hume living in a house with two private chapels!